Big J

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?

As the title suggests, in need of Elm butts. Bigger the better, burrier the better. Smaller than a 26 tonne load no problem, I'll just send something smaller to pick them up. Might travel a little way too. Nothing too dead or too small. Not really interested in sub 18 inch diameter stuff. I have no upper limit on size. Please get in touch if you have anything!

Ordered! Looks very useful.

Wonderful pippy oak that. I've not ever had it quite as wild as that - always seems to be areas of tight pin burr with cleanish areas around it. That log of yours seems to be completely wild! Good first effort on the milling Broonie - keep it up!

Christ, that really is buggered!

Wouldn't want to do it myself. Having towed a fair few large and ungainly loads in the past, all I want to do is sit my C1+E licence and get a bigger vehicle. 3.5 tonne class vehicles have their limitations.

I am the other end of the country, but deliver a fair bit. I've a lot of Elm and Oak mainly, kiln dried.

I'd be interested to see a photo of the butt just to see how bad it is. Other than that, it looks like a reasonable stem. Shame that it can't be used.

I could come and fell it for you Central, and would only take the main stems as payment, leaving you the majority as firewood. Or you could have them felled and I could buy them from you. Let me know. I've got far too much Oak at the moment, not enough elm.

What are the main stems like? Are they worth milling (ie, are they straight, relatively free of branches and not looking as if they are rotten)? If so, I would be keen to have the opportunity to make an offer on them rather than them being wasted for firewood. If you could post photos, that would be an enormous help. Jonathan

Eat lots and often. My typical day's food: 0630 - 500g soya yoghurt 0930 - 200-250g muesli (best you can get is Anne's muesli from the Daily Bread Coop in Northampton - not full of sugar), 1/2 litre soya milk, packet of ready salted Walkers and a piece of fruit. Several cups of tea and some fruit juice. 1215 - 4-6 slices of bread in form of sandwiches, more fruit, more crisps, more tea, more juice. 1530 - 2 sandwiches, more tea, more juice. 1730 - left over dinner from night before (homemade brinjal sag aloo tonight). 2000-2100 - dinner, followed by ice cream sometimes with a beer and sometimes a dram of single malt last thing. It's my wife that makes most of my food, and for that I'm very grateful. I always eat at least 5000 kcal a day, and I'm bloody expensive to feed. Without it I lose weight very quickly though. 6ft 8" and a lean 100kg is never cheap!

All I can say is respect, and you are one crazy mofo Rob! The peaveys look excellent - I need to place an order with you at some point so I'll buzz you to catch up and chat to you about it then.

Regularly trailed bandsaws don't last as long as the tend to rust more and maintaining alignment is more time consuming. As you say, you can have something that is light and easily portable, but at the expense of quality, or something heavy and solid, that needs 6 men to move it.

I don't, but I should imagine that it is cheaper. The proximity of this area to Luxembourg means that the prices are a little higher. Hard to believe really, but that is what I am told.

That's it Broonie. The Maars are lovely and I can't wait to go back in summer for swimming. Water temperature is up to 22-24 celcius depending on weather, and the water is pretty much crystal clear. A few other interesting bits - saw an advert for Stihl chainsaws on a shopping trolley, Bitburger (the local excellent Pilsner) is 35 pence a bottle, best quality forest in the Hundsrueck is still only around £4000 an acre (as little as one fifth of that for lower grade), diesel is cheaper, rental housing is about a third the price and there doesn't seem to be the wood pilfering theft issues we have here.

Fair enough sir! The LM1 track sections disassemble pretty small, but it's such a heavy thing that it's not going to be possible to move without a folklift. The site you live on has a reasonable amount of woodland - would it be possible to put up a shed around a mill that is lockable? Having your mill on a good, solid base and well set up speeds things up no end. You'd have plenty left over from your budget with the band mill being half the price, and the beauty of a shed is that you can mill when it's chucking it down!

You'll be needing the 'Eugenics Party' for that!

Cochem, on the River Mosel: Strutting purposefully into the forest: Pretty trees: Well thinned larch with good access, with regenerating spruce and beech under: Gemündener maar - one of quite a few volcanic crater lakes in the Eifel:

Well, it was certainly a very illuminating visit. 4 days there, in the Hundsrueck/Eifel region. I've not been to Germany since I've been involved in sawmilling and forestry. I've always known that the forest cover was extensive, but I didn't really expect to find places you could drive for miles and miles through without leaving the woods. Almost all forest had evidence of very recent work. Very little seems to happen at any one time, with continuous cover being the name of the game. Much more planning seems to take place, with extensive and well constructed forestry tracks. Nice thing too, given that there is universal right of access to forest (31.7% by area of Germany is forest, versus less than 12% here). All the villages are pretty. No nasty grey harled schemes, no depressing Barrett Homes developments. Well laid out villages, with most main roads bypassing them, rather than running through them. Visited a large hardwood sawmill, which was very interesting. They have more timber than I've ever seen in my life, have a hugely smooth operation but seem very relaxed. The owner showed me around for about an hour. All industrial buildings were wood constructed, sawdust fired kilns, funicular railway linking different levels on the site. Particularly nice was that I didn't see any hi-vis, idiot proof warning signs etc - much more relaxed. Roads were a joy - stark contrast to returning home and sitting in 40 minutes of traffic to do 10 miles back from the airport. No speed cameras, no pot holes, no Sunday drivers (comedy moment on an A-road getting overtaken by an elderly couple in an old Mercedes A Class......up a hill......with me doing the speed limit!). Either way, it's certainly accelerated our plans a little, so if the worst case scenario befalls Scotland and somehow independence is achieved in 2016, we'll be out by then! Some photos: Talsperre Nonnweiler: Sawmill tour: Funicular railway leading to upper levels: Mountains of kiln dried timber ready to go:

Sequoia I believe That is a big ugly lump of a tree Rob! There is enough timber in it to yield some quality boards though - look forward to seeing the results! Jonathan

A few different issues and questions I suppose. How is a log clamped on a swing mill? I think that it would struggle to quickly convert smaller logs. Most of my logs are a combination of full width boards and some narrower boards once the heart has been reached. This variety of boards ensures all customers are catered for, and reasonably quick milling. As best my understanding, most swing mills will only cut 8-10 inch wide boards, of which I don't sell many (unless it's been a large log halved by chainsaw mill, then you get a few). The slabbing attachment for the Peterson is a chainsaw mill, correct? Whilst I appreciate that for a 5ft cut, a chainsaw mill is necessary, I'd argue that breaking the log into quarters and resawing with a band mill would result in more timber recovery. Even if it took a bit longer, the extra boards you'd get would pay for that. I'm not saying that they aren't good mills, but I genuinely think that they are very limited to producing narrow boards from oversized butts. If wide boards are required, an Alaskan mill is more economical. Jonathan