Big J

The hoppus measure is a long way out on dimensioned softwood though. Instead of 20% wastage, it's more like 40%

Narrow band will struggle desperately in very dry timber. Oak is nice enough to cut when wet, but I wouldn't like to think what it would be like on 100 year old beams. I hate cutting dry wood - the difference with elm fresh versus fairly dry is a quartering of cut rate.

Pretty high really. Depends on taper, dimensions of boards being cut and overall diameter of logs. We produced 92 cubic metres of cedar for one job, which came from 130 tonnes of roundlog material. Mixture of larger and smaller diameter timber too. I'd guess it would have been around 150 cubic metres of stock to start with, so recovery was only just over 61%. I'd not a wasteful miller either.

I will do Mark! He is another member of the Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers. He did some milling for me before I got my own mill and has since done a bit of mobile work for me now and again.

180 square metres is a day's cutting. It's not worth buying a mill for that. Frank Gamwell sadly died two years ago. I believe his daughter is still running the sharpening and blade retail side of things.

Speak to Pol Bergius at Black Dog Timber - he is just outside Perth and is a top chap. Very experienced sawmiller too.

That is a lovely stick. Easy to remove. Tree surgeons strip the crown out, leaving anything deemed good enough to mill (I include the upper lengths for mantle pieces etc). Decent sized HIAB comes in and dismantles the remaining stem, piece by piece. Nothing touches the ground, no mess is made and maximum potential is realised from the tree. We do this reasonably frequently with large elm. HIAB hire for a stem that size wouldn't be more than £300 for a large 8 wheeler.

Hahaha! Yep, half German. We are nothing if not precise!

I've been saying to myself for a week that I wasn't going to post this, but the grammar Nazi in me can't take it any more! The thread title should read "Are there any tippers..." and not "Is there any tippers..." Ooooh, that feels better! I've been quietly screaming to myself every time I've seen this thread feature in the new posts section.

There is a school of thought that your workbench should be very finely crafted. It should be your first big project and a great deal of effort can be outlayed. I have seen some stunning work benches over the years. Beech is ideal as a material for benches as it's very hard. Fence posts would look very shabby, very quickly.

A fully hydraulic Norwood is Woodmizer LT40 money without any of the rigidity or production speed. Not to be advised!

Well, it would be a hoppus foot. Which is roughly 27 to the tonne. So £108 a tonne. Or £140 a hoppus cubic metre.

That's not much. Up here at least £6-8. Should haul it up here really. Haulage isn't that much.

Hi there, Photos and dimensions would be very useful. Might well be interested. If you wanted to email them to me, my email address is rstw at hotmail dot co dot uk.

Hydraulics make a bandsaw. You might be able to keep up in terms of cut rate with a manual mill, but every movement of the log is manual and you won't be able to keep that up for long without flagging. To put it into perspective: My best day on an hydraulic bandmill in terms of log count is 82 western red cedar logs, 3m long, average 11 inch diameter. Every log is clamped, cut, rolled, clamped, cut, rolled, clamped, cut, rolled, clamped and then finally cut. So assuming that you have a cylindrical with no taper (taper means toe boards, also hydraulic) you have a minimum of 7 hydraulic movements. Realistically, very few logs are without taper and the toe boards are almost always used. This brings us up to 9 hydraulic actions. Now with a hydraulic mill, this is all done in a flash with levers (no sweat broken). With a manual mill, assuming an throughput of 82 logs, you have a total of 738 times that you will have to manually move or clamp the logs. No human being could do that in a day, and this is where manual mills fall down. The total of 738 assumes that the log is not rolled initially when first loaded to the mill (which to be honest, most are, so a total of 820 movements is more realistic). In short, if you are doing a spot of milling for yourself now and again, a manual mill is worth it. If you are planning to do any more than that, buy an hydraulic mill or hire a mobile sawmill in.

No, it's the Dominator (named after the classic British racing bike) from Champion Stove Company Products Page and it's steel, not cast. Takes a 27 inch log and it's really still a bit warm to have it on!

Softwood (mostly larch) offcuts, though most timbers will do it. It just has big vents, so fires up quickly.

I'll take it at that. Where abouts are you? PM me if you like

Mine is at the bottom of the flue pipe.

I couldn't operate a stove without a thermometer. It's extremely easy to overfire a stove (mine, 20kw, can be over temperature in less than 7 minutes from first lighting it, depending on which logs are on it). I believe that a flue thermometer is a very good way of telling what temperature your stove is. I'd like to see another method that is as effective for a tenner.

If you are drying your logs in a greenhouse, it is a type of forced (ie artificial) drying and I don't think that the term kiln dried is inaccurate. A greenhouse is after all a solar kiln of sorts.

I saw their multirip saw (which I hope to invest in next year at some point) which looked excellent. I didn't see their edger, but did see their vertical bandsaw too. I didn't see them in operation as I was just at the factory - I saw the sawmill in action in June before I ordered mine. I use an ancient old Finnish edger (the make eludes me) which is generally very good. Cuts widths of 65 to about 280mm and is very quick. We much have put 30 odd tonnes of material through it in the past 2 months.

Mill goes good! We cut 6 cubic metres of waney edge 16mm cladding in 8 hours today and yesterday. Pretty tedious, but easy enough. Hydraulic handling is superb, headrig movements could be quicker, bands are a bit crap, but I'm setting Monday aside to learn how to use my sharpener and setter to address that. It's very quiet and refined compared to the Logmaster. The firebox is very small compared to most biomass boilers. I believe it uses intense airflow to achieve the KW rating it has and consequently requires very regular stoking. It's not an issue when we are in the yard. I've also sited it on the edge of one of my neighbour's yard and he gets a small amount of the heat from the boiler in return for stoking it when he's in.

I haven't tried milk trolleys, but that might be a neat idea assuming I can move them with a forklift. I would only loose fill the firewood, not stack it. I'm west of Edinburgh.

Thanks for the words of encouragement! You are more than welcome to come and see the kiln whenever you like. I've got some sitka due in within the month, so we'll see how we get with that.