wills-mill

That sounds an extremely logical solution

Good stuff!

Have you tried Anton Coaker? He mills up on top there.... Anton Coaker - Sawn English timber air dried naturally

Yes, of course, it's the Truckers' Hitch. Sadly neglected with the rise of the ratchet strap:

There is a Wood Machining NVQ, that quite a lot of colleges do- but it generally relies on teaching people who have a job as a minion in a supervised workshop. If it's just you on your tod, it's a bit more difficult. There are quite a lot of trainers out there who will adapt a short course or a day to the needs of your workshop- Google throws up these ones: Wood Working Machinery - Training Courses - Skills Training Centre, UK Woodwise - Woodworking machine training, assessment, and certification - City and Guilds Approved Wood Machining Training Course We don't know where you're based, but getting in touch with your local college or larger joinery firms might point you in the direction for local trainers and a bit of certification. The basics of legality and cutter setups can be found in textbooks like- Wood Machine Guide, Wright, David, Bloor, Terry, Very Good, Paperback 0748793852 | eBay And grab a download of the HSE info sheet: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/wis40.pdf

I had some Lime that wasn't selling and I was getting a bit sick of moving. Recently advertised it on the UKworkshop site, asking for a bottle of ale or pack of biccies per plank. It's worked quite well Cheers!

There's some lovely German hornbeam parquet out there. Weissbuche I think. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hartbuche&es_sm=93&biw=1366&bih=705&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=J006VZz0NNXzaoDcgNAB&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg#tbm=isch&q=weissbuche+parkett Edit: one thing to watch is that the whiter woods can get grimey and grotty pretty fast if the finish wears off.

Thanks Dave, feedback both ways is always appreciated. The Wood Mizer USA involvement in TheForestryForum has always looked very useful, let's hope Arbtalk becomes a similar venue. W The Forestry Forum- Sawmills and Milling

Does the new one tow well? I had a bright and very windy day out yesterday, up The Downs:

The blades run on V belts set into the blade wheels on the WM. So there isn't a crowned metal wheel, but the V belts wear over time and can get damaged if a blade snaps. One of the main reasons for a rough feeling and vibration through the mill is lumps of sawdust getting jammed between the belts and pulleys, probably happens once or twice a year for me. (pictures shown) This has been ongoing for maybe 20 blades, so I'm fairly happy it's not them. The mill is cutting fine, but this issue is turning into a bit of an annoyance. Yesterday I ran the saw up without a blade on to see if I could isolate whether it was drive side or idle side, but it all felt a bit inconclusive. Thanks Copfords, the guides are pretty decent, I tend to replace them if they start getting nasty. Last year I also replaced the idle side wheel bearing, that was getting grumbly. I think my next port of call is to get the covers off and check that there's no debris jammed in the engine and driveshaft pulleys, and to see if the driveshaft/ drive wheel bearings are grumbling. That must mean slackening off the brake belt to give it a spin by hand.

This looks like the first post on this bit of the forum I've got an irritating little problem on my LT40, looking for any ideas to track down the problem. With the blade driving, there's a vibration/thrumming/ pulsing feel from the saw head. Sometimes the needle on the blade tension gauge jitters a bit as well. I've just changed blade belts (B57s) and made sure there's no bark jammed in the blade wheels, the blade guide bearings also seem to be good. Any ideas before I dig further? W

Back in the pre electric days, most planers and sawbenches weren't powered directly by flat belt/ lineshafting as the high speeds were tricky to obtain without tiny pulleys and tortured belts. They generally had an intermediate or countershaft to gear up the belt speed. There's a possibility you could do the same with flat or V belts, but maybe best would be a 'speed up' PTO gearbox. PTO (Speed Up) Gearboxes for gear pumps - Speed up Gearbox 3:1 Ratio ML52B - Phoenix Hydraulics Perhaps a PTO generator is the most practical way to go if you've no power on site. We've only got single phase but have a large rotary phase converter fitted which will happily run a massive extractor and several workshop machines at the same time. It's an excellent bit of kit, even if I don't fully understand the witchcraft that's happening within!

We've got one of the long log cushions. My best guess is American White Oak. It's great

The Sumo was Subaru's little van. Getting very rare now... You do see VW Transporter Syncro's around, but perhaps that's too big?

I've just come across this on one of the other woodie sites- William George & Co | NO RESERVE - NO VAT. English Air Dried Specialist Timbers Cut To Planks. Large Selection of Species in Various Sizes - Everything Must Go! Home - MAC Timbers Air dried homegrown timbers in Corby for sale. I've no connection to this and it's a bit of a trek for me, but hopefully it's of some use to others

Thank you everyone. I've found some Chestnut that I'm really happy with, but will try and get in touch with everyone who's relied or messaged. W

Poo Oak

The copper contacts in the starter motor are a pretty quick and easy change. My Fourtrak did the same, it went for 18 months on some homemade brass ones, then fitted genuine Nippon Denso ones. KUBOTA STARTER MOTOR SOLENOID CONTACT REPAIR KIT (NIPPON DENSO ONLY) | eBay The "Nippon Denso Clunk of Doom"

Oh, the good old hedge kitten.

Fair enough, my mistake. If a lot of those moving parts aren't from Wood Mizer or their direct suppliers I'd be very surprised. How on earth could someone go through 14 Wood Mizers, as far as I know the first ones came over in 1986 (?) so he's been through 1 every 2 years, or lives on cloud 9.

The 30in Wadkin is sat next to a 4 cylinder Perkins Perhaps I need to find a hookloader flat- then the big thicknesser and a band resaw could go travelling? Edit- to be honest, manipulating massive slabs to feed them through a thicknesser without knackering the machine would be a bit of a nightmare. It's quite a lot to expect a thicknesser to cope with wide waney Oak that has kinked and moved when drying, and getting them over a surface planer by hand to get a decent flat surface (and not crack the cast iron beds) would also be a bit of a pickle. Perhaps the router sled and handheld tools are best

I think that is GiB's argument, that the Felling Licence is more than adequate as documentation. Perhaps the FC should have been pushing a similar line 10 or 15 years ago? The licensing costs are scaled with the turnover of the enterprise involved. It's a £100 licence fee for anyone with less than £1 million turnover, or £1 per hectare for a woodland owner. I'm keen to apply, so I might do a thread on the process if anyone is interested.

If receipt and invoice mention Wood Mizer, then it should be a Wood Mizer. With a VIN. I think you do have a case to argue, but it is a little bit shaky. If you bought a machine with no blade covers, crappy wiring and no guarding around the main drive belt, then it's visibly not a machine that's at factory spec. There are a lot of WM parts on your mill, the wheels, brake and drive shaft, up/down switches and gearbox drive, lots of the blade tensioner (in fact most of the saw head and mast) have come from a Mizer. It is not '100% this is a full copy', however, nor is it a full Wood Mizer. If the seller bought these parts in to make a machine from scratch, then there are several thousand pounds of new parts right there that Wood Mizer were quite happy to sell! Most likely is that this is a tired old machine has been brought back into a usable state with the minimum of expenditure. The quality of the welding and fabricating can't be taken as an issue- as a purchaser you were happy to pay the agreed price, so you must have been happy with what was there. It's a bit like you've bought a lashed up Ford Escort for banger racing/ track use/ rallying. It is definitely not an roadgoing Escort any more, but it may well fulfill the function that it was built and sold for. Ford might not be happy if you had a car with a Volvo engine, Vauxhall running gear and a homemade rollcage, but what happens in a private sale for a machine used on private ground is probably not their concern. I don't mean to sound rude, but if the mill cuts to a sensible standard and you are content with the output, then you have a machine that meets the criteria of a decent sawmill. What has happened to you is obviously really stressful and unpleasant, but it is much more obviously a non-standard/ unacceptable machine than the usual secondhand machine issue of an old dog that has been blown over with new paint and stickers.

Some of the Euro Oak sleepers are terrifyingly good quality for very little money. I've done a few site milling jobs where we've found it more cost efficient for the customer to buy in a few dozen sleepers and plank them out. The strange thing is that treated softwood sleepers are quite close on price.