Rob D

No worrys - still a great chair though

Excellent - that would put me off from breaking in!!

Treatment wise Rustin do a 'cutting block oil' specially for this sort of board i.e. it's foodsafe etc. Technically they should be end grain up as Tom said it is less hard wearing on knives and closes up by itself. But your board will be fine. Drying wood is all about practice and experience... and even then it goes wrong sometimes!

If that's your first piece... very well done. I have loads of large diameter logs different species. You can google SO416DG and see how long it would take you to get down here. Rob

Fantastic mate absolutely ruddy fantastic!

Cheers. I have some good ideas for the Mk II

I have to handle once when splitting into vented bags. Then stacked in poly tunnel and delivered using swing crane/tipped from bag onto drive. The advantage is you can dry stuff down to 20% in 4 months. Fast turnaround and minimal handling. Logs in the round in anything past 8" is going to take a while to dry (2 years?) and it must be a bit time consuming stacking them so there's air gaps in between. Also you're messing about int he winter trying to uncover and recover them. + what happens if it's pouring with rain while you're trying to split them into back of truck? Customers don't like or trust the "it's only cause it's been raining it looks like freshly split wood". It may be seasoned and only be surface water but it still looks bad. I drop a covered bag off in the rain and briefly uncover it to reveal dry logs and they loves it! I also take a £5 deposit if they keep the bag and they then have to return the bag themselves to get the deposit back. If you can find a business open 9 to 5 to do the back reclaiming for you this is better for you and the customer.

I am with you on that.... indiscriminate pollarding and topping for every tree is totally unacceptable. But as a considered way of managing trees I think it's fine.

Sell it as mixed loads i.e. mixed hard and softwood and it'll fly out!

That is true Dean and I agree fell and plant a smaller species perhaps not in direct line of sight. But on the other side if they are happy to get into this cycle and have looked at all the possible avenues and this is still their preferred option?.... Are they wrong? What about France where pollarding is a regular thing? That's how they look after and maintain many of the street trees. Are they wrong? My missus is from New Zealand and I've been over several times. If you took the moral high ground and walked away from jobs because you didn't agree with what the customer wanted over there this would likely give you a bad reputation!

Advantage Tommy

I've done some very heavy pollards on trees that certainly weren't in the interests of the tree. I'll always point out firmly to the customer what I feel is the best course to take but if they have thought it out and are adamant and the tree is unprotected and or permission has been applied for I'll do it. It's not the norm and in 8 years I can only think of 3 examples of doing this but I didn't and still don't think it was shoddy practice.

Will do. This one is just a rough one to get the feel for how to make a proper one. Thanks for the comments

I'll double that ditto.... They are a very arrogant company and for that reason I'm....

The double milling set ups work really well... when they're working. But it's fiddly setting up, then what can happen is one saw won't start and then the cursing begins! They still make the 076 for sale in South America but I can't find anyway of getting them over here.

Good post Mick I've been looking for these for a while.

This is just a rough 'un! I just wanted to see how it could be fixed. The next one will be posh with no tights snagging!

The way you've done the feathers is excellent

That is horrific! I assume the driver came out unscathed. It's that old 'she'll be right mate' but no she won't!

I've not tried much swinging lately but used to do a lot when I was younger! For a couple of years I've wanted to make a swing seat for summer. This is the Mk 1 bodged together. I just wanted to see how it would work. The Mk 2 I'll use some bigger wider timber, chains, springs and it'll sort of look like this in a frame Bespoke Curved Oak Garden Swing Seats UK which if it looks very similar I haven't copied it at all it'll just be coincidence! Anyone else made a swing seat out there? Is there a good place to buy ready made cushions for one? (cream if possible)

As I said you have a good system there and maybe because you have that in place it's harder to see why people will pay £120-00 a cube. I'm not sure it does have to be cheaper than oil or gas. People who are putting stoves in don't seem to be doing any calculations as to costs etc. Once they've spent £3,000 installing a stove they're going to use it! Builders bag sizes have been discussed in many other threads and most have moved onto the fully vented, reusable cubic meter bags. I've been using them for 2 years as have many others treet| Treet Firewood and they are widely available. My firewood prices this year will be £85-00 mixed soft and hard, £100-00 mixed hard only and £120-00 oak only. So there's some options for people there and 65% of the logs I sell are the mixed hard and softwood. I know you think £120 a cube is not sustainable but you'd see perhaps differently in the middle of a cold Feb when there is no dry wood to be had for love nor money!

Your system works well Keith... ..... but if/when your arb contractor is offered money for his arb waste you may look back on these days as the 'good 'ol days'! At the moment you have a good thing... whether it will continue for much longer..... A lot of contractors round me now charge for their wood waste when 2-3 years ago they couldn't give it away. To get their wood I now pay them £20 or so and have to go on site, help saw it and collect it at their convenience. Looking ahead I would predict £120-00 per cube is not only sustainable but will rise year on year.