wills-mill

The faults that make timber difficult, irritating and 'poor quality' for joiners are what make timber interesting to look at for most people! When you say poor soils, do you mean slow grown and a bit gnarly? A lot of it round here comes off the Chalk downland hills, it seems to grow pretty well up there, but likes to fall over in a 1987 type storm!

That's about the price we'd been sat at for a couple of years, and I think it's a pretty fair price. The first time I'd seen over £30 per cube was autumn last year when someone gave me a cutting list for their own estate timber, which was a quote for sawn timber from one of our big local types- £36 a cube for prime structural. Ouch. When you think that buying pressure treated softwood in bulk is about £4.50 to £6 per cube, it makes Oak look like a vulgarly overpriced luxury item.

Well done Good luck with the process......

I always though that Cat C vehicles need an engineer's report before going back on the road but it seems not... Category C write off - The Consumer Forums That seems to suggest that the VIC and MOT don't really count for much. If you think about it, the MOT doesn't check if vehicles are bent or twisted, and as far as a tester is concerned the cable tied light probably isn't a failure as long as it points in the right direction and doesn't flap about. The quality of the wing repair is probably not an MOT failure either, testers seem more concerned that the wheels are covered, that parts are secure and that there are no sharp edges- it IS a bodge job, but it is also enough to pass an MOT I would think. I think you have been sold a pup, but you might not have much of a leg to stand on sadly.

Yup, I'd say it's gone up to over £30 cu/ft around here for good quality framing Oak fresh sawn in longer lengths (maybe 3m plus). Bit less for sappy and knotty character timber or anything under 2.5m/ 8ft-ish. Maybe 6 to 8 years back it was £16 to £20 and then it crept up to the mid twenties. Then a fair jump up in price as the Euro exchange rate got a bit harsher and the big mills that use continental Oak had to pass on the rise. I suppose we'd been a bit cheaper as there's a lot of Oak/ Hazel woodland around the Surrey/ Sussex Weald and the French Oak has an easy time getting shipped over here. Beech is a tricky one, it's so easy for anyone in the pukka joinery trades to get flawless kiln dried beech (mainly from nice tidy German forests) really cheaply. They (the pro's) are usually not keen on British wobbly grained air dried timber for furniture and kitchens, there's more wastage and more movement and general uncertainty for them. Beech sadly also has a bit of bad name as a bland characterless utility timber, mainly used on boring school and office furniture.... This does mean that if you've got good air dried Beech (1yr? 2 yrs down the line?) sadly you'll get less than you would for fresh sawn Oak. Crazy really. One of the nice things to do with Beech is to get away from trying to compete with the flawless kiln dried stuff and cut nice chunky slabs and boards, a bit of waney edge goes down well. You have to get people to have a look at them sanded and oiled, when they look really fantastic. It tends to go down well for alcove shelves, mantelpieces, big chunky beds and coffee tables. Maybe a price of £18 to £24 a cube, not sure really, somewhere around there.

Let's hope so Seems like quite a few clutches packing up as well, but that seems pretty equal to newer Transits and anything with dual mass flywheels.... I'm not sure how they work but they sure sound expensive!

I don't want to be negative, never had one myself, but I've heard a few moans from owners and- Nissan Navara Review in 4x4 at Review Centre BBC - Watchdog: Pickup a problem? OK, mainly complaints about the D22 for the engine grenading, but that sort of arrogant customer service from the UK office isn't good

A couple of pics of the orange homebrewed arch-

I've just had the same on my Fourtrak..... clik clik clikkety clik. It was the copper contacts inside the solenoid body (as CTS said) causing the problem, it wasn't the brushes or commutator in the motor itself. Look for a flat cover held on by three screws, whip that off and there's a plunger inside that knocks the starter gear forward and also bumps up against 2 copper contacts that fire up the motor. One of mine had worn and eroded right back.... This chap will talk you through it- at around 2mins 20 if you're impatient. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxjPpytfnv0]YouTube - how car starter motors work[/ame]

They're great Your Welsh one looks great, Tino Rawnsley in Cornwall sells another. Instead of dragging a log around like an anchor you've converted it to a towed load. They've been around for hundreds of years and around the UK have been called timber arches, timber nibs, nebs, bobs and 'pairs of wheels' they were also really popular behind big crawlers for moving massive timber cleanly from the 30's to the 60's. I made one a few years back after looking at the Future Forestry Products website (they build lovely ones across in The States). One of the first jobs we did with it was moving 40ft spruce poles off a lawn without going onto the grass with the Land Rover. Not complicated and robust bits of kit Future Forestry's fetching arch (OK now called Log Rite)- LogRite<SUP>®</SUP> Tools logging tools [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsYFkGjNFoI]YouTube - LogRite Fetching Arch[/ame]

Not had a problem when using it at full bar depth, the saw seems very well behaved to be honest. They are a really helpful bunch at Logosol- as you say expansion is dead easy and they've got some excellent manuals and parts lists if you want to do something a bit different to their standard kits.

seconded..... Most 7.5t limits are to stop big rigs sneaking down smaller roads and not to do with the road's potential for weight carrying.

can't seem to edit the previous posts to add captions, will have to do it here, although it's a bit clumsy I bought a Big Mill mainly to help when quartering large logs to fit on my Wood Mizer for further processing, but have used it quite a few times in confied spaces for start to finish milling. For this job we wanted nice wide slabs of Oak from a back garden. Saw used was a Stih 660 with a 30in bar. In the end it took the best part of two days to mill, remove the boards and clean up. Your model for today will be Lee, who dismantled the tree, we were sharing the wood and the labour. I wasn't just poncing around taking photos. Honest 1st set- Setting up: The Big Mill uses the basic Timberjig unit which is a very handy and cheap carriage that bolts onto the saw which can be run along a flat surface to give parallel cuts. It mounts using extended nuts that fit onto the saws side cover, very quick and easy and you don't lose any bar length. it's best to unbolt the dogs from the front of the saw, they tend to get in the way.... The Big Mill systems uses brackets which are screwed to the end faces of the log and hinged support arms which hold a beautifully made aluminium guide rail. This is 9ft long as standard (extensions are available), but once you've attached everything you're limited to around an 8ft long log. The Timberjig slots onto the guide rail, so you can take the saw off at any point during a cut. Have a look at the vertical bars with the ribbed finish- they allow you to drop the guide rails by a set amount to give different board thickneses. The other clever feature is that you can leave the brackets screwed in place and rotate the mounting arms and rail around the log in nice, crisp 90 degree increments to give you squared timber straight off the log. Cutting: It's best to support the guide rail to stop it vibrating and take some of the load off the brackets. In this case we used an elegant multi purpose broom handle. With the slab of bark and sapwood cut off in the scond photo the first board is free apart from the furthest bit of wood that the saw's nose can't reach which can be nipped off to release the board. You can see the dust piling up already! In the 3rd photo we've rotated the log and wedged it securely, and then rotated the brackets by 90 degrees and re-attached the guide rail. All boards will now have 3 sawn sides and one nice waney, bark covered edge. The saw can get closer up to the timber and cut to full depth as well. you can see in the next photo hos the Timberjig sldes on the rail, it hooks around a lipped edge on the aluminium. As a bonus, a mighty plank has been revealed.... 2nd set- Things going pretty well, chomping through steadily. You get a pretty good idea of the mounting of the system, Logosol do all sorts of alternative extension arms and heavier brackets as well. You can see why we took the trouble to do this, lovely colour and grain in this butt. Did I mention the dust? As you can see in the last 3 photos, we've actually removed the guide rail now that we've got a square edge, and are running the Timberjig directly on the timber surface 'freehand'. It gives excellent results when running the saw fairly much vertically, but the droop of the bar when running with the saw hirzontally can give some deviation and twist. 3rd set- Did I mention the fuel consumption? At this width of board it takes a tank full per cut. And a tickle of the chain, otherwise progress is really, really slow. You can see the set up of the Timberjig, the flat black plate can be adjusted to hold the saw at a set distance from the last cut, this gives you a set depth of cut. If you had access to old pitch pine beams or new oak sleepers you could resaw with just the 'jig! Almost there, and then a truck load of some of the goodies....

Part 3

part 2, captions coming in a sec!

Here we go!

I'll do it for 27k and a bacon bap every morning....

'Oh look' another WOW! Absolutely brilliant!

Land Rover 1968 tax excempt Series 2 B forward control on eBay (end time 07-Feb-10 19:06:09 GMT) Lovely! What a shame Land Rover never put the Llama into production, or even a Discovery chassis cab, that would have been handy....

Very versatile bit of kit, Logosol are a great firm- they are happy to allow people to mix and match parts from different sawing systems to create their own bespoke kit to suit different situations. I've used my Big Mill for quartering big logs for Wood Mizer milling and milling on on its own in tight spaces, it seems very adaptable and can be set up in all sorts of different ways. I'll dig for some photos, they're on the other computer at the moment

Evening all...... Went down to pick some bits up from my (shared) yard in Shipley, W Sussex at 8:30 on Sun night. Found my faithful old Transit gone, office and workshop broken into and Daihatsu Fourtrak 4x4 with knackered locks and steering column, hand tools and other bits gone off with the Transit. Other vehicles and buildings broken into. The other firm I share with had been in at 5pm and nothing was out of place so we can only assume that we had visitors who were in and out across the fields very quickly. The frost helped them get the truck out through the woods and fields to the road about 1/2 mile away without disturbing the front gates. Transit's number is K926 MOU..... Distinctive two tone colour scheme and very distinctive Atlas crane behind cab. Ex Bristol Water with approx 75k miles on the clock. All credit to Sussex Police, uniformed officers were straight out and on the case.... Please send a PM if you spot anything, bearing in mind the truck could now be off to be used in robbing other people.

What sort of size are the trees and what sort of quality?

Are you stuck inside them?

Meters work on electrical resistance usually so the are easily fooled.... For a true reading the more expensive meters have calibration blocks so that you can set the meter up for a particular density of timber. With a 'normal' meter you can have Oak and Pine at the same moisture content and the density of the Oak will give a drier reading.

Incredible stuff. Thanks This Hull Oakes, one of the few old mills operating in the States by steam power. They specialise in large timbers and long lengths for historic buildings, ships etc. The steam boilers are run on some of their waste slabs and sawdust, so nothing wasted! [ame] [/ame]