Mike Dempsey

The Post Office are the only courier service not to charge VAt but if a company is charging a customer for a product via a website/mail order they have to charge vat regardless of whether or not is is the PO or some other courier doing the dellivery. Its quite complicated as usual, way far more than it should be in my opinion

Hi Steve, there is a German company called Wimmer that makes them that size. Also think Stenner used to make them that size. Don't know if they still do though. Theres a sawmill up near Arbroath that can handle the big trees. Had a nice chat with one of the owners a few years ago and he told me the FC used to send them all their big logs for cutting.

Well the wind is pretty fierce now, and the rain is lashing it down horizontally. We even have thunder and lightning. The most enormous lightning bolt just flashed a few minutes ago and it was so loud my head nearly hit the ceiling when I jumped. Going to be lots of trees down tonight. Thank god I don't do call outs although I am quite sure I will get a call from my workshop landlord tomorrow to remove fallen trees from around all his various workshops

There is every chance that these boards will split I'm afraid particularly if they are beech which is notorious for splitting. In order to minimise the risk of splitting you need to seal the ends with a waxy sealer (the end and up to one inch length od each board.) They need to have 1/2 inch wooden stickers put between the boards in order to let the air circulate around the wood. A weight should be put on top to stop the wood warping. The boards should be put outside where they are in a sheltered spot and the rain kept off them. As for chopping boards getting an oil finish on them, whatever you do, do not put olive oil or vegetable oil on them. They don't sink in far and end up sitting on the surface going rancid. I don't always oil my chopping boards but if I do I use the chopping board oil made by Liberon. Some people on here use a borax solution to stop the boards going mouldy but for chopping boards I wouldn't use this. The secret to having a lot of chopping boards is using long boards which will only have small splits possibly at either end and when that is dry cutting them up into chopping boards of the required length.

My wife is now well trained on stoking the fire, and really needs no supervision. The only issue is that she seems to suffer 99% of the stove related burns for about 10% of the stove operation Hi Jon, Get her a set of welder's gauntlets for her Christmas press. Only cost you about a fiver and money well spent!

Put my Citroen Relay van on Gumtree for £600 one Sunday night at twenty past seven. Within one minute I had a phone call asking me if they could test drive it. I sold it within 15 minutes of advertising it and that included a 2 mile drive to the workshop to meet the two blokes that wanted to buy it. Got the full 600 quid. Very happy

It would look good with a few cigars and a miniature inside it:thumbup1:

I inherited my mum's old Kirby when she passed away about 15 years ago. It must be at least 40 year old now and still works good. Don't use it as an everyday hoover (although it is brilliant at that), just use it for shampooing the carpets now and again. How many other hoovers can you turn into a drill or a sander?

Bought a really expensive dyson a few years ago. Cant remember which model but it had loads of different colours. Biggest piece of crap I have ever purchased. hated it from the word go, useless piece of junk. My wife really wanted it so I refused to buy another hoover for 5 years and she had to use it:lol:

Looks like oak so the varnish is going to be well sunk into the open pores. I would start with 120 grit followed by 180 and then 240. If you use only 240 it will take forever or you will end up not removing all the old varnish. You could use a scraper which would be quicker though. Tape up all the cupboards with wide masking tape and if you have doors that lead to other rooms tape them up as well. That will earn you brownie points from the missus as she wont have to clean all the dust away when you have finished:thumbup:

I saw photos of the fly tipping this morning. Couldn't believe it. That's taken more than a night to dump. Someone from the council hasn't being doing their job properly and done something about it. I agree with the above posters about the cost for recycling trade waste. A permit for green waste in Fife costs more than 4 times the one for dumping rubble etc. Pure madness:thumbdown:

Can I be the first then to wish everyone a Happy Easter:thumbup:

If you didn't wipe the excess off with a cloth after about 15 minutes the layer can be too thick. Try to get some heating in the workshop to help with drying. Is there any chance you can finish it where it will eventually be used, which will hopefully be a lot warmer and drier

I sell them direct from the workshop, Christmas craft fairs and have supplied a few schools and Arbtalk members with them. Mike

Just like to say thanks to Big J Jon for opening his yard yesterday so I could get some dry douglas fir. The Ecodecs are selling faster than I anticipated and the douglas I had was too wet. Jim, I haven't had a spare minute to look at the saw so it will be getting done after Christmas when I spend a little time cleaning the workshop and catching up with all the jobs that are on a long list but never seem to get around to actualluy doing. Anything to get out the house when the kids are arguing and the other half wants me to go to the new year sales with her!

I moved my rhubarb to a new location in the garden a few weeks ago so it could get more sun. Its now sprouting new leafs and shoots. Don't know if you get winter rhubarb, because if you don't mine is about five months early. Fresh rhubarb on Christmas day would be quite unusual!

I have a lot of cutomers who buy wooden barrelled pens from me to use as corporate gifts (ie rollerballs, fountain pens etc supplied in wooden boxes). In order to make them tax deductible I laser engrave their company logo on them. In the ten years I have being doing it I have never had a customer complain about having their logo engraved on the box or website engraved on the pen. After all it is an advert for the company giving the gift.

Nice pics, but the real question is are they big enough for Jon:thumbup:

.......and I just handed my baby over to her whilst I went shopping!

That one's a cracker:thumbup:

If you ever had time to write your autobiography what would you have for the title? I think I would have...." There's Sawdust in my Ears!" Mainly due to the amount of wood I have resawn in the workshop in the last few months. Mike

Think I will laser engrave that one on a wooden plaque and hang it up in the workshop!

Here are a few best sellers from the workshop this Christmas. I milled the douglas fir last Christmas and resawed it to 5mm thick when it had dried in the workshop. They are all cut on the laser and take between 1 minute and 20 seconds to 2 minutes to cut out.

I remember well our first baby born 19 years ago. He had colic for the first 6 weeks and didn't sleep for longer than an hour at a time. Wife and I were both totally zombified. My mum took him for a night so I could go to my secretaty's daughter's engagement party. It was probably a good night but as we were both so tired we were tucked up in bed sleeping by ten oclock!

Routine s absolutely critical or you will crack up. I have 3 lids who are now 19, 17 and 12. From day one it was bath, bottle and bed about 7.30. Don't keep them up late to make sure they are tired and then crash out. Babies love routine and it sets them up for when they are older. You need your own time and a routine with dishes, washing, bottles etc is also important. We took it in turn to feed them. One of us would sleep all night and the other would do the 2am feed. By the time of the third one we had it down to an excellent routine and were very slick at the whole game. Good luck with them