Big J

I'm not sure that that is the case. The aforementioned beech tree exhibited tension in all facets of the stem, not just on one side. Alec - I reckon that even just halving a log takes the majority of the tension out of it. I usually try to take the biggest trees I can find, which all end up halved. I cannot recall the last time I had any noticeable tension in a halved log. There certainly wouldn't be anything in a quarter. Jonathan

I tend to mill pretty big lumps, so don't get too much in the way of tension. Smaller logs are far, far worse for it. The worst one that I have had in recent times was a lovely straight beech I felled and milled earlier in the year. It was to all intents perfect - 85ft tall 23" DBH, gun barrel straight and 4x12ft products off it with no twigs until 30ft and nothing more than 2 inches at 48ft. It had quite a lot of tension in it though, peeling away as I cut it. Only thing you can do is continue to rotate the log as you cut it, taking even amounts off all sides. You will still have some inaccurate boards, but it's not the end of the world. J

Makita Chainsaw DCS 7901 | eBay I'm resisting the urge to bid on it to get a back up for mine. Lovely saw, and more expensive to purchase new than it used to be. Someone snap it up!

I've had oak from this same site from Tom last year - very good stuff. Reasonably quick grown, strong medulary figure and nice to mill. Here are a couple of pictures of a board from a log that I quarter sawed from that batch:

The haul from the aforementioned sycamore:

One of the things that is worth mentioning is that it doesn't benefit you in the long term to pay too little for your timber. If you can build up a good relationship with your supplier by paying a fair price, they will always come back to you when they think that they have something that will be of interest to you.

About £3 a hoppus foot would be fair for them, given that they are nice and clean for the most part, but include a reasonable amount of much lower grade stock. So averaged out at 23" for each stem, you are talking 147 cubic foot and £441 for the lot (roadside, I'd expect to have to pay for delivery on top of that). I suppose the difficulty in making money from them is that for a turner, you have a massive amount of wastage compared to someone like myself who would just cut it through and through and recover 85% of the volume of the log. Jonathan

Pictures, albeit not especially good ones. The difficulties of photographing timber mid stack.

Bought a ripple sycamore log the other day and have thus far pulled out 45cm of chain links, 2 6" handmade screws, around 8-10 4" nails, some lead flashing and a few fencing staples. What fun!

Pretty stunning - no chance I'd be able to stand up in it though! Are the photos taken in Iceland?

One hell of a thickness of steel/cast iron on that - should be a good stove!

I'll pop some up tomorrow evening. Had a few folk interested. There are only two large pippy logs, but they probably amount to about 70 cubic foot all in. J

Just a quick shout out to see if anyone has any interest in large slabs of figured lime? Bought a handful of large sticks from a site clearance the other day as I thought that they would be interesting. I've yet to mill any, but reckon that they should be pretty pippy. If anyone is interested in some, I'd punt it at £10/cubic foot plus VAT, but on the basis of a minimum order of 30-35 cubic foot. I reckon you'd be able to make a variety of coffee tables, mirrors other things that made use of figuring. Lime dries incredibly quickly, and would be air dry by the end of the year if cut at 2 inches. I can post some pictures of the logs if anyone is interested. Jonathan

Good point Burrell, it is extremely hard of the body. I've not ached as much as I did the day after that last chain milling day for some time. Triceps as much as anything else! I recall filling my first couple of kilns with my chainsaw mill and frankly, I've not idea how I did it. Bandsaw milling is hugely easier to do day in, day out. After that last CSM job, I sat down, had a think and upped my prices to £275+VAT and mileage a day. Given that I completely dismantled the windblown tree, logged everything else up for firewood and produced 53 cubic foot of good quality Oak (about £954-1060 at £18-20 a cubic foot), I reckon it's fair enough. Fair play to you Rob for getting £400!

With forks you are largely relying on your end user using them in their complete form as a coffee table, or something similar. Consequently, you have a limited market, although that market seems to be reasonable. You might struggle a touch with oak though, as it's generally not as interesting as say Elm, Cherry, Ash etc.

I did a day for £225 plus VAT and mileage the other day (which was 54 miles each way). As my wife came along and helped, I felt that that was too little. I reckon you need to clear £200 before any labour is taken into account. Chainsaw mills cost more to fuel than bandsaw mills for a day.

90% of people who chainsaw mill seriously use an MS880. I have an 088, it's predecessor, and it cuts and cuts and cuts without fuss or breakdown. The 3120XP isn't particularly well regarded, as best I know.

Sort of resolved the situation with a gentle lie. We told her that Ellie had developed intermittent incontinence (which is plausible given she had a vets visit last year for something similar) than is persisting. Consequently, she can't do long car journeys and would be too much work for my aunt. She seemed quite satisfied with that explanation, and no feelings were hurt. Telling her the truth would have been disastrous I fear. Thanks for all the imput folks.

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It would be worth quarter sawing at much of it as possible. The resulting timber is known as lacewood and is quite valuable. The figure visible in the third picture is indicative of what quartersawn plane would look like. It's something I'd like to mill at some point - just don't get it up here.

Just that one awful day last Friday. Fine every other day - sods law I suppose. We even hit 20 celcius here today. Nothing special on the cutter fron Rhob - just 10 degrees or thereabouts. I sharpen little but often, every 4-5 cuts or so on that size of stem. I like the saw to pull itself along. I think we got about 53 cubic foot cut over the course of the day, which I think is reasonable given that I had to dismantle the tree first.

The site at the end of the day, complete with localised flooding and a river that had risen a foot over the course of the day:

Cutting: A stack of two inch boards (12ft long): Look at that finish! The extraction route:

An unusual job for me - it's been a long time since I've done a contract chainsaw milling job. Nice, wind blown oak stem. Had to dismantle it first, and then go from there. Perfect job for the chainsaw mill as there really was no way to extract the log. Ideal trolley to get it out is a carpet trolley by the way (for those of you that do more of this than me). Lay the board in the middle, and with the single axle and the board balanced, it's very easy to push out a 100kg slab. The weather wasn't kind at all, settling into a solid persistent rain early on in the day. Wasn't cold though, so tolerable. The customer had specified the size of the tree, and given that it was fairly small, I thought I'd try out the 25 inch bar (giving an 18.5 inch cut). Changed the cutter angles, and was staggered by the smoothness of cut. I've always run fairly long bars, and I'd say the finish is very almost as good as a bandsaw. I'll get a 33 inch bar from Rob D and I reckon that would be perfect for this size of log, avoiding the need to skim material off. Anyway, here are a few pictures: The Oak as found on site: Branchwood logged up: Stem sectioned: Setting the rail:

Hi Brett, Certainly very interesting. Did pick up 7 tonne today on a recommendation from an Arbtalker (thankyou!) but it was a mix of quality so I'll need some more. What sort of size is it? Can you take some photos please?