1/4 inch poplar

[Wayne]

If anybody else out there is lazy like me and uses the 1/4 by 48 inch poplar from Home Depot to make blades. I bought some more yesterday and it had gone up almost $2 per board. Still beats resawing.

[Kansas Rust Buzzard]

While several companies did use poplar originally, I have found that for the money verses lifespan, its not a very good choice for my climate. Of course cypress is not what it was 25 years ago either. On indoor mills poplar is my favorite though. I am looking for a new kind of wood because nothing seems to do very well anymore.

[Wayne]

I agree about the cypress it's not as easy to get as the poplar is the draw back for me. I don't know what other wood to try. I had one wheel made from cedar.

[Kansas Rust Buzzard]

I have seen people use cedar with some success if your not in hail country, that is one thing about cypress, it has a lot of cross grain strength and doesn't break and split as bad. Also cedar is hard to find clear. I got a sawmill and would love to find someone to sell me cypress logs but have not had any luck.

[Smax]

Trying poplar because can't find source for cypress. i believe Mike (mas) in SW Oklahoma used a marine grade plywood on his eclipse .

[hwy8]

A long time ago, I worked for the Wisconsin Historical Society at an outdoor museum called "Old World Wisconsin": I was part of a team that identified historical log structures throughout the state, then acquired them, took them apart, and reassembled them at the museum site. I was interviewing an old-timer up next to Lake Superior and he showed me a shingled roof he had put on that had lasted over 75 years. The shingles were 4"-6" wide and were about 4' long with about a 3' exposure. Even though the location was shaded and damp, the roof looked like new! I got a ladder and took a close look and the wooden shingles were hard as bone with no finish and very little weathering. I practically fell off the ladder when he told me he made them of poplar! Until then, I'd only known poplar to be used for cheap furniture, picture frames, and painted molding; never to be used around water. His "secret" was that he allowed them to (air)dry thoroughly and as they did, they 'hardened'. Another thing he said was that he was careful to build a roof-angle that carried the water away quickly so it dried the wood quickly too. When the shingles were dry and hard, he drilled the nail holes to avoid splitting.

I'm rebuilding a Baker "L" and a Duplex that both use wooden slats and I'd feel fine about using clear, straight grained poplar. Something else I learned about many 100+year old log structures was that pioneer builders used tamarack for at least the first course of logs and oftentimes, they laid right on the ground! They were also used for fenceposts under the worst of conditions. I don't know how many of you have tamarack growing in the swamps around you, but here in the Northland (Mich, Wis, Minn, Canada), there's a lot of it. You can Google how versatile a tree it is, and if you can find a saw mill that is cutting it into boards, it has been compared to cypress. Obviously, straight, tight, knot-free grain is a must. However, IMO, I would not use either poplar or tamarack for the cross bars: I'll stick close to ash or oak.