Big J

I'm actually not sure that the auxiliary oiler is required. I run a 50 inch bar without it, and only have issues with pitch build up and dry chains once the edge starts to go. I think that best practice is to sharpen a lot, and making sure that that edge is perfect mostly removes the need for the oiler. I used to have one on my 42 inch bar I should stress. And when I say sharpen a lot, I mean every 3 cuts on 40 inch wide by 9ft long material (as a minimum).

Excellent - really very good indeed. Thanks for the photos Martin.

The tree has been there for hundreds of years. The owner hasn't. The problem is clearly the owner, and perhaps they need to be removed instead?

Give me his number - I'll have a go! Seriously though, surely it is subject to a TPO?

Seems a tremendous shame to fell that. What is the reason for opting to remove it? Can it be saved? I say this as a sawmiller with a vested interest in stems like that, but I'd put that tree at over 300 years old and I just don't think that we should be felling such examples unless there is a very good reason.

You utter bar steward! You of course realise that this is only going to come back at you ten times worse. You'll stroll out of the shop one day, looking forward to driving home for a relaxing evening only to find that your steering wheel has been replaced with twizzlers!

There is no best size as such - you could do a variety of sizes for beams (though 3.7m is a touch on the short side for that) or cut some thinner material for cladding (though DF cladding isn't too common yet). I'll give you a buzz today about it.

Well that is likely to produce a truly unique excuse for low productivity for the day!

That is a nice batch of DF Eddie. Fancy parting with some of it?

Haha! I saw the thread entitled 'Navara Bike Rack' and the first thing that sprung to mind was what a good idea! Like an ocean liner with lifeboats, a bicycle would serve as a useful backup transport option for when the Navara breaks down! They should put them onto the standard equipment list! Jonathan

Or, train your dog to heel so that it doesn't need a lead? I bloody hate leads!

I paid £60 a tonne for a more manageable sized deodar roadside, with a couple of sequoias in there too to make it worth while for a lorry to go in. Had the stem been left in one piece and the sawmiller allowed to make the cuts, I'd have offered about £40 a tonne for it roadside and about half that if access was an issue. Cedar is nice, and the boards that I cut continue to trickle out, but I don't expect to make much off it. That said, the primary market for it is outdoor furniture (in my mind) and I don't do that, nor do I supply many people who sell it. Jonathan

Bit of a waste. For future reference, if you advertise the tree before you fell it, you'd be able to find someone to take it prior to the fell. For something like cedar, which is reasonably low value (and labour intensive to saw at that size) you would be lucky to get any money out of the stem, but you would save a huge amount of time and effort in not having to disc it up. I just hate seeing good timber wasted. I'm wanting to build an outdoor sauna and I can't think of a finer timber than cedar.

Glad to hear that the timber is being milled - lovely timber Deodar. No timber smells finer - I remember when I had some of it in the kiln that you could smell it from 30 yards away (vented kiln).

That's not firewood. That is a perfect job for a swing mill and enough timber in it to clad a house! Definitely cedar, just a well dead on. One indicator is that the sap wood is rotten, the bark is gone, yet the heartwood is as fresh as a daisy.

That is a quick question with a very long and open ended answer! Whether a board splits or not depends on the following factors: * The time of year that it is being milled - summer is generally worse due to warmer, drier air resulting in initial drying being too rapid. * The drying environment, is the air too dry and is the end grain subject to direct sunlight? * Inherent tension in the timber - ash is a bugger for long heavy splits due to tension. * Stickering - are there stickers at the ends of the boards (unstickered board ends split more) * Quality of timber - better quality logs are far far less likely to distort/split than poorer quality. So in an ideal world, you'd mill perfect quality winter felled hardwoods in December, stack them (perfectly) in a barn with no direct sunlight but a reasonable air flow and all would be well! Reality is slightly more complicated, but that is the ideal scenario. Some people paint end grain but in my experience, it makes little or no difference. Jonathan

I generally sell air dried for £10 less a cubic foot than kiln dried. For us, the kilning at the end is only a week, whereas the air drying takes at least 8 months depending on thickness. For me, my air dried oak is anywhere from £25 (garden furniture grade) to £45 a cubic foot (quarter sawn brown). That is £882 to £1588 a cubic metre. Frankly, I think that that is too much, but I'm still cheaper than my competitors and I am in this to make money!!

Not a bad first effort at all. Nasty size of nail to hit straight off. For future reference, the best thing to do if you hit metal that early is take a disc off, resharpen and start again. Other pointers - try to keep the mill in a steady line going forward rather than see-sawing back and forth. Also, you only need a total of three wedges to hold the cut open. Insert one at the end (start of cut) once you are about 18 inches into the cut. Then, 3-6 inches prior to exiting the cut, insert one either side, just back from the saw. Don't whack them in too hard (it causes the last 5-10mm to tear, rather than saw, leaving an annoying ridge which has to be removed for subsequent cuts). Also check the first wedge you put in too. Finally, I can't see exactly what is holding down the ladder, but you have to make sure that it is rock solidly attached. Any movement in the ladder will be transferred to the cut, and indeed each subsequent cut. The set up is the most important part - it doesn't matter how good you are on the saw; if your setup is lacking, you cannot produce good boards. Keep it up - good work!

Will do - thanks for the quick response.

Just wondering if anyone can help with moving two Elm butts from Hilton in Cambridgeshire to Brackley in Northamptonshire on the morning of Saturday the 6th of July? It's 65 miles, and I would expect it to be a 3.5 to 4hr job overall. Maximum length 16ft. Maximum theoretical weight 5 tonnes. Please let me know if you can help or know someone who can - I could call round the HIAB operators, but would like to try here first. Jonathan

The quality of timber is largely dependent on the expertise of the person producing it. Comes down to how well it's cut, stacked, positioned and kiln dried. You can take a good log and produce bad boards, but conversely you can make quite a lot out of a poor log if you know what you are doing. For the inexperienced, a roadside sale of a good log is probably the best return. They would, for instance, almost certainly produce poor boards if they milled them at this time of year. Too hot.

Holy thread revival batman! It's been pointed out to me that a Unimog would be a perfect tow vehicle for my new sawmill when it arrives at the end of August. My budget is fairly limited and I like the look of the 404s (some nice old fire engines on German eBay. Water tank is very useful for pressure washing logs on site). Firstly, is £4k on a 404 £4k wasted. Secondly, if registered as a forestry vehicle, what are my limitations in terms of what I can tow, how far can I travel on red diesel, do I need a tacho? Any other useful info? The sawmill is 11.4m long, 2.55m wide and 3.3m tall. It weighs 2.8 tonnes. Many thanks in advance! Jonathan

Sorry to hear the Makita didn't work out for you Danny. I'd avoid the MS181 personally - I had one as a first saw, which seemed OK at the time. I then bought one again some years later and was staggered how slow and gutless it was. Additionally, Stihl non-pro saws never seem to oil well. I'd possibly try to push your budget up a touch - the Tanaka I have is pretty solid at £320 and has a 7 year domestic guarantee. Jonathan

You lucky bar steward Clive! I love sequoia, but it isn't very commonly felled. In answer to the other questions, it's an excellent cladding and exterior furniture material. Semprevirens is the better of the two, being far stronger. Wellingtonia is also extremely rot resistant, but is very brittle, so best only for cladding/fencing. It dries incredibly quickly and with no defect. Having seen a workshop clad in it, I'd choose it for cladding over anything else. Jonathan

Fully hydraulic, with Lubemizer (fancy lubrication system for the band), board drag back, debarker and Set Works. Also trailed. Just under 3500hrs on the clock, will be fully serviced next week. Also might have the chassis fully resprayed prior to sale (no rust issues, just paintwork starting to show it's age [2006] and would benefit from being renewed). 30 bands, some spares, complete with seat as well. £19k. Jonathan