Big J
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Everything posted by Big J
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I would honestly just ditch the machine and get a Lumbermate or something. They have toe boards if you spec them.
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If it's of any consolation, I believe that what you describe above can be legally described as 'irreconcilable differences' in a court of law.
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It does have Indespension units on it, rated to 45mph. If I were to tow that on the road, it would only be for short journeys I think.
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Was it not possible to fell it from the ground?
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I got the impression that all the big houses up there had either switched to biomass or were in the process of doing so. I guess I only deal with the ones that are organised enough to sell their timber to sawmills, so they tend to have the biomass side of things nailed as well. The closest estate to you that I know does biomass in a fairly big way is Alvie. If memory serves, they chip and dry (using an RHI accredited kiln) about 2000 tonnes of chip annually. Given the profusion of demand up there, it might well be worth speaking to them about their experiences. If you approach them the right way, they might be happy to show you what they do. Competitors can sometimes work quite cooperatively
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That's Woodmizer for you! The sterling customer service is one of the many reasons I sold my LT40 and got a better mill for less money from people who actually cared about my business.
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I have no idea. It's not for commercial use really, but to share between a couple of friends for splitting knotty elm. Other stuff I'd use my screw splitter on.
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I'd be curious about that particular splitter as I've looked at it too.
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It won't be accurate on a 25" bar. An 18" maybe, but not 25. I tend to use mine more for accurate cross cutting of beams and lengths of timber - I set up a jig to do this and it's very useful. For vertical milling it's a bit hit and miss I find.
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Much the same here. I run mostly Ripper 37s, which are fine, but also have 5 Woodmizer bands, which are also fine. Whether they cut well or not is entirely determined by the person who sharpened them!
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I used to get £16/h (so £136 for a 9hr day with 30 min lunch) 18 months ago when I stopped doing forestry. I've only got basic tickets, but a lot of experience doing the same type of felling (relatively well drawn self select hardwood thinning) and I could happily churn out 60 odd trees (that's about 12-13t) without breaking a sweat. That's kit and fuel supplied by myself and it's a lot of work for not a lot of money.
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Just to echo everyone else (and whilst I have no experience fencing except for myself) I think you're very keenly priced. Stick to you guns, don't be haggled down. I often find that the customers who are least organised in terms of timescale (ie for me, they want the bespoke cut, kiln dried timber in 4 days) are also the ones that haggle on price.
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Worth milling, certainly. It's as much work to cut it for firewood as mill it, but you'll get an end value of £3700 as air dried oak boards (you'll need to air dry it of course) or £900-1000 as premium air dried firewood (assuming you'd get £100/cube for it). A double ended chainsaw mill set up would get through that in a shortish day.
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I don't find there to be much difference in cutting speed with the Granberg, and the last two chains I had both had tie straps shear, so I no longer use them. That said, 17.5hp with two 088s does funny things to the equipment. I've not had any issue with the Oregon chainsaw though.
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Lots of very good ideas and certainly very interesting. I love the challenge of something like this, and it's surprising the lengths I'll go to to avoid chainsaw milling on this scale. Rather fresh in my mind is that the only other tree that I have milled from that field was so hard that it broke my chainsaw mill (sheared cast aluminium) and an upper section on the bandmill would barely cut on about a 15" cut width and a fresh band. Here are a couple of pictures of the trees. The first one is the larger one. I'm 6ft 8" and my head comes up to the top of the lower left branch. The second one is just a touch smaller.
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I do quite like the idea of winching/rolling a log onto the trailer. The issue is the sheer size of them - the larger one is 7ft in diameter at chest height, which is the smallest point of the 14ft length. They are also not uniformly cylindrical. We will have a large skidder on site for some of the operation, so that combined with the tractor/trailer will likely be the easiest option. I'll still need a crane to put them on the artic though.
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Much appreciated Stevie
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About a grand to load it would be my maximum budget.
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Winching just isn't an option due to the aesthetic issues. The trees stand in a field right infront of a castle, and the extraction route through the field takes you out of the field around the back of the castle. Assuming a crane is 6 wheel drive, they tend to have pretty well treaded tyres - the issue is presumably the dead weight of the vehicle. The field is perfectly flat and well drained - it would need to be a bloody good frost though.
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Bugger! Any suggestions?
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Many of you use cranes on a fairly regular basis and many of those cranes are described as all terrain (designed to negotiate construction sites no doubt). I have two very large elm butts to move at the end of next month. Each of them, depending on where it is cut, could weigh as much as 14 tonnes. They are field grown and access is only achievable through the field - they cannot be skidded to roadside. The question is this - assuming a reasonably hard frost (and the ground is quite firm anyway), would a 6 wheel, 50 tonne class crane be able to cross a flat field in order to lift such stems onto a waiting tractor trailer? The other option is an awful lot of chainsaw milling, which I honestly really, truly do not want to do. Jonathan
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Fresh breeze and starting to rain. God I hate Autumn.
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Well at £400 it's less of a rip off than a grand (google it, that's what they seem to retail at now), but it's still a dreadful stove. Perhaps it's the boiler that ruins it.
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It is kiln dried (7-8% MC) and no, not suitable for outdoor use.
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I'm actually not sure if it has the log lifter, but it wouldn't be an issue if it didn't as I have the forklift. The production is all straight forward enough, it's the construction of 60 2m cube crates that is filling me with dread! Sounds like a bloody good production rate though. All I can really do in a day with the log splitter is 5t/12 cube if I'm lucky.
