Big J
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Everything posted by Big J
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It's always a complete mix of species though Stephen, so no use for smoking. Would farmers be interested as it's high moisture content?
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I produce a lot of sawdust and need to find a solution which doesn't involve the farm taking it away and simply dumping it (all organic I suppose, but still a little wasteful). I probably produce about 10 tonnes a year, all in. Biomass isn't likely due to high moisture content. Animal bedding wouldn't work as it's fairly fine (and wet) dust. Any ideas? What do you other sawmills do?
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I'm using 2 inch Ripper 37 bands on the Logmaster and they are superb. I'm on one band at the moment that has cut 180 cubic foot of poplar sleepers/posts, 45 cubic foot of sycamore, some spruce and is still sharp. Excellent!
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Beech is certainly millable, and is a beautiful wood to work, however it isn't terribly fashionable at the moment. You might find it easier to sell if it's spalted or flamed, though I'm very fond of pure white beech, if I'm honest. If you are selling the log, you wouldn't get any more for it selling it as a sawlog, but at least it won't be burned. Jonathan
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Selling unseasoned at any time of the year is perfectly acceptable so long as you make it very clear that it is unseasoned. The nature of selling sawmill offcuts is that they are cut off the saw logs, processed into firewood and sold as soon as possible to clear space. My timber is rarely fully air dried but this is always made very clear. Jonathan
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There was a bit of tension in the logs that we were cutting yesterday, but the Logmaster just cuts flat. Don't need to pay any attention to feed speed through knots, or angle of grain. All I do is listen to the engine to judge my speed and go from there. For cutting kindling, you don't want to be doing any turning unless it's completely necessary. It just becomes uneconomical. Tension will only cause inconsistent board thickness - it shouldn't cause the band to wander. Time to step over the to the dark side and get a Logmaster?!
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Should work now
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Even a manual bandmill is very easy going compared to chainsaw milling. If you think about it, you are using twice as much horsepower to remove 5 times less wood. No wonder it's easier! As I've always said though, chainsaw mills have their place for the occasional sawmiller and for those of us who mill more in order to get back garden trees out and to halve/quarter larger lumps. Jonathan
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Sensible policy for a better society - I fail to see the problem with that!
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Right, finally some videos! We were cutting poplar for garden sleepers yesterday, so here are a few videos. Firstly, a tour of the mill: And then a couple of action videos: It was damned windy - I am very much looking forward to installing the extractor. Jonathan
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That's cubic feet Steve. 180 cubic foot is about 5 cubic metres, so 500 bags of kindling. Sleeper cutting is very time consuming though (as I've found out), as there is a vast amount of handling and very little repetitive cutting. You take a cut, off load the firewood slab, rotate. Take a cut, off load the firewood slab, rotate. Take a cut, off load the firewood slab, rotate. Take a cut, off load the firewood slab, take your cut at 200mm, rotate. Finally cut at 306mm, 203mm and then 100mm. That's assuming you are starting with a fairly large log that you can get a 400mm x 400mm block out of. If I were just cutting through and through at 80mm (which is about what you are cutting?), I'd get through 4 logs an hour with a couple of guys off loading (2 cubic metres an hour). What really slowed me down was pressure washing and helping stack the sleepers. Jonathan
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I thought that the debarkers rotated the log but apparently not: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5hjaxQ2xuU]Log debarking machine | Exports of round wood pine logs from Ukraine - YouTube[/ame] Skip to about a minute to see it in action. If you can get the timber for free, then consider it, but it's not worth it otherwise. It would take an age to pressure wash it.
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Assuming the crates are stacked, rather than loose, you have 1.6 cubic metres (which equates to just a touch over 2 cubic metres stacked). I'd aim for around £220 for that. It's daft money, but that seems to be the going rate. Jonathan
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I'd say it's not worth it. I'm just getting my teeth stuck into some nice poplar from Tom D, which has been forwarded rather than skidded. Consequently, it's very clean, but I'm still giving it a once over with the pressure washer as it only takes a bad strike on one pebble to ruin a band. Also, it would appear I can easily do an entire day on one band (180 odd cube of sleepers and posts, lots of firewood!). The larger mills have debarkers - like a massive lathe which strips all the bark from the log. Still wouldn't be really worth it for kindling grade wood. Are there any other forwarding options? The seller is going to struggle to sell it to anyone if it's plastered in mud and grit. Jonathan
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Would have been just as easy to get chainsaw milled boards out. I realise that the market might be different over there, but a butt like that is worth thousands milled here, and I hate to see good timber wasted.
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Crying shame to have ringed up that butt. Really.
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Very little design in it really - I just worked from the specification that I should be able to get a 25ft log through the front and went from there. My brother did engineering calcs on the roof, and apparently it can take a long term load of about 48 tonnes, provided it's evenly distributed. That's about 6ft of wet snow!
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Nice main stem! Hope it was milled.
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I could do with some sycamore next month, and I'm just the other side of the water. Depends of quality though - has to be very good with sycamore.
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Thanks chaps! I didn't think it possible, but it is something that makes the Logmaster look a little on the small side. Anyway, I've got an extractor lined up now, just need to get it wire. Nick, there is every chance that the extractor pipe will go over the fence too, provided the farmer is OK with that!
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Actually not mobile with it yet (need to sort out the tow hitch and lights) but will be in spring. The fence is being moved up anyway (slight expansion of yard) but as it stands it's quite easy to thread in through the front with the forklift. I left myself plenty of space. The shed will be wired up shortly with lights and a socket, as well as an extractor to draw the sawdust away from the mill and into a easy to deal with pile. Jonathan
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Forgot to say, all beams cut on the Logmaster except the two main beams. The uprights are 12x12 and sunk 3.5ft in with 0.75 cubic metres of concrete at the foot of each one. The main beams are different sizes (according to what I could get out of the log). The front one (facing the prevailing wind) is 12x9 by 40ft, and the rear one is 11x7, also 40ft. They were chainsaw milled, which was tremendously dull (320ft of chainsawmilling spruce is purgatory!). All cross beams are 6x3.5 and 20ft long, and the roof is box profile galvenised sheet.
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We've finally got the roof over the mill. It's staggering how difficult one of Scotland's main forestry management companies found it to delivery a load with half 4.9m half 6.2 with two 12.2m lengths in addition to that. It took a month and the 40 footers were still undersized! Anyway, the massively over sized and over built barn is complete and I'm very chuffed with it. 4 days including all the milling and ground works for me and a helper. I promise to get some action shots later this week! Jonathan
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What did the buffalo say to his son when he left for college? Bison
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There are only really two things that it can be - either the alignment is out or there is something wrong with the bands. You've eliminated bands (unless they are not new, you might have a resharpening issue) so it's alignment. Have you dunted the guide rollers on anything? They are very delicate on the Woodmizers and even a slight knock can put them out. For the band to track up an inch over 6 inches sounds severe. Could be that the tracking on the band wheels requires adjustment too. Part of the problem with cutting without regard for accuracy (which I know is irrelevant to your needs) is that you will accept a bad cut. A bad cut, due to a blunt band or indeed poor alignment only exacerbates the underlying cause of the bad cut and I think you would end up with a situation where it was cutting very badly indeed. Also Woodmizers and their tiny bands do struggle on non-straight grained timber. Jonathan
