Big J
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Everything posted by Big J
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It would seem unwise to draw a salary of that size from the business. If I didn't keep buying new kit then I could, but each new machine I buy improves my efficiency and increases my output. There are so many tax deductible perks of self employment, I'm not sure why you would put yourself in a position to have a substantial tax bill. That being said, if I start making millions, I'll happily pay the tax bill and take my holiday in the Maldives! -
The chainsaw mills are invaluable for breaking down those larger logs as the Woodmizers have quite a limited throat. I fully concede that I cannot take my oversized mill into the woods though!
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The roof looks extraordinary Jeremy. I've fairly recently planted a wild flower mix around my pond and I hope it looks half as good as yours. I see you're using the chainsaw mill for halving larger logs What you need now is an edger my good man!
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Like any timber, it's best milled green. I started a thread some weeks ago struggling with larch and resin. I've had reasonable success with water with a lot of fairy liquid in it. Enough so that it forms a bit of a froth as it is deposited onto the blade. You need to massively up your drip rate too. Mine pretty much just flows onto the blade when cutting larch. Will use 10 litres in about an hour of cutting. Cedar on the other hand (which we are cutting a lot of at the moment) is just a joy to cut. No issues at all.
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Ford F 450 XL Dump Truck | eBay Being the 6ft 8" chap I am, I've always been drawn to oversized American pickups. I'm not sure that my life will every be complete until I take up 4 car parking spaces at Tesco and drive something with at least a 6 litre displacement!
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It's a resaw for cutting multiple boards from a cant (a cant being a log with two straight edges). [ame] [/ame]
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Back on the cedar again. This time have a new machine (frame saw) coming so will speed up the production of finished planks. About 80 tonnes cut so far, topped and tailed (logs have firewood slab removed top and bottom and any 25mm boards to get down to prescribed thickness). Just waiting for the frame saw to come so we can finish planking them and get them out the door! Very good day today. 3 of us on site, cutting from 1000-1730 with 45 minutes for lunch. 70 logs through the mill, average 32cm diameter, 3.8m long. About 18-19 tonnes I make that. The log deck speeds things up no end.
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Glen Rosa Campsite on the Isle of Arran is wonderful. Just outside Broddick, at the foot of Goatfell. Just a toilet and a tap and a river to wash in:
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I think as a business owner, whether you make a decent wage or not is largely dependent on your reinvestment. I'm still a fairly new business (6 years) and I'm still heavily in the investment phase. Takehome pay is not much, but by the end of this year we will have increased turnover 4 fold in 2 years. After that, I can stop buying sawmills and forklifts and look forward to a bloody great tax bill!
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In the spirit of teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish... The dimensions of your trailer in metres are: 4.26 x 2.13 x 0.3 Multiply all of those together and you get 2.72 cubic metres (sorry to disagree with you Bob!)
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I have about 17 cubic metres of sawn western hemlock available. It came to me by mistake, wasn't worth sending back, so it all got slabbed up (almost all waney edged, boards from 200-500mm wide, some wider). I have thicknesses of 27, 40, 54 and 67mm. I am told it is ideal for interior joinery, as it takes a fine finish and is quite hard. On the basis of taking one complete pack (about 2.5 cube, or a spot over) it would be £210 a cubic metre. It's really nice stuff, ideal for someone wanting to fit out a house (kitchen, built in wardrobes, stairs etc) on a budget. It's all cut to 3.75m. It's fresh sawn now, but won't take long to dry at all. Can arrange delivery anywhere in the UK.
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Assuming that they are green, £65 to £75 a slab.
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In my younger, more idiotic days, I did pull out about 4 cube of rhoddie firewood from a site we worked on. It was hard work, but it burned beautifully. Regarding price, £300 a day.
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Very long standing customer and it's likely that at least some of the boards will be used in their full length. It will be well air dried prior to kiln drying.
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I have a Trak Met semi automatic firewood processor. Nothing will touch it on price, and the 25t ram and 47cm capacity is useful. I however would not touch arb arisings with a bargepole. It is difficult to make money from firewood and I think the only way to do so is to either be very small with few overheads and free wood, or to be much larger with very high efficiency. We are yet to properly test the machine (it's only done about 50 cube so far) but it seems to chug through 3m larch (at 10-40cm) at about 6 cube an hour. The production rates are so low on arb arisings that I doubt you'd do one cube an hour and the question is, is it actually worth it?
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That's quite a reasonable cut rate too. I think that the double ended chainsaw is a bit quicker (possibly 4 minutes for a cut like that) but you hang on for dear life. It's no fun. Good job on aligning the bar too - that is what us bandsaw operatives have to do all the time. Even the most minute alignment variation causes a dodgy cut. Extra oiler is certainly no bad thing.
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It is not for sale unfortunately as it is already sold. I do get logs like this from time to time but they are generally only for sale as a complete log.
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Very good - impressive finish off the slabbing attachment.
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Milled what has to be the nicest elm log I've ever had on the mill. Also the longest, at over 25ft long. About 4t as well. I felled it last week up in Morayshire and it was extracted and loaded the same day. The machine in the picture is a Tigercat Skidder and I always get a bit weak at the knee when I see it! Then loading it to the mill took a while. I use the log deck for all small to medium sized logs. Larger logs can go on it too, but require a forklift assist. The elm butt was about 18 inches longer than the gap between the uprights of the barn. Getting the boards off was interesting as they were a bit too heavy for the board drag back. They dragged back fine though once the board on the mill had been levered up and a roller put under it. This is the finished product: And a close up of the burr: I've had better logs than this through the yard, but I've always sold them on. This is certainly the best through the mill. Jonathan
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That sounds fantastic - I just don't have that level of lubrication, nor do I have scrapers. Time to get some fitted!
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I have a large, rather plain horse chestnut log in the yard. £7/cubic foot for the whole log would give you a lot of tables for not much money. The log is about 3.5m long, just over a metre in diameter if memory serves.
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I spoke to another (more experienced) sawmiller about it, fairly local to me and he knew exactly where it came from (Speyside). I will give the plantoil lube a go as larch is almost a no go at the moment. I have over 20 tonnes of the larch left in the yard and it's very good quality stuff. Just doesn't cut well. Regarding additional lubrication, I only have one lube outlet, but I could fit more. I'm also considering changing from sandwich guides to rollers as I think they create more heat, causing more resin to stick to the blade.
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Can anyone offer advice on cutting larch? I've obviously cut a lot of it, but as time goes by, it seems to get harder and harder to find logs that don't contain huge amounts of resin that sticks to the blade. I assume it must be something that I am doing incorrectly, so if anyone has any pointers, it would be a help. I should stress, I have no issues with any other species, just larch. Blades have a heavy set, usually 0.8mm. I have a lot of power on the mill and like a heavy set for a flat cut. Tooth rake is 10 degrees or thereabouts and I sharpen my own blades. I usually use diesel as blade lubricant, though have tried water also. I basically just end up with a huge amount of resin/pitch stuck to the inside of the blade (with less on the outside) which quite quickly leads to a reduction in cutting performance. I should stress though that I am very happy with the cutting of all other timber species. It's just larch that is causing the headaches at the moment. J
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I don't know exactly. You could clean it off and apply wykabor. Spalted beech is usually more valuable though.
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Too late now for treatment I suspect. Enjoy the spalted beech that will follow. Stickers are too thin. 18mm is better. Beech has a propensity for surface mould so strong airflow and thicker stickers are important.
