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Big J

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Everything posted by Big J

  1. Big J
    Agreed entirely. In addition to which, they need to start looking after their own drying. Customers should order their logs a year in advance and then they can be assured that they are dry when it comes to burning them. I appreciate some people don't have the space, but most do. Give than most people only burn 5-8 cube in a winter, it would only require 2x4m of storage 2m high (divided into bays) to do 2-3 winters. The issue is that customers want dry firewood at the wettest time of year, coupled with tricky conditions for deliveries and lack of daylight.
  2. Big J
    It was pretty dry - from windblow sites. The appeal is that 70% of the logs produced from that stock is ready to burn (ie sub 25%) and you get a lot of volume for your tonnage. Plus it's £35 a tonne delivered.
  3. Big J
    From speaking to everyone here, and the rep from Riko, I think that I just had a dodgy machine. It seemed in almost all respects that the power was throttled. Not much power for the cut or the split. The fact that it was jamming so often on spruce was what caused concern for me. Perhaps it's a warped perspective caused by running a sawmill with 40hp that doesn't struggle with anything - the WP36 spent much of the time battling to get through the timber.
  4. Big J
    I have a new firewood processor coming at the end of the month from Trak-met. 3 phase electric, 12.5t split, semi automatic, log table in, conveyor out. Might be worth you popping in to see it once it's operational.
  5. Big J
    That is correct. Seems to be going OK - just sharpen my blades at the end of every day. Trying setting them every other time, rather than every time.
  6. Big J
    Another 134 hoppus foot of oversized sweet chestnut through this afternoon from 1430 to 1715.
  7. Big J
    It's halved the amount of time that I need to spend on the mill, opened up a whole size range of logs that wasn't an option before (unless I halved them, which is very time consuming) and has hugely reduced my running costs. Here are the figures: One full production day on the Trak-met: 400 hoppus foot (I've done up to 380 in a day, but I've yet to get more than a 7hr day on it due to lack of light/other jobs). Cost of diesel: £8 Cost of labour to unload: £120 Cost to resharpen: £0 - total of £128 On the Logmaster this would have taken two days, so: Cost of labour: £240 Cost of petrol: £40 Cost to resharpen: £75 - total of £355 That's £227 saved, as well as one less day that I have to work. Given that we cut that volume pretty much every week, that's an annual saving of about £12000.
  8. Big J
    Manual setting, more or less fully automatic sharpening. The sharpener just requires me to advance the blade around the supports. The advancement through the sharpening machine itself and the grinding is automatic. Sharpener: Trak-Met : Pilarki, Owijarki, Traki : Sawmill machines - Sawmill machines - BAND SAW SHARPENER Setter: Trak-Met : Pilarki, Owijarki, Traki : Sawmill machines - Sawmill machines - BAND SAW TOOTH SPREADER 2013
  9. Big J
    I am gulleting the blades, yes. Took a while to set up the sharpener correctly to do it (the grinding disc is not a profiled one, rather an 8mm standard disc. The profile comes from the set up of the cam) but I'm not worried about prematurely wearing the blade. I've got 50 of them, they cost about £18 each and I'm just using 5 blades at the moment which I've sharpened about 5-6 times already. I tend to find that elm cuts better than most softwood. I find softwoods are usually abrasive and dull a blade a bit quicker. Cedar is an exception to this rule.
  10. Big J
    Hi all, Just really getting started with my own blade sharpening and setting. I've probably done about 25 blades so far. It's generally going very well, and I'm working with a 10 degree hook angle and a wide set (about 0.65 to 0.7mm). I've always liked a wide set band - I would happily take a slightly slower cut, a slightly enlarged kerf and a few more saw marks over the very smooth but invariably wavy cut timber a narrow (say 0.4mm) set blade cuts. I tried playing around with hook angle, but once I got towards 15 degrees, it didn't cut the elm well at all. Back to 10 and perfect. I imagine many of you have a lot more experience with this than me - any hints or tips? The one thing I've realised is that even for a part time sawmiller, self sharpening and setting is vital as even my learning curve efforts so far have been vastly better than the majority of blades I've had back from saw doctors. For the £1500 it takes to get set up with a sharpener and setter, I'd highly recommend it.
  11. Big J
    Getting colder supposedly. Thank all that is holy! Pretty miserable start to the day here today with cold rain, but cleared up. We had an absolute tonne of rain over the past few days (circa 2.5"). The forecast for the weekend is for good cold frosty weather - minus 8 up near Aberlour which means I'll actually get my timber extracted.
  12. Big J
    I am going to guess it's low £2000s. About £2200 would by my guess. My Coventry Climax is perhaps not quite as tidy as that, but it is 4wd and have a triplex mast. It was £1800.
  13. Big J
    The only thing I can't stand about FR Jones is when they chuck free stuff in with your order. God, that does my nut in!
  14. Big J
    52 tonnes cut on the mill in the last 5 days on the machine. 271.5 hoppus cut today from 1200-1730 with some time wasted on digging a massive Victorian nail out and the resultant band change. All elm, 1.5, 1.75 and two inch mainly with a couple of 3s and 4s. Mostly cut through and through and average of about 32" diameter, though one large crotch piece had me cutting 113cm above the bed. Anyway, now I've sorted the blades, very happy indeed. Incredibly quick mill.
  15. Big J
    I have the Trak-met TTS800 standard and it's excellent. Different class of mill but all of Trak-met's products are built like brick outhouses. Mine weighs 4100kg and even the basic TTP600 standard (they do an Eco now which is cheaper) is 1250kg. I have a lorry coming over from Trak-met later this month with a TTP600 standard and two firewood processors if you wish to see it.
  16. Big J
    Exactly. A little good will goes a long way. It's why I'm not tight with firewood on harvesting sites. If folk are prepared to tidy up the head of the tree that's fallen into the field, they can have all the firewood. Mutual back scratching is how the best business is done and I fear that if you insist on payment for the video, he might not offer you any more work.
  17. Big J
    PM sent.
  18. Big J
    Not desperately long - perhaps 13ft if memory serves. There are a couple of longer lengths at about 40". J
  19. Big J
    They didn't even tell me what went wrong. Just issued a credit note for a new one. Which I promptly got rid of!
  20. Big J
    I've got odds and sods you can have for free if you can collect them. Just lumps of elm mainly - chunks cut off sawing butts prior to milling, hollow ends etc. I'm about 5 miles west of Edinburgh airport.
  21. Big J
    It's a very British/American issue. Only difference is that we have a welfare state to subsidise people's abuse of their own bodies. I was in Sweden in summer and there are only a tiny fraction of people with severe weight issues compared to here. Similar in Germany also.
  22. Big J
    Would it be fair to say that the consensus is that the newer MS880s are not as well built as the 088s? My MS880 lasted little over a year of light use, whereas the 088 (already 10 years old when it came to me) was hammered for 2-3 years without any issues whatsoever.
  23. Big J
    I cut an odd oak about 4-5 years ago that from your pictures looks exactly like Holm Oak: It dried appallingly, splitting and cracking as well as moving like nothing else. I'd go out of my way to avoid it now. It was also brick hard and very heavy.
  24. Big J

    Hiab help

    Big J replied to Andymacp's topic in Maintenance help

    Turns out the weigh link on the haulier's crane that lifted the Rothes log isn't working that well on heavier logs. Was weighed onto a lorry at 2880kg today, no 2400kg, so your Unimog and crane did better than we thought! (and my guess on weight was only 140kg out, not 620kg!).
  25. Big J
    MS880 on one end, an 088 on the other. 84" bar, oregon chain. The 2m elm was so large than we had to build a gantry to walk along. Awful work and not to be recommended! The best thing to do with very large logs like that is to sell them on or send them to a very large bandmill. The main issue I found was bar deflection, which causes a whole raft of issues.

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