Big J

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

What did the buffalo say to his son when he left for college? Bison

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

Many people do that. My uncle has heating pipes running through one of his. Either way, the pipes work using convection and the heat output is comparatively much higher and the heat seems to distribute further. We use no more wood than we used to with our 7kw Villager stove, but stay far warmer.

I'd forgotten that the video at the bottom also starts at my yard (complete with cameo from my idiot dog, Katie). The box on the front page is made from some really stunning brown oak from Althorpe, fumed to darken it.

A good customer of ours recently sent me a photo montage of a project they did using timber sourced from us. It's very interesting to see it all, stage by stage, especially having seen it in person at various points along the way. Outstanding level of craftmanship from Callum Robinson (no relation). A story from the workshop, from Method Studio

Get a Bullerjan Type 00 - order it from Germany. Stunningly unique and efficient stoves - we have a Type 01 and so far we've put about 2.5 cubic metres through ours in the past two months (it's on all the time) and we've yet to put the heating on. It's a fair sized detached 250 year old house too. Jonathan

Makes sense. I do like quarter sawn, but there is plenty of demand here for crown cut boards, especially when pippy. I like to have a variety of stock.

Oh, I don't do that! Looks like hard work! In my opinion the set up is ideal, but you would be simplest to slap a rail on the top and mill the log as you usually would. You will always have a flat edge to run on (which really does speed up the cut) and it gives you a variety of cuts. Not everyone wants quartersawn (less figure in most woods) and once the heart is removed, provided there is a bit of weight on the stack, you will get very little movement in the crown cut boards. The key is good stickering and huge, heavy stacks piled on top of each other. I think it would be difficult for most of us to have a stack that was too heavy. Jonathan

I can attest to this method producing far better quality boards. I do exactly as Rob does and halve large logs with the chainsaw mill. I then stand then up on the band mill and cut the boards off in exactly the same way. End result is much flatter boards without heart shake to worry about. Probably 80% of my stock is produced this way. Good post Rob! Jonathan

Looks lovely Nick! Still on the look out for more sequoia, but it just doesn't come up much.

Sweeney Kincaid Industrial Auctioneering Could be a bargain for someone

I would not ever rent out my mill. I've only ever let one person take the helm for a few cuts and that was after a huge amount of time with him watching. A mill's accuracy is all dependent on set up and careful operation. It only takes one clout of the guide arm to at best knock the alignment way out or worst, bend the guide arm or twist the head rig. It only takes one roughly loaded log to at best bend the back stops or worst bend the frame. Anyone can cut timber on a bandsaw mill, but if you want to provide the best quality, best cut timber, you have to be very protective of your mill. A day's tutorial is not going to make someone a competent saw miller, and the risk of them damaging the cornerstone of your livelihood is not worth risking. Jonathan

I've come to the conclusion that most people just can't effectively operate stoves. Our friends very kindly housesat (and dog looked after) whilst we were away and despite careful instruction, struggled to keep the house warm with our stove. Within a few hours of us being home, the temperature was up 5 celcius and the stove was happy again. Interestingly though, there was noticeable 'soot fall' from the flue when I got it back up to temperature again (towards the top of the ideal operating temperature range - always use the flue thermometer and don't know how people operate stoves without them). This indicated that it was running quite cold for much of the time. Similarly, another friend popped over the other week and popped a few logs on the fire. Failed to open any vents or check the fire and put it out, which was quite incredible considering she has been operating fires for about 60 years. She's unable to use her stove without coal though, which I've determined acts as a sort of fail safe in case of poor operation. Education on correct stove operation seems to be lacking. I do think that with education we'd use half as much wood and be twice as warm. Jonathan

Chamfluerie Estate: Logs and Woodfuel

"Sings to self - Nana nana nana nana Hidden Metal!" Nice little job but I reckon I'd want to have a metal strike contingency on the job!

Will certainly get some sorted when I get back (I still have vast amounts of spruce to cut) to work in a weeks time, but this week has been so busy, I've barely had chance to think about much but cutting. J

Lunatic day cutting the timbers for my new barn (except for the 40ft beams that they forgot to deliver!). Totally smitten with the mill - it demolished some pile of spruce today. Overall timber cut: 4@ 16ft x 12" x 12" 26@ 20.5ft x 6" x 3.5" 4@ 20.5ft x 3.5" x 2" Around 50 @ mainly 20.5ft x average 8-10" x 17mm cladding (some 27mm). All still waney edged, but will be mostly used as such. Around 190 cubic foot I reckon. All cut in 5 hours on 1 band (except for the first log which had the old band on - 8 other logs, and they were big, all done on one band). Cut almost without any deviation at all, and I really was gunning it. Also cut and split half the firewood offcuts in that time for my helper to take. Used 13-14ltr of petrol. One minor design flaw is that a fair bit of the saw dust ends up on the track roller, which will be remedied by extraction. Otherwise, a simple baffle would be fine. Can't tell you all how chuffed I am with it. Jonathan

Glad you asked! Oak is the toughest timber in the UK to dry well. It checks so easily that milling in the months of winter gives it the slowest start to drying, and the least chance of buggering up. Thus, November and December milled timber will have several months of cool temperatures and relatively high humidity to get a slow start drying. Trust me, the rest of the year is very busy! Kilns to load, unload, timber to sell. Other hardwoods can be milled during most of the months bar summer, and I find it's really only July that I am quiet. Then there is processing the firewood from offcuts, cutting softwood, remedial work at the yard putting up barns/buildings, and then if all else fails, consider taking a day off! Jonathan

Hi Tom, I'm deferring transport solutions until spring. Almost all of my work is statically based and I need something big to tow it. Could very well be interested in the poplar. I'll message you. Jonathan

Be good to see a few photos? Avoid milling it until next month. Cut thick, as it moves quite a bit and put a fair bit of weight on top of the stack. Jonathan

Peterson Mobile Saw Mill Forestry | eBay Not that long to go. Northern Ireland though.

Further milling today on the Logmaster. Cut two wild pieces of elm to great success. First piece was lightly burred and the second as knotty as hell (straight, large stem, but about 6-7 branches ranging from 6-12 inches wide). The knotty piece was actually spectacularly figured, but was cut more as a test piece. Any of you who have band mills will know the issues that oversized knotty elm will present. However, it cut stunningly flat. Even when it hit metal is just blunted it, resulting in the remainder of that cut being slow, but still completely flat. It's just so easy - I always used to have to try to feather the feed to get the exact right speed. Too slow resulted in poor production, too fast, a wandering band. Now all I have to do is set it going, watch the guide arm (the extra two inch width of cut is useful) and repeat. The guys at Logmaster are currently designing a mill to 'European spec' (ie smaller so as to be towed behind a normal 4x4). My mill is going to be used here as reference for what I think needs to be changed or not. Anyone is welcome to come and see it in action, and I'm quite excited to see what they come up with as a hydraulic mill for general use here. Jonathan

Interesting aside, but the convection pipes on our Bullerjan stove seem to act in the same way, distributing the heat far better than our old stove did. Don't know why all stoves don't have them!