Mike Dempsey

I am just pissed off that normal wood burning stoves will never qualify for any RHI scheme. There must be plenty on this forum who burn their own logs either as arisings from tree surgery or as firewood suppliers. Even if log burning stoves did qualify how would you prove how much timber you used in a year. The only way I could think off was to sell logs to my mate and buy logs from him. Bit crazy isnt it?

Thats a win win situation for both parties plus you had a brilliant experience. That wont come around very often.

I know that there has been training courses/seminars run by the FC in Scotland. Maybe there are some down your way as well. Mike

See its no longer available now. Wonder if someone made him an offer or he is just embarrassed now.

It isnt in the 'interests' of Stihl or Husqvarna to keep records of stolen saws as they sell more to replace the ones that get nicked from law-abiding taxpayers such as the people on this forum. Or am I being an old cynical bastard again as my wife tells me on a regular basis. Mike

I was on a long dual carraigeway last night and was about to overtake another car. I wasnt doing more than about 65mph when this vehicle came out of nowhere and must have been doing at least a ton. Took me a couple of seconds to realise it was a police traffic range rover. It was about 9pm and nearly dark. It didnt have blue lights or a siren on. I think they have have on blue lights if they are over 70mph. Gave me a hell of a fright and you should have heard my son swear - I didnt know that he knew so many swear words. As I drive a Ford Fiesta I think that there wouldnt have been much left of us. Mike

He has just replied to me 'Why pay some numpty wood butcher to do it when someone might do it for free. Worth a try money for old rope n all If no one wants it I'll cut it down myself. Hardly a skilled job is it' Any local volunteers willing to fell this tree and 'accidently' land it on his house. Wonder what the insurance implications of this would be? Opens up a whole new can of worms

They both look really dangerous. I have a 4 inch angle grinder with chainsaw disc on it. You can use them for carving wood. Its a bit quicker for bowls etc than using carving chisels. Funnily enough I havent used mine for about ten years until a couple of weeks ago. I had 4 leylandi stumps to remove from my garden. I felled them about 8 years ago and was fed up looking at them. As my council now has given us 4 bins I needed to remove the stumps in order to slab the area. It took me about 2 hours to remove the 10 inch stumps which were all sticking up about 6 inches above ground level. The were near the fence an impossible to dig out or get acesswitha stump grinder. This was the next best thing to do the job though. I was just amazed at how the stumps looked as though they were pretty fresh. Job sorted though and slabs now down. You can also get a 4 toothed tungsten disc for really hard timber but they are a pain in the arse to sharpen. Mike

I have just viewed and sent him a question letting him know that he is on a national forum as an example of being a total tightarse. Didnt tell him which forum though! Hope his wife and mates see it and take the piss for ages. Bet he doesnt post the question and answer though for everyone to see. Mike

Hi Baz Can you not get it to a garage who will have an impact driver. Failing that they can heat the nut with a blow torch which should crack it. Seen it done many times in the garage next door. Good luck. Mike

Hi Leigh The shop doesnt work yet. Still developing that although hopefully should be up and running in about 3 to 4 weeks time. I prefer woodworking to webworking but my son is more computer savvy than me and I am trying to get him to finish it off for me. Thanks for letting me know. I will get a notice up to say it is not ready. Mike

There is no minimum order for the business cards Mike

Hi Ian Mike is a special industrial machine and cost 13.5k +vat when new. I was lucky to be able to pick it up for 3k. You have to have a very good understanding of graphics software such as corel drawetc which can be a bit of a steep curve to learn. I've been using it for 6 years now and I am still learning. A lot of the work I do for the whisky industry which is fiercely competetive and I cant put up photos on here or my website due to client confidentiality. You can pick up lasers now for about 1k but these are chinese crap and they use their own modified versions of standard graphic software (needless to say that is crap as well) The business cards are 50p each. I make them from local milled beech and they definetly have the wow factor. People hang on to them and pass them around to show their friends because they are so unusual. Apart from the whisky work most of my new clients come from being shown one of my cards. Mike

Hi Ian I use my laser engraver to do engraving on wood. You can take a look at some pics on my website to get a better idea home page Mike

If the Council are happy to stick a TPO on a tree in someone's garden to preserve it, which then may cause the owner additional expenses in its upkeep, then perhaps they should meet this additional expense. Thet may then be a bit more choosy and not take a scattergun approach! As a wee aside I had to argue with a local planning department for 2 days to be allowed to plank an oak tree whick had a tpo on it when it was vertical. It had been winblown for 5 years but because a local developer was wanting to build houses on the land they stuck a tpo on every tree. The planning officer also thought that this applied to horizontal ones as well as the vertical. After I lost my temper with him I asked him for advice as to whether outdoor varnish was better than Danish oil. He then realised how silly he was being and let us mill it.

I think that all european farm subsidies should be phased out completely over a 5 year period. Every family in this country pays a fortune to subsidise this business. The law of market forces should prevail. Some farmers will make a profit and others will go bust. I know of one local farmer not too far away who regularly picks up cheques for over £1million every year. A lot of that is for not producing anything. Think of all the time which would have freed up now they dont have to spend hours and hours filling in all those forms. No forms also means no fraud, and all the farming beaurocrats can be paid off win - win situation. The prices in supermarkets will probably go up but thats good for about half the population who are obese, thereby saving the NHS money as well. If there are no farming subsidies the Government contribution to the EU can therefore be reduced, again win -win situation. Farming is the only business that get subsidised to produce goods and also to not produce goods. How can that by any stretch of the imagination be good for our economy. Sorry about the rant but this is one of my pet hates. BTW I am a Townie who likes the countryside. Mike

How about a koala bear?

Just received my x27 and x11 from ebay Poland today. Good delivery time of 6 days. Only used them for 10 minutes today as I am in the middle of a big job for a client. Both worked really well and I am amazes how light they are. I reckon I could give my mate a race splitting logs and beat him, he has an electric splitter which is pretty slow although it can split at both ends. Forgot to say £83 delivered! Mike

Some outlets I know mark up your prices by 250% which I think is an absolute rip off. It makes your work so expensive that nobody will buy it. Or to keep it at a reasonable retail price they are offering absolute peanuts. I try to persuade shops/galleries to charge a sensible price so that we both make money out of it. If they are not willing to do that then I dont supply them. You are better off setting up a good website and an ecommerce shop. If the items are too big to post like coffee tables/bookcases etc then people will have to come and view them before they commission an item. Trouble is if you are doing wooden turned or carved bowls rather than something unique then there will always be some back garden turner/carver willing to supply them for 'pocket money ' prices. I refuse to compete in that sort of market and that is why I am looking bleary eyed from trying to set up my web shop. It will be worth the effort though as there wont be a middle man to take a large slice of dosh from me! I stopped doing big craft/exhibitions fairs a long time ago as the money wasnt there. I used to pay anything up to £1000 for a stand at some shows but wont do that now at all. Sometimes I will still do a small one just to keep in contact with local makers and use it as a marketing excercise to keep my name out there. Sometimes it can be even more profitable than the bigger shows. Mike

Hi Andrew I can also do you a table. You can check some photos on my website at pensofdistinction.co.uk or go back a couple of months and check out some of them on a previous post on this sub forum. Cheers Mike

Hi Buzz Surprised that no one has suggested that if you are a copper and in to trees why not transfer to the Special Branch for a change of scene. On a more serious note could you not combine working part time to keep the money coming in and studying for a degree in arb/forestry at the same time. Might be difficult for a few years, but after uni you could still start your own business or work as a consultant/freelancer for a few years to gain enough experience or work till you reach the point that you are able to go full time. Mike

Using/hearing a chainsaw is a 'normal' countryside noise in my opinion. I wouldnt worry about upsetting his customers if you are cutting logs for your own stove. There is a compromise though and if you could leave it to say after 11am before you start when most people should be up. It could be worse though, if you had for instance your own chickens and a cockerel! Mike

The log home builders association in the US run training course several times a year. It has long been a dream of mine to build a log cabin and I need to raise a few thou to realise this dream, but I will do it one day. I would certainly do one of their courses first before I would attempt anything like this. I have been a follower of their forum for several years now and some of the members log homes that they have built are amazing. Main problem in this country is the cost of land though. The planning depts. probably would be difficult to get round but I think with the current craze for climate change, sustainability and ecofriendliness etc it wuld be a lot easier to get planning permission now for a log cabin than it would have been 10 to 15 years ago. Mike

We used to use chinagraph pencils in the RAF years ago for marking on glass or plastic. I've no doubt they would mark other wet or slippy surfaces such as timber. Still widely available. Mike

I've had my husky 281 for a couple of years now. It was an ex army surplus purchase and although only a few years old, it only had probably less than a couple of hours use. The difficulty with it is that the compression seems too much and it is quite difficult to pull the start cord without jerking up the saw. Most times I have to place the saw in front of me and put the front of both my feet in the back of the handle to keep it on the ground when starting this. Now I know about having good compression etc but this actually seems like too much compression! This is the third husky that I have had and definetly the most difficult to start. My mate has the same one but as he is a six foot six ex marine he doesnt have any problems. Is there anything I can do about it to ease it up or do I have to just live with it? Mike