wills-mill

Duck Dynasty!

Hi, I'm looking for help 2 or 3 days a week. Preferably someone self employed who can invoice me, but part time PAYE may be an option. I've recently come back to running a Wood Mizer mobile mill and small woodyard. I'm looking for someone with woody experience to help with yard duties and timber handling and processing. I'll be cutting and making claddings, fencing, landscape and garden products in local timbers. A bit of competence and experience on joinery machines (or metal engineering machines) would be ideal, or a big dose of mechanical sympathy. Chainsaw and tractor or forklift experience/ tickets would be great but not essential. Please get in touch through Arbtalk, give me a ring or send an email. https://woodlouseindustries.wordpress.com/ Thanks, Will

Ok, Wild Service edit or Rowan

Sugar Maple of some sort- saccharum, saccharinum?

Spalted Alder?

That's pretty hardcore! Perhaps I should try and make a Wadkin/ Wood Mizer hybrid diesel planer Mines an RJ, a mere 2032kg of tinny lightweightness....

MyHerpes is hilarious, they seem to send to the collection jobs out to a motley crew of people in their own cars like some sort of Bounty Hunter film. You never know who's going to turn up to collect something.....

Just as a really unsubtle plug- I've got a 30in Wadkin thicknesser that needs a new home. It's blimmin enormous. And really near Horsham On the single phase/ three phase issue, I think it's probably cheaper and better to get hold of sturdy three phase machines and spend out for a rotary converter (240sp to 415 tp)- rather than trying to run things on single phase motors or buying cheesy new lightweight machines. The other critter that is getting very popular is fitting a digital device called a VFD (variable frequency drive). This will convert 240 to 415v for an individual motor (fine for a lathe, table saw, some planers) and as a bonus gives external control over motor speeds which is great for pillar drills, lathes, routers. VFDs also usually have the facility for soft starting and braking, so that the machine comes up to speed gently without massive instant power drain, and also will stop within the recommended 10 seconds. Sorry Peat, that's not much help to you and your generator....

And yes! Larch is great, apart from the evil little hairy splinters

I've been getting my head around a PH260 over the last year, but we've just moved and getting it set up in a new workshop. The top and bottom knives are quite clever and straightforward, I'll do a bit of a thread when the power and dust extraction are on. W

I think you soak them before every use on the barbie. There's also someone on ebay selling a massive Oak version for use as a roasting tray. Experiments needed!

As it's Oxshott, is it all coming off sand/heathy ground?

If that lovely old girl does the job and is nice and simple, why not put a sensible lump of money into a bit of a rebuild; rather than turning it in for an unknown machine (high hours Valtra?) which could give all sorts of issues. Has anyone been down that route?

The benefits of working for a shopkeeper who wears a fez

Perhaps we should look at keen householders as an asset, rather than putting them down? Plenty of countries on the Continent will allow householders access to marked stems for thinning in government owned woods. After a bit of training and a very mild licensing fee, I believe? Basic woodland management gets done at no cost to government, timber quality and the community benefits!

Yesterday. Customer's Boxer dog ate my sarnies As if by magic, replacement bacon sarnie appeared Win, win, win. living the dream

Just had one today, 5 failed logins trying to get into my account. I googlified the IP address and it put it in Santa Ana, California. Most odd Apart from pestering Steve, if any of the mods are keen please send me a message and I'll let you know the address. Ta

I'm fairly certain that the briquetters don't like green material

That's a brilliant looking setup Oaklay, well done!

Ariel Rescue

Festool Sword Saw....

There are very few folk who could weather a 12 x 12, especially your average joinery shop that now deals mainly with veneer covered MDF. Depth of cut on most hand held circulars is pretty woeful, you'd need way over 6in depth of cut by the time you've tilted the blade. We did have a demo session with a Festool 'sword saw' which is a chainsaw bar grafted to a circular saw. The chain runs the 'wrong' way which is a bit weird, the depth of cut is great (8in?) and the price is a relatively sensible looking £700 (especially compared to Mafell kit). Sadly, it was a bit of an awkward/ dangerous nightmare when trying to weather a gatepost- the bar and chain tilt the opposite way to a circular saw, and so you have to try and balance the saw on the triangular waste portion that is being cut off. Not good in that respect.

Don't mess with angles and degrees. Choose how much 'drop' you want (maybe 4 inches) then mark all round the post at 4in spacing, then mark to a centre point for your cuts. Generally much easier that way. A 45 degree point is actually pretty steep and quite tricky to hand cut.

Start with an 11ft post then you've space for a cock-up or two! To be honest, with careful marking out they aren't too hard, and in some ways you are best doing them slightly over the line with a chainsaw and finishing them off after a couple of days surface drying with a grinder and blue sanding discs. Handsaw is fine, but you start to regret doing it when you're a couple of cuts in. Zirconia Resin Fiber Grinding Discs

I set the Mizer up completely the wrong way round this morning and had a miserable day getting completely filled in with Wellingtonia dust, it's about time I was a bit more grown up about dust and stopped holding my breath and jamming my eyes closed. I've tried a few different cheap masks and tried goggles and glasses over the years but they are always a bit of a mess and something always leaks or mists up, so I've never stuck with them. I bought one of the Trend air helmets, but the battery life isn't up to a day's work and I found it heavy and really, really cold. I had a bit of a poke around the 'net this evening and found these little beauties- JSP FilterSpec Pro™ Black with FMP3 Valve Filter They seem to tick a lot of the boxes- not too dear, very light and disposable filters, so hopefully they do the job and are a bit robust as well. I shall report back when they've seen a bit of action. W