Can't find poplar without knots

Hi to all.

Have a problem with good wood. Almost for 4 month try to find poplar without knots on the market, but it is all in vain. Unfortunately this wood in not popular in my country. It is used only for pallet. Some sawmills can produce planed board from poplar for me but for very high price. The most ideal variant I have achieved is glued board (billet) with two or three knots.

After the snowboard is ready it is not possible to break it and it seems that those knot are not a problem, but I have not tried to break it under high loads (press).

Now I try to find something similar to poplar. Spruce seems quite similar to poplar.

Does anybody has experience with building snowboards not from poplar?

PS wish to try bamboo and paulownia)))

Try using the search function. Many people on this forum successfully use spruce (Dtrain is one of them) and documented it.

That being said spruce often has the same problem with knots and can be hard to come by in good quality.

I did use search and found out that spruce suits good also.

Also it was written in characteristics on the "how to" section that spruce has very close stiffness parameters.

May be the combination of smaller wooden parts can help solve the problem with knots. like on the parquet.

The very interesting fact that poplar is parasite tree and grows by itself throughout the city. But you can not come and cut it down without permission of government))

I have used sitka spruce extensively. Love the way the wood works, and the properties are amazing! Truth is , a couple pinhole knots won't hurt if that's all you have! What Kind of trees do you have access to? What kind of spruce is it?

According to "howto" section about types of wood there is next information:

Softwoods

As for Spruce the most popular types are Common and Siberian Spruce.

Also we have Fir ( Siberian, Common silver).

There are a lot of Pine, but I am not sure that it is suitable.

Hardwoods

Poplar is only one type of tree that has best density to elasticity ratio. But is has knots((

Also there are a lot of other types of wood but they are too heavy or not strong enough or consists of dozens of knots.

Spruce and fir have virtually identical propertier afaik.

Dunno about pine. Might be to sappy.

Now I wanna try to work with those types of wood. The guy on sawmill sad that he will try to find boards without knots. I really hope that they will be clean.

I never thought that it will be a problem to find good wood.

> motoman wrote:Hi to all.

Have a problem with good wood. Almost for 4 month try to find poplar without knots on the market, but it is all in vain. Unfortunately this wood in not popular in my country. It is used only for pallet. Some sawmills can produce planed board from poplar for me but for very high price.

what you describing sounds like pallet grade wood it usually, in my experience, 3 to 5 times cheaper compared to furniture grade wood

nothing wrong with that.... everywhere the same.

Why you want to us only popular? Other options available. I think Aspen should have better availability in your neck of the woods.

As alternative you can try finger joints....more work but you don't have to change anything

Clear pine works nice, just hard to find.

Most pine is quite knotty.

Fir usually has pitch pockets which can cause some grief.

Spruce is nice but most here has quite a few big (but tight)knots

Aspen and poplar are quite similar.

A few small knots won't really hurt.

I've used larch with loose knots and the skis are still holding together.

If I was hard on my skis I might be worried but...

For the first few pair I wouldn't stress too much about wood.

Just get your process down.

If your here to save money on a pair of skis and hope to build a perfect pair the first time around just walk away now!

I built my first few pair out of 2x4 construction grade lumber. But I did try to find boards with fairly small tight knots.

sam

> MadRussian wrote:

what you describing sounds like pallet grade wood it usually, in my experience, 3 to 5 times cheaper compared to furniture grade wood

nothing wrong with that.... everywhere the same.

Why you want to us only popular? Other options available. I think Aspen should have better availability in your neck of the woods.

As alternative you can try finger joints....more work but you don't have to change anything

Concerning the price for poplar

First time when I came to the sawmill I explained that I need wood without knots. They said that it was possible. But when I got first boards they had knots. Then I explained again that there should not be no knots. They said that price will be higher (I don't know why they haven't said that first time). Anyway I agreed. But next time was the same stuff. They have increased the price for 2 times and result was approximately the same. And finally they called me and said that they have ideal poplar for me, but the price was so high that I couldn't afford it. It was much higher then for furniture grade wood. Probably they tried to cut off half of the forest to provide such "golden wood".

As for Aspen, this tree is also from the grade of Poplar trees. We ordered boards made of it, but the same stuff like with poplar.

In the case of Poplar and Aspen, yes, the best way is to compose finger joints.

Have you try local work shops that make furniture? Normally they have good wood quality.

> sammer wrote:Clear pine works nice, just hard to find.

Most pine is quite knotty.

Fir usually has pitch pockets which can cause some grief.

Spruce is nice but most here has quite a few big (but tight)knots

Aspen and poplar are quite similar.

A few small knots won't really hurt.

I've used larch with loose knots and the skis are still holding together.

If I was hard on my skis I might be worried but...

For the first few pair I wouldn't stress too much about wood.

Just get your process down.

If your here to save money on a pair of skis and hope to build a perfect pair the first time around just walk away now!

I built my first few pair out of 2x4 construction grade lumber. But I did try to find boards with fairly small tight knots.

sam
Never tried to work with pine but it seems that is has to much pinch in the wood. Our forests are overcrowded with pine))

May be a few knots won't be a problem but still I am in doubt. We have already did a few snowboards and I couldn't break them (by myself) but it is like a time bomb, newer know when it will happen.

If I would make skies or snowboards just for myself it definitely is not a problem.

If the width of stringer strips is 2 cm (0.8 inch) the knot by the definition will not be bigger then the width of strips. But it will be the weak place because fibers break in that point.

Here is picture of our first core.

I am not worry about green circled knots but, red ones scary me. Especially whet they will be located in the middle or somewhere near inserts.

Just FYI, we pay 700-800 EUR/m3 for spruce in great quality directly from the sawmill. The same wood is used by piano makers.

> heke wrote:Have you try local work shops that make furniture? Normally they have good wood quality.
As for poplar, I have googled word "poplar" and have called each company that were selling it. I will do it again for spruce and fir.