> Anyone ever use poplar (Aspen) for a stripper?

Poplar seems to be a common name for a whole bunch of different types of trees. A while ago this came up, and if the archives work there is some info there. Since then I have heard of at least three different types of trees that were commonly called poplars.

When my neighbor needed to remove two trees for a house addition he gave them to me. One was a fir and the other (he said) was a poplar. It sure looked a lot like a variety of magnolia to me, but I'm not a botanist. The poplars I grew up with were also called cottonwoods. Whatever. It is wood, and the inner heartwood has a nice coloration. It is on the purple side.

I've quartered the trees with my chainsaw in November and when the weather gets better I'll rip them into boards, and then into strips. Since I am making my own lumber I can quartersaw the whole thing. The trees are 20 to 22 feet overall, and I am hoping for a lot of single, full length 16 to 22 foot strips.

I'm not too concerned with the weight of the wood. If I want a lighter boat I'll use 3/16 strips.

Since I am planning to make a lot of strips I am thinking of buying a surface planer. A shame there is no place around me where I can rent one, as I'll use it for only a few days and store it until another project rolls around. I'm considering other options, like using a router or making a jig to convert a handheld electric planer into a surface planer. I may even forget about planing and use a drum sander to get the strips to an even thickness. You'll hear more on this process in late spring I hope.

You are right about Aspen being prolific. It spreads from it's roots, and even after forest fires, or if you clear-cut an aspen grove it will grow back. Beaver like to eat it, and deer and other browsers like the young aspen shoots that the roots send up. Aspen is similar to birch in many ways. There is no such thing as an `old growth' aspen forest. With most of the fallen aspen I've seen the wood rots away leaving a fragile, hollow tube of the bark. The trees grow fast, die relatively young, and rot relatively quickly once they fall.

It appears to me (no scientific measurements here) that birch rots about as fast on the forest floor. On the other hand, birch is commonly used for marine applications. I think the frames for Kleppers are made from birch (I could be wrong here) Once it is sealed Aspen should be make a nice, long lived boat.

Hope this helps.

Paul Jacobson