tommer9

Top stuff. Converted mine myself for about £300. Took hi-cap butt off, bought scrap sherpa dropside for £100, transit tipper pump and a random ram for £50, and about £100 worth of steel channel. 20 hours in workshop and now with uprated springs and helper springs regularly carry 1.5 tonnes, making it about 4 tonne gross. If you uprate the brakes and strengthen spring hangars you can go further than that. Its great, but unless you really need four wheel drive, buy a nissan cabstar!!

I started like that before i got a mobile bandsaw, and at first cut everything to 1 3/4 inches. I have still got one or two boards from the early days- about 10 years ago! Nowa days if not milling to order i do thinner boards from the middle of the log- quater sawing for less movement, and thicker boards to go for beams or 4x2's etc from the outside where movement is more of a problem, as the bigger sections resist movement more. That way aswell, there is more scope for sale from each log. What saw

you running your mill on?

Sorry to jump in on the thread but is it easy to identify rippled sycamore?

We have taken a few down over the years which seemed to have abit of a wavy grain.

Tends to have ripples on the bark- called "fiddleback" maple, as used for violin backs!!

Firstly it kind of depends where you are. I mill timber and do tree surgery so have some idea of value, but it seems that timber in cornwall makes better money than elsewhere, eg devon, as we are lacking in trees down here, hence have to buy a lot in. As a rule of thumb though, i would pay about 50p per cubic foot for hardwoods at the roadside, and about £3.50 for a cubic foot delivered in. The seller ends up with the same as the transport usually makes up the difference. This seems to be the going rate with the three or four bigger mills in cornwall that i deal with also. If the timber needs any extraction then i would not expect to pay anything for it though. The way timber is measured is by the "Hoppus foot", which has been around since 1730's and is still used today. The equation to work it out is as follows. " Mid quarter girth divided by four, then square it, then times by the length of log in feet, then divide that by 144" Therefore to work out the volume of your log you measure the circumference at the halfway point- in your case it must be ABOUT 75 inches, divide that by 4= 18.75. square that= 352. 352 times the length is 7040. divided by 144 = 48. Therefore you have 48 cubic feet in that log. there are various yards on line that will advise on prices, but usually only for sawn stuff, but most will help you out if you call them. Or you could just fone your local sawmill- its not in their interest to mislead you, viz-a-viz future business opportunities- but ring around. Timber in the round is not worth much. Had you thought about having a mobile mill in. Most will charge from 280 upward for a day, and one log is far from a days work, and you will have some beautiful and valuable timber at the end of it- green sawn oak beams can go for around £30/cubic foot depending on quality! Hope this essay helps not bores you!! Good luck- please dont cut it into logs tho'!!!

ms200 rear handle for animals etc, and husky 346xp for mushrooms seem to be the two main ones my mate uses, amongst the saws he owns.

Unreal isnt it. We were sent one of those bits of string...Filed it in the tray marked BIN!

Watching the locals climbing coconut palms with barefeet and a bit of rolled up cloth armed with a large machete to cut coconuts was pretty impressive up in Salvador. Top beaches there!

Top stuff. also really jealous. Spent a month travelling in Brazil 2005 with a mate- may have bored her looking at trees once or twice though! Amazing place, amazing people. Check out the Pantanal around june time.

stihl all the way here too! Seems most of us in cornwall -where there aren't any trees allegedly ha ha ha- use 020 or 200t's. I have turned to just stihl for all my saws now- 024, ms200t( not sure if quite as good as 020t) ms361- awesome- and 088, the final word in saws in my opinion, not pleasant when a long way up- heavy! Used to have 262xp husky. Hated it, broke it- oops, and the husky top handled saws seem a bit flimsy? Only my opinion, and there are others with much more knowledge than me!!

brilliant. Me and the missus have just been howling with laughter at that.!