Big J

I don't actually think that I have any photos - can someone else who's had a pallet and maybe taken a picture do the honours?

Welcome to the big league Oli! Hydraulics are king! My new monster mill is scheduled for delivery around the 1st of October. I will miss the Logmaster though. It's working bloody hard and not missing a beat. Over 100 tonnes through it in the last 5 weeks. Jonathan

Tough day today with cutting a lot of smaller diameter logs, but in about 8hrs cutting we put 56 logs through the mill. All logs 3m, average 300mm diameter. Being cut to 1" and 4x6.25" cants mainly. Some 4x8" cants. All logs pressure washed, 3 tonne of firewood produced, much sawdust and I'm shattered. So are the two guys who laboured! A log count PB for me by a mile.

A pleasure Will. Still loads left. Head down, stuck into a lot of cedar cutting at the moment but still time to send out the odd pallet here and there.

My favourite of the 'best of the Fringe': "When visiting Edinburgh, I'm reminded that a gentleman is someone who knows how to play the bagpipes, but chooses not to" Gyles Brandreth My feelings exactly!

If you're thinking concludes that an M8 is useful, you're as well getting a small bandmill. Quicker, less waste and you don't have to haul the logs up to waist height. If you require mobile milling, get an Alaskan. If you are milling from a yard, statically, get a manual bandsawmill.

95% of people I know who do serious chainsaw milling use large Stihls (usually MS880s). I did huge amounts of chain milling, I don't any more, but always used 088s and MS880s. Generally very reliable.

The biggest limiting factor is not your mill but the folk supplying it and the folk clearing the boards away. I'm in the middle of a 130 tonne order at the moment and it all falls down if I have to leave the controls of the mill. I need a constant supply of pressure washed logs and a constant supply of labour to offload the mill. Then there are the waney edged boards that have to go through the edger. All of that requires three men, plus me. Then factor in sawdust removal and slabwood removal. At the moment we produce 2 cubic metres and 2-3 tonnes of firewood a day. That takes time to clear. Anyway, at the moment it's taking us 4 days to clear an artic load. That's cut at 4x6.25/4x8/4x8.5/4x9.5 and inch offcuts mostly at 6.25" wide. So 18-30 logs a day, about 4.5 cubic metres of finished product, though a lot of that does depend on how many customers come and other interruptions. Hardwoods are a bit easier. On a general day's production cutting average logs and average thickness, we do about 4-5 cubic metres. That's pretty leisurely though, and includes all the sawdust scraping, anti fungal treatment and stacking. On the raw cutting, I'm usually a cubic metre an hour on most things if I don't have to do anything other than cut. Can be double that on some nice soft elm or cedar though.

Elm of any quality sells really. I usually work on the basis of making £4 a hoppus on green timber sales, £10 a cubic foot (not including wastage for drying cracks/defects) and £18 on kiln dried timber (again not including drying wastage). So your end price can be quite dependent on your start price!

Ah OK. Fair enough. Shame not to be able to delay it though. Just look after it - lovely boards!

Lovely boards but I really would have saved the log for cutting in cooler weather. One little spell of hot weather and it will cause no end of cracking. Store them somewhere as cool and as damp as possible, but treat heavily with anti fungal agent.

The Logmaster is a very fast mill (2" bands help) but I did have three guys in helping me. That being said, only one unloading the mill - the other two were edging waney edged boards, pressure washing logs (that also speeds up production - no mucky logs means fewer band changes and better accuracy). 11.5t of 130 odd tonnes to cut - we have to be quick or we'd never finish the job!

Perhaps you chaps aren't quite grasping the quantity of sawdust being produced here. I had 21 cubic metres of it go out this week...! On the offcuts front - Good News! Local biomass producer has offered £25 a tonne with them collecting, so pleased with that.

It's feasible certainly, but you are going to want to spend the most you can on a saw. Anything less than fully hydraulic is going to frustrate you and your customers no end. A hydraulic mill will cut many times more in a day than a manual mill and you won't be as tired at the end of it. For instance, I have a fully hydraulic Logmaster LM2 and we cut 11.5t of average 35cm diameter 4m western red cedar yesterday (29 logs). I don't think we'd have done more than 10-12 logs on a manual mill. Where abouts are you?

Almost all good hardwood species will make 1000 or more euros a cube when dry. Double that for burr elm or walnut (and then some really).

Just curious what some of you larger sawmills do with your waste products? I'm about 38 tonnes into a 130 tonne cutting job and we're producing sawdust and offcuts at a rate of knots. About 2 cube of sawdust a day and 2.5 tonnes of firewood offcuts to be precise. Are the biomass lot interesting in sawmill offcuts or will they only pay a pittance? I used to firewood it myself, but I don't have time time (and never really had the inclination). The sawdust goes to horsey types, but it's a ballache loading them up and organising them to bring builders bags and not come after hours or weekends. Any ideas appreciated - seem to spend almost as much time dealing with the waste products as cutting!

I'd always say allow at least 10mm, depending on timber species. If you are cutting timber to sell, always cut thicker than you sell it at (so that your customer feels they are always getting a bit more, and so that your 1.5" stock is never less than 1.5"). So for instance, cut 1" at 27mm, 1.25" at 34mm, 1.5" at 40mm (or even 42mm), 2" at 54mm and so on.

Alaskan and bandmill. Use the Alaskan to break down larger logs and do the bulk of your cutting on a bandmill. Even a basic manual bandsaw mill with produce twice as much in a day as a chainsaw mill and remember that you are creating 3 to 4 times less sawdust with every cut too. This means better efficiency and not having to deal with colossal amounts of sawdust. That said, all my horsey types that take my sawdust are full to the gunnels and I have 30 cube of the stuff waiting to go out!

Now 6 years into self employment, I'm trying to take more definite and more regular time off. I guess it's something you naturally crave when you become a parent. Had a week in Sweden so far this year that was a complete holiday, several days in Germany that sort of was (collected a trailer, drove a couple thousand miles) and planning to have another week later in the year. With the hours I do at the sawmill, I'm certain that I do an average of 45 hours a week even including my weeks off. So bloody busy.

Not sure. Will give you a buzz when it comes out. 6 weeks or so, maybe a bit less.

Sorry Steve - didn't see this post. There is some of it in the kiln now, so once it's out, I'll send you a turning blank for identification. Very heavy indeed. Really, really heavy. No outcome just yet chaps - still in the dark.

Beautifully made and a good idea, but is it not a bit flexible? Thick and as heavy as possible is my experience of chainsawmilling rails. The last ones I made were from 8x4" timber beams.

Not many fishkeepers here then!

Much to my wife's bemusement/amusement we now have a very tiny 2nd tank for the purpose of breeding a red cherry shrimp hybrid. Bought several hundred of them from a local breeder, not realising that they were quite as small as they were. One bag went into the big tank and many were quite quickly eaten. The other bag I kept back and set up a 15l tank to provide a steady steam of shrimp for the big tank. There are loads of places for them to hide, but there are also lots of predators!

If I was cutting to get a finished 144mm PAR I'd start at about 165mm, expect it to shrink 8mm and plane off the rest. That's assuming it stays straight....