Populus nigra
Black Poplar
The lightest hardwood KORENA lists, and the one most often blamed for a fault that belongs to the blade.
- Cultivé et récolté en Europe.
- Groupe botanique. Les résineux sont des conifères, les feuillus sont des arbres à feuilles larges.
- Famille botanique à laquelle appartient l’essence.
Être informé du prochain arrivageEssence de référence. Aucun plateau en stock pour le moment.
Convient-il à votre projet ?
Idéal pour
- Painted furniture
- Drawer sides and carcass interiors
- Lightweight panels
- Sculpture and carving blanks
- Plywood core
Aucun plateau en Black Poplar dans la sélection actuelle
Essences similaires en stock
Aucun plateau en Black Poplar pour le moment. Ces essences conviennent aux mêmes projets et sont disponibles.
Soyez informé des arrivages en Black Poplar
Nous vous envoyons un e-mail lorsque de nouveaux plateaux en Black Poplar arrivent chez KORENA. Chaque plateau est unique, mieux vaut donc être prévenu rapidement.
Aspect du bois
Son aspect
Very pale, creamy white to light grey brown, sometimes with a faint greenish cast in the heartwood, and almost no figure. The texture is fine and even but the wood is notably soft and light at 385 kg per cubic metre, the lightest hardwood KORENA lists. It has a woolly quality under a dull blade that gives it an undeserved reputation for being difficult.
- Creamy white to light grey brown
- Occasional faint greenish cast in the heartwood
- Fine even texture with very little figure
- Straight grain, fine even texture, very little figure. Creamy white to light grey-brown, occasionally with a faint greenish cast in the heartwood.
Travail du bois
Son travail en atelier
Easy to work with hand and machine tools, with one specific requirement: sharp cutters are necessary when planing to avoid fuzzy surfaces. This is the whole difficulty with poplar. The fibres are long and soft, and a dull blade drags rather than severs them, leaving a woolly face that sanding only makes worse. With a keen edge and a light cut it machines cleanly. It glues well and takes fastenings adequately for its density.
Finition
Its natural role is under paint, and it takes paint very well given the fine even texture and absence of resin. Under a clear finish the pale colour with its occasional greenish cast is unusual rather than attractive to most eyes. Pigment stains blotch, so use a conditioner or a dye. Because the wood is soft, a hardwax oil or a film finish adds useful surface protection.
Séchage
Dries readily and without much degrade, and it is dimensionally reasonable once dry, with volumetric shrinkage of 12.3 percent. The tangential to radial ratio of 9.3 against 4.0 percent is wide, so flatsawn boards will cup. Wet poplar is notably heavy and can carry very high green moisture content, so drying takes longer than the modest final density suggests.
De combien va-t-il bouger ?
Le bois gonfle et se rétracte en largeur selon que l’air devient plus humide ou plus sec. Estimez le mouvement saisonnier d’un plateau en Black Poplar avant de concevoir les fixations.
Mouvement saisonnier attendu
environ 10,6 mm
Fixez le plateau avec des taquets ou des équerres à trous oblongs, sans colle ni vis trop serrées.
Modèle de retrait linéaire : largeur × (retrait ÷ 28 % de point de saturation des fibres) × variation saisonnière d’humidité. Utilise un retrait tangentiel de 9,3 % pour le Black Poplar. Il s’agit d’une estimation de conception, pas d’une garantie.
Son prix
Sécurité et origine
- Cultivé et récolté en Europe.
Besides the standard health risks associated with any wood dust, no further health reactions are associated with Black Poplar in the source cited here. It is among the less irritating woods in this catalogue to machine.
Populus nigra is a floodplain tree, native along river systems across Europe, North Africa and western Asia. Its natural riverside habitat has been heavily reduced by flood control and river engineering, and the wild population is now one of the more threatened tree populations in Europe, though hybrid poplars planted for timber are abundant and unrelated to that concern.
Lire le guide completNotes détaillées sur la figure, l’évolution de la couleur, le travail et la stabilité.
What Black Poplar actually is#
Populus nigra is a floodplain tree. Its natural home is the riverbank, across Europe, North Africa and western Asia, in the shifting wet ground that flood control and river engineering have largely eliminated over the last century.
That has produced an unusual situation. The wild population of Black Poplar is one of the more threatened tree populations in Europe and the subject of active restoration work, while poplar timber itself is cheap and abundant, because the commercial trade runs largely on planted hybrid poplars. The two facts sit oddly together and are worth keeping separate when you read about the species.
The fuzzy surface problem, which is not the wood's fault#
Poplar has a reputation for machining badly. It plane fuzzy, people say, and the surface goes woolly no matter what you do.
The cited source puts it precisely: sharp cutters are necessary when planing to avoid fuzzy surfaces. That is the entire difficulty.
Poplar fibres are long and soft. A blade with any dullness at all drags them instead of severing them, and they lift into a woolly nap. Sanding the result makes it worse, because abrasive tears more fibre rather than cutting it. So the maker sands harder, gets a worse surface, and concludes the wood is the problem.
With a freshly honed iron, a tight mouth and a light cut, poplar machines perfectly cleanly. A card scraper produces an excellent final surface. This is a wood that is unusually honest about the state of your tooling.
Questions des acheteurs
Questions fréquentes des acheteurs
Why does poplar go fuzzy when I plane it?
The fibres are long and soft, so a dull blade drags them rather than cutting them, leaving a woolly surface. Sanding makes it worse by tearing more fibre. The fix is a freshly honed iron, a tight mouth and a light cut, or a card scraper for the final surface. With a sharp edge poplar machines perfectly cleanly, and its reputation for being difficult is really a reputation for punishing blunt tools.
Is it strong enough to build with?
For its weight, yes, but it is the softest and lightest hardwood in this catalogue at 385 kg per cubic metre and 2,020 N Janka, softer than Scots Pine. It suits drawer sides, carcass interiors, lightweight panels and anything that will be painted. It is not a work surface and it is not a structural timber.
Is Black Poplar endangered?
The wild riverside population is genuinely threatened across Europe, having declined severely through flood control and river engineering, and it is the subject of active restoration programmes. The commercial timber trade is largely supplied by abundant hybrid poplars, which are a separate matter. It is not CITES listed and the cited source reports no IUCN assessment. Provenance is worth checking more carefully here than for most European species.
Propriétés mécaniques
Données techniques
Valeurs de référence publiées. Lorsque les sources divergent, la plage est indiquée et la valeur courante sert aux échelles ci-dessus.
| Densité (kg/m³)Masse par mètre cube à environ 12 % d’humidité. Un bois plus lourd est généralement plus dur et plus résistant. | 385 kg/m³ |
|---|---|
| Dureté Janka (N)Force nécessaire pour enfoncer à moitié une bille d’acier dans le bois. Mesure standard de la résistance à l’enfoncement. | 2,020 N |
| MOR : module de rupture (MPa)Résistance à la flexion : charge à laquelle une poutre casse. | 64 MPa |
| MOE : module d’élasticité (GPa)Rigidité en flexion : fléchissement d’une étagère ou d’un plateau sous une charge. | 7.2 GPa |
| Retrait radialRetrait perpendiculaire aux cernes, du bois vert au bois anhydre. Les planches sur quartier travaillent dans ce sens. | 4.0 % |
| Retrait tangentielRetrait dans le sens des cernes. Les planches sur dosse et la plupart des plateaux travaillent dans ce sens. |
