Big J
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Everything posted by Big J
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Nice to see that I am not the only person who is utterly OCD on stickering - it's something that gets commented on each and every time I have furniture makers or other sawmillers looking at my stacks. Worth doing, certainlly!
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If the butts were of good quality and you were only paying for the butts rather than the branchwood, you could make a fair bit of money there. The only problem is the gamble taken with standing Oak sales - you don't know whether there will be shake or not. I always seem to pay about £3-4 a hoppus, but I often take small parcels (a trailer load or two) which command a lower price as they're not economical for wagons to move. Regarding pricing your lot, your brown might be a pound or so more a hoppus than your standard, and depending on how burred the burred lumps are dictates your pricing for that. Nice even pipping on a good butt could be £7 a hoppus. Full (and I mean complete for at least 2m) burr can be over £80 a hoppus.
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No timber that I have ever cut varies in colour as much as Elm. Avoid anything too dead as the colour just goes to grey.
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Yew won't really ever deteriorate. The sapwood might rot, but the heartwood is more or less indestructable.
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Very sorry to hear that. And I quite agree - you shouldn't have to go out of your way to ensure that scum don't steal your kit.
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Dealing with compression while milling timber
Big J replied to Rhob the Log's topic in Milling Forum
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 -
Dealing with compression while milling timber
Big J replied to Rhob the Log's topic in Milling Forum
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!
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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:
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The haul from the aforementioned sycamore:
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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.
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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
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Pictures, albeit not especially good ones. The difficulties of photographing timber mid stack.
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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!
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Pretty stunning - no chance I'd be able to stand up in it though! Are the photos taken in Iceland?
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One hell of a thickness of steel/cast iron on that - should be a good stove!
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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
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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
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Email sent
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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.
