wills-mill

I'd always lean towards always air drying beforehand, I think. Oak just behaves like such a knob if rushed through the drying process. One other major factor to watch is the quantities of tannin and goo that get dragged out of Green Oak by a kiln will do absolutely horrendous things to standard dehumidifier or heat coils, and any other metal fittings. It's certainly mentioned in the textbooks, and I have been told of one *very* expensive incident locally (back in the good old days) when somebody thought it was a wizzo idea to run a load of Green Oak through a brand new kiln.

Thanks dude. We do bigger trade orders, and have just started monthly open days at the workshop for dry timber and hobby boards. Next one is Friday and Saturday 24th and 25th Feb.

Ouch! £1.40 per m is pretty spicy. The last lot we sold out to others worked out at 65p each for 4ft long 1 x 0.75in. I suppose that was fresh sawn, mind. But they don't take long to dry off. I quite like doing them, which I know goes against the grain for most people Happy to bang them on a pallet if anyone needs them who isn't in the South East.

Thanks Peds, we've been milling connie mix as stock chunky boarding and (pre-Covid) it was very popular with wedding caterers and pubs/restaurants for tables and all sorts of interior fit-out work. The poor buggers in hospitality have other things on their minds at the moment, but hopefully there'll be more confidence in Spring 2023.

That whole family/group of aromatic Cypress type connies are just fantastic. Quite happy to buy it in at proper softwood sawlog prices, it really comes up nicely.

I'm always intrigued that the UK restrictions on sheep just happened to be in the areas adjoining the UK's own nuclear fuel processing facilities and the big manky power station that had various catastrophes over the preceding decades. Very handy.

We've been doing a fair bit of diseased Ash and it's pretty decent. You'll soon notice any really punky or soft areas, and the outside of the log will tell you if the middle is going to be horrendous. I wouldn't trust the boards so much in traditional jobs where the springiness of Ash was required, but for basic slab type material it's been totally fine.

We're happy to take arbchip and tipper loads of mixed cord and rings, but ideally looking for ££ sawlog sized conifer and happy to pay commercial sawlog money ££ for good material that is delivered by prior discussion: - Thuja, Leylandii, Macrocarpa, Lawsons, Redwood. - Lengths: 2.1m, 2.8m, 3.8m - Diameter: 250mm small end and upwards - Reasonably straight - Knotty logs no prob, but not looking for multi stemmed spraggly monsters. - Minimal muck, metal, digger damage. Please get in touch beforehand, we have a diary to arrange just like everyone else 🙂

The T35 and several others of its era don't have shear pins. You'll see in the manual that the handle is called a safety device, that's because it has a weak ring milled around it, so the handle bends over if you go at things like a gorilla. With a shear pin machine you can go wild with long scaffold poles if you fancy, but on the T35 it's not a terribly bright idea if you're keen to dreadfully punish some poor innocent roots

Yeah, it's certainly a scary financial jump for grey boxes of mystery. I dipped in and out for years at different variations for attempting to run a Stenner 36 resaw (15hp 11kw) from the workshop supply, but it was so tight and I never was confident enough in it working to start spending. Mizers aren't a dreadful start up load, but they are a significant enough start up load!

I'm out of my depth on the two phase/split phase farm malarkey, but I'm fairly certain that rotary convertors do create true 3 phase, while the static convertors do not. I'm running a pretty ancient 15hp rotary for the workshop and it's a fabulous thing that makes magic from a very marginal 50A 240v supply. It's so much nicer than pratting about with starting gennies and pouring diesel up your arm occasionally in my book. Whether you can apply a soft start module or 3 phase to 3 phase inverter drive to the extent that you're massively lessening the start up loads on the convertor is something for the commercial gurus to work out. It's one of those things where you want one single firm supplying both the convertor and the start device- if you get the components separately and it gives any grief, then both suppliers will just blame the other for your woes.... Keep us informed

It could well be that your 6 month old log simply has nice summery sugars in the sapwood. I really noticed it on a softwood for the first time this year with a young-ish set of lengths from a Cedar of Lebanon that was felled in the middle of some absolutely baking August weather. The whole of the sapwood has gone very black, and I'm guessing it's the influence of all the sugars and starches being readily available for mouldy little blighters. I've avoided any summer felled polite/white hardwoods for quite a few years for this reason, but it is unusual to notice on a softwood. I'll try and grab a photo of the Cedar later. W

This one? it looks decent enough, the saw guides are a bit Axminster, but for pottering about I'm sure it's a useful little lump. 2.2kw or 3hp motor isn't going to set the world on fire either, but probably balances up with the rest of it. HOLZMANN Blochbandsäge Bbs 350 WWW.EBAY.CO.UK Holzmann log band saw BBS350 Engine data Motor power S1 in W 2.2 Voltage 400 V / 3/50 Hz General dimensions Band... head band saw / BBS350 400V / head band saw - HOLZMANN Maschinen GmbH WWW.HOLZMANN-MASCHINEN.AT The BBS350 is designed exclusively for cutting soft, hard, dry, raw or frozen timber or wooden prisms. ✓ all types of timber...

Sorry Mr Hook. 30 seconds in and the voice is grating. I'm out.

I'd love to sell Elm and Oak slabs at £96 per cubic ft too There's been a surprising amount of big Walnuts hitting the floor this year and being milled. I've seen some stunning photos recently from Patrick Turk at Forest2Furniture and from Richie McBride at Holly Cottage Tree Services.

I do like the Cuckfield Cedar. There was a photo knocking about of the same spot in about 1910 or so, it really didn't look much different.

Great thread. Very partial to a bit of Lawson's Cypress, maybe some more love for Alder on soggy spots too. I'm getting slightly sweaty palms looking at the lovely stand of Leylandii in @The avantgardener 's photos. I actually reckon it's time for a bit of salesmanship and carry out a rebranding exercise to give the timber some mysticism and exotic charm for the customers who would ordinarily scoff and spit out the word "conifer".

If you can put the grunt in, then the Monkey has well enough grunt to drag one of those sets of roots out of the ground. We can place bets if it's going to be the standing tree that you'd like to retain or the stump that you'd like removed. I know which one Murphy's Law is likely to choose ?

Ta Steve, very clever bit of software there Do the image titles act as an alt text?

Always good to hear. I seem to have ended up with a DeWalt fleet, and the most respectable battery life I've achieved has been by putting a Flexvolt battery (from a big drill) into the 18v grinder. Have always liked the twin battery idea that Makita use, a friend of mine really rates the circular saw.

What a great bit of film making ?

Late to the party, hello all. I like to use the mini digger analogy. Most people can hop on a mini digger with minimal instruction and scratch out a half decent hole, ditch or hard standing on a sunny day on a level, open site. But I know I'd be absolutely floundering on a tight site with multiple requirements for services, levels, materials going in and out etc. And it's just the same with milling, it's not rocket science to nibble a few dozen boards out of random logs and have a memorable and enjoyable time producing some lovely looking timber. Working up to the more complex levels with constraints from time, timber, customers, weather, crappy access, kit breakdowns and minimal handling equipment is where the fun starts properly. That's always when a lot of folk find it a struggle, and unfortunately a lot of the lessons only get embedded after bitter (and sometimes costly) experience on your own equipment in your own region. Like so much of working life, it's down to managing customer expectations of what can be reasonably achieved without hugely traumatic financial costs or herculean expense of human muscle and sweat. Always happy to chat, and I'm still thinking of doing some "mill management" training days that look at all the other relevant links in the chain of a milling operation.

Ahh come on, you old curmudgeons I'm sure a few hundred yards of bunting and a dozen solar lights would cheer you up.

I would always go with as much weight as possible, adjustability when worn and parts back up. I haven't used any of the twin rail Mizers but they look as good as other offerings out there, people seem to love their Woodlands and Hudson Oscars, and the Trak Mets always look nice and beefy.

I quite fancy one as well, can you shout if you find a shed full? I think it's probably easiest to buy a decent one direct from Germany, they have to put the them through the TUV test so they are usually very tidy.