Luke Quenby

Nope, not at the size and maturity of them from what you say. 5' dbh x 80' high sounds like a huge pair of trees, would have thought they would heat your house for ages? What about tpo's, listed / conservation area issues, and the fact they sound like a superb pair of mature / veteran trees that probably have a lot of ecological and aesthetic value to many?? Would be a real shame to lose them without good reason in my opinion

Does anyone near you work a coppice, especially sweet chestnut? One I worked, we got all the stumps for the stumpery in a new 'jungle' garden from the woods I was managing. Found loads of really interesting ones with the multi-stems, and some crazy shaped Hornbeam too. Old stems stools that had died and rotted out of the ground over the course of many many years, so easy to get at to without to much disturbance of anything, and enough about to leave enough rotting wood in the glade sides as well.

:thumbup1 Cool picks / link, brings back a few memories!!:

Charlie, have you tried Science Direct or Athens web sites? They seem pretty good for most papers

Rob, Give me a shout if you want to borrow my Alaskan mill, your only up the road, don't use it that often so your more than welcome if you want it. Think I've got a spare milling chain too, to fit 24" bar if that's any help. Cheers, Luke

Top firewood in my opinion, burns good and clean and throws out a ridiculous amount of heat! Takes a while to season though and must be fully seasoned before attempting to burn on an open fire, as BCF says, could be a bit less if on a woodburner. Really good firewood though, I would advise to get all you can! Good luck, Luke

must be with the 2" evil spikes!! Reckon yours is Robinia for sure Robbo, be very careful of the dust though mate if your turning / milling, nasty stuff

Horse logging equipment They do quite a lot of horse drawn stuff, not cheap though but a good site

If your looking for something really smart, a friend of mine makes them, and knives, I'll give you his details if you want

In awnser to my own question........ Butchers Blocks Hornbeam seems the wood of choice there, and at that price, I would take their word for it!

Beech or Sycamore I always thought, for most of the reasons on here already. I think Ash was used in some of the more 'decorative' butchers blocks found in pieces of funrniture for the kitchen, worktops and surfaces etc. Or breadboards made to look like butchers blocks. I'm sure you couldn't go far wrong with Hornbeam either, having had quite a bit of experience working it, hard as iron. Used to be used for gears etc in mills back in the day, so well tough! I belive the name derives from old English for 'Hard Beam' or something, as it was always used as the yolk between working Oxen and in cultivation equipment. Just out of interest, I wonder how often a Butcher needs a new block? I wonder if there is a small niche market for this sort of thing, or if a block lasts for years and years? I'm sure someone will have an idea if it's not to daft a question!

Great pics. Should be a good thread I hope!

The woods I used to manage were mixed between SC and Hornbeam coppice. The Hornbeam used to thrive on the wetter ground, and as others have said, SC will grow on it, just prefers the drier / sandier stuff. If I can work out how, I'll stick some pics of it on here, and some of an old wood pasture we restored

Done!

Some of you may have read my previous thread of last week regarding my ms660 not working. I initially thought it was a fuel / carb problem, and got lots of good advice from other members. Turns out I need new piston and pot re-build due to them being ruined. I always try to buy non-supermarket fuel, and use the Stihl 1 shot 2 stroke oils to mix, hoping this will provide good clean fuel for my saws. This time, because I was short on time and no where near a BP or Shell, I got fuel from Sainsburys at Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, and within half a tank or less, the saw was dead. The fitter who is working on it says the mix was fine (no schoolboy errors!), but reckons it is a bad batch of fuel, and this happens quite often apparantley. The saw is not old and well maintained and was not working hard when it failed. Obviously I can't be 100% certain that this is the problem, but I have heard of this sort of thing happening before with poorer quality fuel on 1 pot highly stressed engines. Probably wouldn't even notice it with the 4 cylinders of a car, but I have been warned about supermarket fuel. Just a heads up and a learn from others experience thread really, I will be contacting Sainsburys as I only bought the fuel a few weeks ago, though I don't hold out much hope of getting any settlement from them. This experience now tells me it is well worth doing a few extra miles and spending a few extra pence to keep the tools running well and avoid downtime and expense. I'm sure this is stuff you guys are all well aware of, but by me trying to save a bit of time, I've lost loads of productivity and now have a repair bill to shell out for:thumbdown: Has anyone else had something like this happen when they switched fuels / oils? Would be interested to hear Cheers, Luke

10 degrees is what I always do, think that's what's reccomended by the manufacturers, Rob D is probably the man with all the info on this

I was hoping that maybe it, but was running, then started to drop power, then just stopped and has refused to run since, was only a few days ago

Fuels all good, fresh the other day, think I'm gonna have to hope the dealers know there stuff and don't just repeat everything I've done and charge me ££££ for it!

Tried that, and still nothing. May be time to throw in the towel and take it to the dealers unless anyone else has any ideas?

Did check all those bit's earlier, but just had another look and all clean as a whistle and seemingly fine. That's the thing with this one, there is no obvious problem, but I bet its gonna be something really obvious...........

Yep, plenty of that to, as my arm is about to fall off thru all the starting attempts!

Yep, forgot to mention that! Good spark, all seems ok in that area

Hi all, got a problem with a 4 year old ms 660. Nearly firing but not quite, have replaced spark plug, fuel lines all seem clear, diaphragm and metering all seem ok on carb, as does carb itself, but just will not quite go. I'm convinced it's a fuel starving problem from somewhere, but don't know where! Fuel seems to be moving round ok, so if anyone has any ideas, would be gratefully appriciated, before it gets the full Basil Fawlty treatment! Thanks!

True, 3 winters ago it was all that we had available for the log burner and it kept us lovely and warm, like all woods, season it well and you'll be fine!