wills-mill

Red kern sounded to me like a German technical term. So much immaculate Beech comes over from the Continent. One Google search and voila! https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=rotkern+bei+der+buche&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=705&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHprjGl6rMAhVsIMAKHeLiDq0Q_AUICCgD I can see the parallel with Olive Ash definitely. Some end users wouldn't be keen and it might not be the most solid of timber a few decades down the line.... Does anyone have experience of steam bending Olive Ash, would the heart be more or less bendy?

I'm looking for ideas and experiences from chipping slabwood. I mill on a site rented from an estate who have a chip boiler, and we're keen to make use of my slab in their boiler. We're curious to know what sort of volume reduction will occur when the stacks are chipped, so we're going to measure up and have a trial blitz later this year, but in the meantime I'd like to pick your collective brains. The slab is usually straight and tidy Chestnut, Douglas, Larch, Cedar and I like to bundle up fairly tightly and neatly to help with transport, so there's not a massive amount of air gap. Is there any difference in price for this sort of material when compared with round softwood, and how would people normally measure and price? For fuelwood I always reckon that sale by volume makes sense- surely better than tonnage rates when anyone with superior dry timber is penalised financially for having a lack of water. I keep meaning to sling a few bundles onto my pallet truck (which has a weighcell) and see what the bundles weigh and how fast the weight drops away....

Has anyone run a 461 and Husky 576 back to back? They're the same engine size....

I've been trying to get through to Bernie at Abbeycheers for some timber haulage. Does anyone know if he's OK and if they're still trading? Thanks, W

What sort of sizes? I've got a bit of Lebanon and WRC air dried.... Big J, someone was pestering me for a big dollop of cladding blanks if you need somewhere for your WRC to go? What sort of lengths will the postman take? W

Welcome to the phase of your life where a copy of the Whitehill catalogue becomes your bedside and tea break reading. Spindle Tools, Window Tooling & Woodworking Tools | Whitehill Tools Woodweb is an excellent place for technical articles on moulding and machining as well, loads of experience there- Search Results from WOODWEB's Site Search Engine

She's a serious bit of kit, nice work! Are there many blocks and tooling with it? A humongous extractor will be required (and many, many bags)

Interesting looking timber 4 months and everyone's missed the Judas Tree pun.... "Ask a siliquastrum, get a silly answer!"

Normal 12 volt systems wouldn't be powerful enough. I know that there are some hydraulic blowers out there that run with the processor, otherwise you're heading towards a bit of bodgineering to make something with a Billy Goat leaf sucker or putting a vertical shaft mower engine on a workshop extractor unit?

I bought a couple of Really Useful Boxes to tide me over a vehicle move. They've lasted surprisingly well (much tougher than expected), stack nicely and massive choice of sizes. Not submersible waterproof I'm afraid. Go Shopping - Really Useful Boxes - Full Range of Boxes

I think that PEG can end up being quite dear to get started with as you need to immerse everything. Without looking, I bet there's quite a bit on Youtube....

http://owic.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/pubs/peg.pdf

Two things will help. One is to cut the slabs on the diagonal (as RichyB says), you get an oval shaped slab like a house namesign, but they are much more stable. The other is soaking them in a jollop called PEG (polyethylene glycol), it's a waxy substance that fills the cells of the wood and displaces water, so you can dry without shrinkage and splitting. If you google it up, you'll find lots of info on woodturning websites. Hornbeam and Oak are both fairly unstable blighters.... good luck.

I'd recommend any 4x4 that normal humans can reach more than 4 inches into the load bed, especially if it hasn't been designed by a consultation group of 12 year olds who've been watching Transformers on a constant loop.

Looks very smart. I really like the colour of the windows and doors as a contrast, it can be overkill when people go wild with 'total wood'.

I've had another enquiry that sounds like Alaskan territory. A walnut butt that the customer wants planked at Higham (ME3). It's a bit out of my patch and the access sounds grim for a bandsaw. If anyone's keen I'll pass details on. Ta, W

10mm might be OK on a really windy site undercover with a sensitive timber like burr Oak. Otherwise go with 3/4in, or 1in for a timber that can cope with fast drying. I'm happy to run a stick spacing of anywhere up to 3ft for thick stable timber (2 1/2in or more) like Cedar or Giant Redwood.

They are definitely a one man band sort of machine.... Good for someone that cares a bit, not so good if you expect a herbert to stand beside it and smash hundreds of boards through per day.

Yup, I've spent quite a bit of time on my Moretens 260 (same machine). Mine came second hand from a workshop up in Galloway, it's quite an early machine but has given me no particular grief. They are definitely a 'finishing' machine that needs to be presented with really good straight edged blanks to perform well. The more exotic and expensive joinery shop machines like Weinigs will take a lot of twist and bow out of dry boards that a Logosol won't. They also run timber through quicker, but may use 4 times the power and weigh 4 times more. On anything air dried, or if I'm dubious about some inconsistent board thicknesses, I'll run everything through a thicknesser to munch off any high spots and give the PH an easier time of things. Having said that, the PH excels on damp timber and there's nothing I've seen that does the same job for such a small power input, low weight, compactness and easy storage. They really do have an exceptional timber capacity, and it keeps me moving at a good lick when I have to unstack, brush off sawdust, feed, remove, stack again. I wheel mine around or pump it up with a pallet truck to tuck it out of the way when not needed, which is another handy thing. Really good extraction is vital, if chips get mashed backed into the boards surface you can end up with dents in softwood jobs. I probably use more power to run the extractor than the 4 sider. It'll fill three oversize extraction sacks in under and hour, so make sure you can get rid of the shavings somewhere! It takes a bit of time to get the setup right, and there are big savings to be made on knife costs if you use standard Euro cutter profiles (£12 ish a pair) rather than Logosol's catalogue knives. The standard Euro knives are worse steel and don't last particularly long, but they are great to get your head around things and sort out small batches before putting tonnes of cash into knives that might not get much use. EDIT: for decent moulding knives in the UK, I use a few patterns from Whitehill. Anything that is a 'B' type knife will fit the machine. My local saw doctor also uses Whitehill B blanks for making up knives for me. I also use a holder system so I can fit disposable double edged planer knives to the thicknessing head, the planer knife change is now loads quicker- as standard I think it's fiddlier than most planer thicknessers to get right. I'm running mine (and the extractor) from a single phase supply through a second hand rotary converter, and it's all behaved really well. From log to finished cladding - Woodlouse Industries - Locally Sourced Timber Products I'll try and get some pics of machined bits up for you...

Tempest's biggun looks pretty smart. It looks like Wood Mizer have just bought the company, so they may become a bit more global..... [ame] [/ame]

my favourite in Woodlots at the moment (if one of you lot haven't bitten his arm off in the meantime) Giant Redwood - Sequoia - looking to sell in the round I have a Sequoia in the back yard, details are: Dia from 1.4mtr up is approx. 4.40 mtrs - at about 4mtrs up the tree splits into 4 stems each of approx 1.5mtrs - overall height is estimated at 27mtrs - The tree sits approx. 2.5mtrs from back of house (to edge of trunk) - estimated value £5000 but would like to negotiate a price to include the felling - Tree is in a conservation area, but does not have a TPO (yet) although planning would have to be applied for - have a tree report from arborist with soundings etc. Chatteris, Cambridgeshire

I also think the staining is water+steel from the band. It's strange that it's just the underside of the board, perhaps your mill (like most) places the lube water onto the top of the band, so that face is much wetter. A lot of small American sawyers swear by 'Pam' on their blades for whitewoods, it's one of those spray cooking oils. I would imagine that a bit of rapeseed in a hand squirter would be fine if you gave the blade a little squirt before each board. Minimal chance of mould when you look at consumption. If anyone wanted to get clever, then you could try a Loobman full of bio chain oil. They were always a neat and cheap way to get oil on a bike chain. LoobMan Motorcycle Chain Oiler Loobman chain-oiler - Home page

Are they closet Husqy supporters?

Isn't this someone from the parish of Arbtalk? [ame] [/ame]

it's very Elm-y