Today's milling

[Paul in the woods]

I have a bit of a mix, so from about 6" to 12". I only have a small chainsaw mill so I hope to mill into 3" planks and then slice them up using a 3" circular saw to give me 2.5" planks once planed.

 

I've mentioned before that my OH has a spinning wheel mostly made from Alder so I expect alder to be fairly stable once seasoned.

[Mr. Ed]

32 minutes ago, Mr. Ed said:

what diamter Paul?

sorry didn't check my own sources - 20 - 30 cm. Second thinnings.

[Macpherson]

2 hours ago, Mr. Ed said:

likesomething more expensive, but hey!

Grows real fast up here....known as Scot's Mahogany, also used a lot for guitar bodies.

[Will C]

Alder is said to be good for charcoal and gun powder

[Mr. Ed]

And I'm planning on making a scale model of Venice on miniature alder piles, while wearing clogs . . .

[topchippyles]

9 hours ago, Mr. Ed said:

No plans, but I'm very interested because oddly we have a very healthy 1 acre plantation of it - only ten years old but going like a train. It was planted quite widely here in Ireland recently (as well as thriving on river banks and hedgerows and so on). It seems that its principal virtue is that it's easy to work and fairly light in weight. It's neither strong nor durable, which is why it typically has such a bad reputation. 

 

I'd love to find a use for it in our house restoration we're having a go at - it seems like joinery is the best hope - it's too soft to use as floorboards. Come to think of it our architect has just specified vertical tongue and groove (very tight so you can hardly see the lines) for the interior walls instead of plasterboard, and it might work very well for that if we could get enough of it together. 

 

Because there's quite a lot of it in a similar stage as ours, there is some work going on to try and find markets for it here - 

 

Exploitation of small diameter alder - Teagasc | Agriculture and Food Development Authority

WWW.TEAGASC.IE

 

Nice idea ed but you can have to much wood sometimes. Maybe do one wall in each room so its a feature but only a suggestion being a chippy mate. You will know better than me the look your after 

[Mr. Ed]

2 hours ago, topchippyles said:

Nice idea ed but you can have to much wood sometimes. Maybe do one wall in each room so its a feature but only a suggestion being a chippy mate. You will know better than me the look your after 

Agreed - if we do that It’s going to be painted - we don’t want to live in a fecking sauna after all - it’s an old farm style - matchboarding they used to call it I think. Just using wood instead of plasterboard. 

[topchippyles]

17 minutes ago, Mr. Ed said:

Agreed - if we do that It’s going to be painted - we don’t want to live in a fecking sauna after all - it’s an old farm style - matchboarding they used to call it I think. Just using wood instead of plasterboard. 

How you finding that new saw ed 

[AJStrees]

Got it into the barn. Great colour.

[topchippyles]

6 hours ago, Will C said:

Alder is said to be good for charcoal and gun powder

Guy fawkes tried to blow up the houses of parliament with a tree, That is a question for the chase