wills-mill

South East Wood Fuels are worth contacting too. https://www.southeastwoodfuels.co.uk/

They're properly keen on high pruning in NZ. A lot of their Radiata is ending up here (and elsewhere) as Accoya branded timber for window frames and external joinery, it's absolutely immaculate in terms of knot content. I'd love to see this level of knowledge, passion and commitment from UK landowners...

One local firm was making 100% biodiesel a few years back on a fair scale for commercial sales, something over 10,000 litres a week. I did drop in and speak to them about getting an IBC or two to run some mill plant, and they did warn me that the pure FAME/RME bio is highly effective at dragging any carbon deposits out of the fuel system and clogging filters for a few rapid cycles until the pipework and pump are clean again. Their recommendation back then was to run on 1/3rd of a tank of bio with 2/3rds of pump fuel, then slowly change up the ratios while going through a few filter changes. In the end I didn't go for it, but I wonder if the recent problems are actually 2 different issues together- firstly the greasy bacterial sludge from the bug, secondly the black carbon that has been released from the distribution and engine pipework. Looks like similar ideas back in 2007, The Telegraph "The chemistry of FAME increases its affinity with water, its conductivity, its reactivity and its bioavailability. For good measure, methyl esters are known degreasing solvents. They lift accumulated resins, gums, polymeric material, fuel additives and debris from storage tank walls and distribution pipework and carry them forward to block filters, or more worryingly, to pass through them. These may be filters on dispensers at service stations or fuel filters protecting your engine. Being biodegradable might be good for the environment if there is a fuel spillage, but microbiological attack in storage tanks is not. Like humans, microbes need food and water. They live in the water and eat the fuel to grow. As they multiply they produce acid waste, which can corrode and perforate steel tanks. They form mats of slime that clog filters and plug fuel lines. To cap it all, microbial growth in biodiesel occurs at up to four times the rate in conventional diesel and is very expensive to expel. To date there have been outbreaks of microbiological infestations in biodiesel tanks in the North West, North East and South East." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/green-motoring/2746598/Whats-in-your-tank.html

Just got hooked by an excellent YouTube recommendation- Funny, sassy, enthusiastic, massively knowledgeable and full of gangster bad-a-bing. Perfect stuff.

Surrey Timbers near Guildford have some nice Elm to that sort of spec.

Here's a simple tilting jig..

This is the resaw method, I've no idea why they are running so slowly though! I don't recall the old WM resaw attachment having the posh rubber track, and I think it was a 12v motor that ran from crocodile clips on the battery.

There are 2 standard ways to do it. I'm not a massive fan (have never had any issues with plain boards), but ended up building my own gadget to start with, then bought a Wood Mizer shingle/ lap sider. The first standard way is to cut normal boards (eg 6 x 1 1/4) and split them with a resaw attachment. If you have a power feed for a spindle moulder and a basic plywood trough, you could do that without too much grief. The minor downside is lots of individual board handling, but the upside is you get good recovery from a log. The second way is to use the gadgets that tip a log slightly sideways for every other cut. They can be very productive, but there's lots of faffing about to prepare the beams that are taken off the mill and stacked before they can be placed on the gadget. Downsides are that you can't use the side boards that you remove to make your blocks, and there's always a wee bit of waste where you clamp. Otherwise it's pretty quick. We've had no issues with anyone being massively picky about lengths like 12ft, it's nice if you can do it, but certainly on the hardwoods, any log defects will scupper plans to do mega lengths.

My main disappointment is with the HSE and their inability to process the RIDDOR data to a less than feeble level. This situation is dealing with information from an absolutely tiny data set, and it should be a straightforward process to infer all sorts of useful scenarios and outcomes from the injuries and fatalities that have occurred. Heights, method of crown access, form of tree or vegetation- surely all this data is contained in the reports that have been submitted. I would have a bit of sympathy for them if this was dealing with 250,000 instances of a particular medical condition across the UK, but a couple of hundred reports over the course of a year isn't a massive job to interpret.

In the woodworking world, quite a few people rate Drives Direct. I've not used them myself but they seem to have the knowledge and gear. https://www.drivesdirect.co.uk/index.html Most of the suppliers now call inverters 'VFDs' or Variable Frequency Drives. They can be specced to run three phase straight from a 240v supply, and include soft start, variable speed and a motor braking function when stopping as well, so very handy for workshop use.

If it's pulling you away from other work, there should be a charge, even if you do make an allowance for the timber. If it's a freebie, then you should choose when and how to do it- and by the sounds of it, they'd like their road open asap!

Evening all. A friend of mine is taking down a large Monkey Puzzle stem in Tadworth. If anyone would like to collect it for nowt (a donation of biscuits and cake would also be acceptable), please send me a message and I'll send you his number. It's been stripped off and stands approx 40ft tall at the moment, 3ft ish at the bottom end. Good front garden/ driveway access for a smaller crane lorry I believe. Preferably it would be a case of collecting and carting away, rather than milling on site. Thanks, W

The electrons are not pleased. We must make a blood sacrifice to the great Cloud. (bloody technology) In fairness and as a counter argument, I have a Trekkasaw and am thinking of heading the slabbing bar route, driven by a firewood processor motor or harvester bar motor, as the band head is hydraulically driven from a 3 cylinder diesel powerpack. They are still a pretty physical beast to operate (and need 2 people as standard to push), and I think that a Lucas is a more user friendly and better thought out package overall. The head is sturdy but a little bit crude and the bands are expensive too. The advertised cutting width is our old favourite where it's counting log diameter rather than cutting width. Trekka's will cut about a metre wide board edge to edge.

I've come to the conclusion that halving the log is less grief than gnawing the sides off, and it makes further cuts easier. I'm really quite surprised to hear that the Alpina doesn't get very high off the bed. A Mizer usually tops out with the band at around 34in from the bed and then there's 12in of fresh air above that.

If it's naturally asphyxiated or a Turdo with a manky chassis and a rotten bulkhead then £1000 would be excellent news. There are still plenty of people breaking low mileage examples just to get hold of straight panels to keep higher mileage well loved scruffbags going. Low mileage farm trucks of any make are often a bit rank, especially compared to things that have ripped around on the motorway every day and seen a spanner very regularly from necessity. Condition and usability are much more valuable than low mileage. I remember looking at a 'one owner from new, low miles' farm grade Daihatsu Fourtrak that should really have been scrapped, ended up getting another Fourtrak with 4 times the mileage that had led a happy life wafting around on tarmac and being dealer serviced.

I'll throw a weirdo oddball at you. How about going Korean with Ssang Yong?- the Rexton has a 3500kg capacity and runs slightly old school (ie repairable) Mercedes engines and gearboxes. They are ugly as sin but pretty robust, also they are seriously cheap and unlikely to have been used as anything other than shopping and school run cars.

Sounds a bad one. Try and be well behaved, it's a frustrating time.

I like a bit of Grandis. I bet it'll make nice boards that will age nicely, I'd be keener on that than Scots, which is more likely to go blue and gooey. I've used Grandis for plenty of chunky studwork for big walls and cheap building work in the current workshop. It's woolly and not going to win mega strength prizes but has more spring and bounce to it than Sequoia and a couple of others. It's very similar to fast grown whitewood commercial CLS stud frmaing timber. The Yanks throw all the Abies Firs in with Hemlock and have a general cheap stud category called Hem/Fir. Granted, it's likely to be slower grown, but if you were to oversize the boards a bit I bet it'd do the job well. http://www.wwpa.org/western-lumber/species/hem-fir-(white-fir)

There's usually a knackered old slurry tanker sat in the farm weeds locally. They tend to have big flotation tyres that can take a decent load.

There's an anecdote in Don Blair's Arborist Equipment, about a Navajo climber taking a bet to footlock up under the span of a trestle railway bridge in The States. Same thing as he had to drop sections of line as he went, and not the same as there was no safety line...

And for more pedantry didn't Tony K mention number of trees vs stars in our galaxy (ie just the Milky Way)? As well as that, for an extra pedant badge, Surrey has the most tree cover of any English county, but not GB or the UK as a whole. Mainly down to 'brownfield' coppice woodlands that are left over from Tudor iron smelting, or lapsed sandy/ heathy common land that has loads of regen growth or softwood plantations.

I'm thinking of making a hydraulically driven large log slabbing mill running a chainsaw bar and chain. I currently have a Trekkasaw with diesel power pack, so massive flow and the rail setup are all there. I find the band head a bit of a fiddle, and there is plenty of scope for going wider than the current cut. I've never been involved with speccing hydraulic motors, but the common ways to run a chainsaw chain are with a processor or a harvester. Are the motors broadly similar, or are harvesters way ahead in terms of power output, rpm/chain speed and cost? Is it utterly daft to think of wombling along cutting slabs stood near to a harvester motor- I've heard all the warnings about chain shot.... Thanks.

With a bit more notice a trip up the A3 isn't a problem, the old diary is a bit full for the week. Hopefully James can get you sorted out. Should be nice boards lurking in there!

There's loads of information on here if you burrow around... It is pretty straightforward but there are different ways to do things. Sometimes it's best to buy some boards and and see how other folk do things (bribery with biscuits is good). Also look at getting someone else in with the kit and experience for a first batch before you take the plunge. What equipment do i need? A mill of some sort, anything from freehand chainsaw cutting to big bandsaw mills. Storage space and time. is every log suitable for this? Yes, up to a point. The manky ones are more interesting visually but will move more as they dry and may have more bug/fungal storage issues. what is the process of making them & storing them? Cut them, stack them with spacing battens (stickers), a lid on top but good airflow around, out of direct sunlight and high temp is best. Look at them for a couple of years. That's the basics, the search box is your friend. Start small, expect a few disasters and disappointments, it's all good fun