Big J

No need to stock pile - as soon as you get the job start finding a buyer for it. It's just a case of ringing around sawmills in the area. You're in a lucky position as you could just have it hauled to Helmdon, milled by Steve there and offered to other sawmills sawn (attractive as sawn timber is easier to transport). I often try to discount my own timber purchases as a sawmill by selling loads to other sawmills. Finding good timber is the hardest part, and if you're on the ball in terms of ringing round, cutting the timber in an attractive manner to mills and having a few good folk who can help on the cutting and extraction, you could turn a good profit.

I do completely understand your logic, but 40 trees (if you included a few of the second lengths) is an artic load. Not many artic loads of walnut come onto the market, even second rate stuff (which I am assuming yours was, only due to it's relatively young age). I'm confident you could have sold the lot roadside for £10 a hoppus (£4270) for no more work than getting it there. There are a lot of large mills that process huge amounts of timber that would happily take a punt on a wagon load. You are a stone's throw from Helmdon Sawmills in Brackley, who are one of the largest hardwood sawmills in the UK.

Any interest in good quality european larch for materials?

That's just a bit silly though isn't it, when you think about it. I'll explain. Assuming an average trunk diameter of 17.5", you've got 437 cubic foot in those 40 lengths. A good mobile bandmill operator will cut those in two days. Even though they are fairly small, you'd still have no problem shifting them at £18 a cubic foot, meaning a revenue of £7866 for two days graft (before delivery or dealing with customers) less about a grand for the sawmill hire. £6600 profit once additional labour has been taken into account if you like. 437 cubic foot translates to 16 tonnes, which would yield 40 cubic metres of firewood or thereabouts. More than two days work with a splitter and a maximum retail of £3200 or less. More work, less money and you have to wait a year to see a return. If you air dried the sawn walnut, you could double your £7866. Why the hell people even consider firewooding trees like this is beyond me. It's like saying that you'd like to make less money for more work and you'd like to deal with a more difficult customer base just as a bonus

We're nearly finished with a windblow site with a nice little parcel of European larch and smaller diameter Oak. The 4.9m larch is possibly a bit good for fencing (average 50cm bottom, 35-40cm top) but happy to offer the whole lot for the same price: Larch: £7/cubic foot (£245 cubic metre) through sawn, £8.50 dimensioned Oak: £10/cubic foot (£350 cubic metre) through sawn, £11.50 dimensioned All plus VAT and delivery. Would ideally suit anyone doing a large amount of fencing that they want to last a very long time. There is probably 10-12t of good oak and 30 odd tonne of larch, maybe a bit more (it's not quite all out yet). Jonathan

I'm with Cardsave and they are equally crap. 12 month rolling contract that you cannot get out of if it rolls on. Signal crap almost everywhere and more often than not I have to ask the customer to do a BACS transfer anyway.

Got round to actually watching the video, rather than just spouting my double powerhead propaganda. Things to note: * Wedges are definitely required. No wedges mean than the trailing edge of the saw chain is being pinched, meaning slower progress, inaccurate thickness of board (as trailing edge skims off more material) and increased saw marks. * The jerky movement of the mill is likely to increase saw gouges - a winch would result in smoother, easier progress and would produce boards with a better finish. * Finally, it's just worth pointing out how different the cut rates are with 1 versus 2 power heads. It took that chap 2.5 minutes to complete half that cut. Stands to reason it's 5 minutes a cut, though they would get longer in the wider section of the log. Completing that same cut with two 880s, I'm fairly confident it would take 90 seconds. So hats off to the guys for producing a bloody respectable stack of timber at the end of the day - they must have been sporting adult nappies, 'cause there's no way they would have had time to stop to pee!

Wedges, winch and second powerhead

I use RD Anderson, but it does work out more per tonne to shift logs.

I always need a bit of low grade timber in the yard. If you can organise a lorry load, I'd take it at some point.

Bloody tired! On day 12 of 17 without a day off - just trying to get as much work done before Christmas as I can. We've got family up, and it will be nice to get a bit of time off. Yourself?

Haha! Not to worry Breffni

Getting cut on Thursday next week (finally!). Had a chap come all the way up from Cornwall for it earlier in the year. Sent him loads of photos (he's a boatbuilder), measurements etc. He got there and decided it wasn't quite clean enough - wasted trip for the both of us. I'll post some photos up on this thread when it gets milled. Quite excited to see it cut finally, as it's been sat at Helmdon for quite a while. Jonathan

You're only saying that because I bring you steak pies!

I spoke to about 3 different haulage companies down in Lincolnshire, and not one of them got back to me with a bloody price. It coincided with doing more elm sourcing up north, so it got forgotten. The frustration from my point of view is that speaking to other sawmills, continental elm isn't deemed to be as valuable as it's comparatively plain, lacking extensive figure, pip or burr. Consequently, it's hard to get a very good price for it. I'll see if I get a few minutes this week to chase it up again. Even if I don't make very much from it, at least it would be getting sawn rather than chopped up for burning! And thanks all for support regarding this rather unpleasant thread

You know me well Mr Dyer! Chains come out of the factory at a general purpose and excessively safety orientated setting. Even on smaller saws, you could afford to take the depth gauges down. When I was doing more cutting, the first thing I'd do with a new chain is sharpen it and take a lot off the depth gauges (that was a 550xp on a 13 or 15" bar cutting hardwood). Factory spec chains are slow. Now at the other end of the scale and the double ended mill, you have to take so much off the depth gauges (to make use of the 17.4hp on tap) that an angle grinder is required. The long and short of it is that you will find a set up that works for you. If lower depth gauges is preferred, go with that.

I would hate to go through life with that level of mistrust of people. I've offered to return your money, I've offered to show you my sales figures, you can see the copies of the veterinary bills for Katie and I didn't ask for your money in the first place. I've met dozens of Arbtalk members over the years and worked with many of them. I hope you are able to get through whatever issues you are going through that cause you to behave with such unpleasant suspicion. Jonathan

Lovely clean boards there

There is a chap on the local Gumtree selling kiln dried Ash logs for £275 for two cube - finest quality firewood you can buy he says. My question would be, why go to such lengths to find such extraordinary quality timber if you are only going to burn it?

I honestly don't know how to respond to that. You've clearly made your mind up that I invented a sob story about my dog to fleece a few unsuspecting Arbtalkers out of a couple hundred quid. Infact, now you come to mention it, the 3000 plus posts I've accrued here have all been building up to pulling off this scam! If you are going to attach strings to donations you make, I'd suggest you don't make donations in future. You strike me as a very bitter individual and I'd ask you, do you have any experience of running your own business? Running a sawmill is a very capital heavy endevour and the day to day costs are also extremely high. I did figure out earlier in the year that I have to make £150-170 a day before I make a penny profit,before I could pay back any finance/save up for new equipment, before I can buy timber or pay wages. That is quite a noose around your neck and a poor month of sales (which happens to us all) can empty any reserve you have. As I said Paul, send me your bank details and I shall return your donation. I'd strongly suggest you make no further donations to anyone in future as I would not want them to suffer having their business/personal affairs dissected/slandered in the months and years that follow.

It look like a bloody impressive bit of kit, but I can't help feeling that after watching it for a few minutes that it ought to be quicker....

Katie (the dog) is hopefully down to her last 6 weeks of treatment. She's on 50mg cyclosporin for two more weeks, to be reduced to 25mg for the last 4 weeks. We've had a few ups and downs - she had two more transfusions after the initial one, including one where she had to stay in overnight due to an adverse reaction. Most of her fur dropped out in July (coincided with our baby arriving!) due to the prednisolone leaving her system. Just incredibly glad she's OK, as she makes our daughter laugh endlessly

I did not ask for donations, I offered items for sale, which went directly towards her care. At that point I was skint (happy to send you sales figures for January and February to illustrate that this is the very quietest time of year for me) and we were being told by the veterinary hospital that the bills could runs to thousands and thousands (which they have, albeit over nearly a year - last bill was 3 weeks ago at £198). The elm I have in the yard (and all of what is being offered) is stock that has come in in the last 4 weeks. It is not anything that I had in stock at the time - had it been, it would have been offered for sale along with everything else that was offered. Now I'll happily hold me hands up for things I fall short on, but this is not one of those occasions. I will not tolerate character assassination in any form, and if you will please PM me your bank details, I shall return you 'graciously' given donation.

Nothing dry, though a lot of 1.5" going in tomorrow. Elm is a tricky one for flooring though as it moves around a lot. I still have a slight surplus of Beech, though to get 30 square metres might be tricky. I did have another beech log come in today though which could bulk it out. The other issue is that the elm at 1.5" is going to make for some very thick flooring (expensive on raw materials).

I'm not quite sure I'm following your grievance. You help was indeed hugely appreciated, and I'm sure that you can appreciate that financial circumstances for the self employed change constantly. I didn't ask for any financial contribution and Katie (our Collie, who is very nearly weaned off her meds for Aplastic Pancytopenia) has cost us over £3000 beyond what our insurance covered this year. This coincided with us expecting our first child, so any sense of panic on my part stemmed from that. I'm really somewhat stumped - you send me (again, a very kind, but unrequested) donation in response to me getting onto Arbtalk a couple of days after finding out my dog is unlikely to survive the sudden onset of a life threatening condition, and then 10 months later begrudge me the fact that business seems to be going pretty well? I don't understand it!