Big J

Stunning - nice work you industrious bar steward! I have quite a bit of 2 inch kiln dried cedar in stock if you are desperate.

I suppose there is another option missing - "Online because my local dealers are either hugely overpriced, crap or both". I attempted to foster a decent working relationship with a local Stihl and Husqvarna dealer last year. I paid a bit extra for a blower to get it from them. So, when a chap who works for me's MS261 needed attention (needle bearings - what else?!) I took it there. It took them very almost three months to get it back to me, with them needing constant hassling to get anything done, them taking an extra two weeks at Christmas on top of the normal two weeks (they had holiday to use up apparently) and then them having the cheek to lecture me about them doing me a favour for taking an FR Jones saw. Apparently it's more convenient if you go local. The main problem is that most of the dealers are stuck in the past thinking that it's expensive and inconvenient to post stuff around the UK and that online buying is a pain. It's just not the case. The only local supplier I religiously support where possible are a farm suppliers called John Kerr in Linlithgow. They are excellent at getting any part whenever I need it, they are quite happy to haggle prices (to a point) and they don't chase me if I've got £30 on the account I've forgotten about. Recommended.

Funnily enough, I find mine to be a bit more of a pain to start if I don't use the primer. Using the primer I've found that it always starts easily enough, but you are best to leave it to idle for 20-30 seconds before giving it any gas as it dies. Lovely saw though. I've rekindled my love of short bars with a 13 inch wee beastie. Took a long time to get the chain right. Firstly - it seems to come out of the box fairly blunt (Oregon semi chisel). Secondly, you have to take the depth gauges down such a long way from stand to get the best cut rate. It's been flying through some quite hard ash, but still very smooth and not grabby like a 15 inch bar on the same chain set up. Also, underbrashing softwoods is child's play. Don't know why so many people muck around with bars longer than their needs.

Not disputing that it's a good saw, but it's total overkill. For maximum diameters of 15 inches, a 550xp is going to be amply powerful. Any more than that is unnecessary.

It would be much easier if being a thieving traveling scumbag were made a capital offence. With overpopulation an issue in the UK, it's one way of easing the situation. It's just depressing really. I've only ever had one such visiting trades pitch, and hope never to have another.

I bloody hate oak. Nothing takes longer to dry and frankly, I don't think that it's worth the wait. Give me sycamore/elm/lime/any softwood any day. Oak sulks on the fire, and needs nursing like a sick child.

Not sure yet. Leave it with me until the start of next week once I've had time to have a think about what I can find. I have some 26 inch wide wavey grained 1.5 inch thick elm that has the odd bit of pipping in it - very attractive, but not burred enough. Kiln dried though.

Very good milling - clean finish. I'd aim for the £15-18 a cubic foot mark for fresh sawn cherry. Air dry it to 18% and you can add a tenner onto that. Kiln dry it and it's another £7-10 and it's much easier to shift.

Fair enough - I've yet to really try them, but I am lucky to rarely suffer from cold hands once I'm working. I just use a good pair of insulated gripper type gloves with a waterproof palm and fingers. It's the extra weight and cost that puts me off - I had a play with the foreman foresters 357xpg and it did seem a good bit heavier than the standard 357.

I don't think that that is true. I've extensively used various 50cc saws for hardwood thinnings. The difference between bar lengths is very significant. A 13 inch bar will cut 12 inch diameter wood much quicker than an 18 inch bar, in addition to which it will be lighter for snedding and accelerate far quicker. Stick with the shortest bar that doesn't excessively limit you. A long bar usually ruins the balance of a saw too, as well as sucking power and increasing weight.

The problem is the building industry here full stop. People don't want to take responsibility for building their own houses, so developers build almost all new housing here. Consequently we hugely overpay for crappy quality housing with at most a 50 year life expectancy. We endure tiny plots, tiny rooms, next to no sound insulation and cramped developments. From the BBC news website: "Other countries are way ahead, he says. In Austria 80% of all homes are self-built. In Germany, France and Italy the figure is 60%. In the US and Australia it is over 40%. By contrast the figure for the UK is about 10%." The article in question: BBC News - Self-build: Should people build their own homes? What is needed is a fairly monumental shift in national mindset coupled with government action to effectively put most developers out of business. Also, all planners should be hung drawn and quartered, just to be sure!

Hi Chris, What is the timescale? I can perhaps hunt some down - would you like it fully planed/sanded too?

Glad to hear that your system is working well for you, but the fact of the matter is that they aren't the best way to improve your house's energy efficiency. Firstly, you have PVs running your units, which is in itself unsustainable. Small scale PV systems are uneconomical, and almost no one would have them in this country if it weren't for the huge grants (that have now mostly expired, mercifully) and high FITS payments. Without subsidy, PVs degrade to the point of being useless before they have paid themselves back in this country. Secondly, there is a big problem in this country with focus on 'eco bling' (small scale renewables) rather than high levels of insulation. The building regs still have very poor U-value targets, yet all new houses must now have some form of carbon offset, which means the inevitable addition of a decorative windmill or solar panel. It's environmental tokenism and is misguided. Here is a link to a book written by my wife's boss which expands on the above quite considerably: [ame=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ecominimalism-Antidote-Eco-bling-Howard-Liddell/dp/1859463002]Ecominimalism: The Antidote to Eco-bling: Amazon.co.uk: Howard Liddell: Books[/ame]

Save an extra £50 and lose the heated handles. They are unnecessary in the UK IMO.

I was supposed to have a chap calling me today about a burr log I was meant to be picking up, but it didn't materialise. I don't have much burr at the moment at all, but can probably find some. Is fresh sawn acceptable, or does it need to be dried?

The fact that they do work is not being disputed here. They are however a very inefficient method of heating your home or your hot water. You cite summer usage for hot water, but you would be far better (and it would be much cheaper too) to install solar hot water panels. The very best thing that you can do in this country (apart from demolish your house and start again - we really do live in some of the worst housing in Europe) is heavily insulate your house, sort out your air tightness and for us in the arboricultural industry, install a wood burner/wood fired heating system. My the practice for whom my wife works have been putting up extremely green buildings for over 30 years and they only ever installed one air source heat pump. It was never used. Jonathan

Pointless eco bling (looks good, but does little to improve your carbon foot print). Far, far better to invest in energy retention than small scale energy creation. Renewables just aren't economical on that scale.

I also agree with you for the most part, but I do have a great deal of respect for people who undertake vocational training/study, particularly as the financial rewards aren't great (and usually aren't the reason they choose that career path). My wife is an example - she is an architect, taking 9-10 years to fully qualify, and earns about what an average employed climber would get. She is extremely good at what she does, has led projects of up to £7m (for the Foresty Commission - Glentress Mountain Bike Centre), and is also the only one of her friends in architecture/engineering who hasn't been made redundant. The hours that she has done when a project has been busy are daft (80 hours a week were quite common) and there is no overtime payment as it's just assumed that you will do it for the salary you are paid. We have pretty good job stability in this industry. If we are reasonably competent and diligent, there is the opportunity to earn good money for something that requires very little training. The competence after training takes quite some time to develop, but it is worth bearing in mind that we are only regarded as a semi skilled profession (though I would at times disagree with that statement). I now have a couple of cutters working for me who have experience, though a little limited in places. They are however incredibly enthusiastic (which is infectious - I was ready to drop the forestry after Christmas, but was asked by my main client not to) and work very hard. When you get used to working with people who don't really want to be there, it's a breath of fresh air. At present I pay them a healthy training wage as I am there cutting with them every moment of every day. I will increase their pay incrementally as their skill and experience builds. Either way, there certainly isn't the money in forestry that there is in tree surgery, but I am very glad indeed that it's forestry that I do. The clearing up alone would drive me nuts!

A similar experience to my own I would say. Not working in the domestic market means that whilst the work is more regular, the potential reward is lower. I've had far too many cutters come and sub contract for me over the last few years, and each of them has gone the way moaning about wages/work. In fairness, I make so little from the forestry it's barely worth my time but I do it to basically cover our rent (I work for the estate we rent our house from) and ensure that the fairly specialised, delicate and highly publically visible work that needs to be done on the estate is done to a very high standard, by someone who has a vested interest in the place. I think that many people in the industry do have an over inflated idea of what they are worth. It's worth bearing in mind that you could do most of your tickets inside a month for a few grand. Compared to a university education in say engineering, architecture or medicine it's both a tiny investment of time and money. Climbers insisting on £200 a day should be reminded that in industries such as engineering or architecture, £200 a day wages is rare outside of senior management. For me, the amount of tickets or experience a person has is almost irrelevant. It's all about attitude and work ethic and these are qualities that you cannot teach.

A Fiat Panda 4x4... up Mount Etna - BBC Top Gear Very interesting article otherwise (I'm quite a fan of the new Panda 4x4) but scroll through the photos for the ultimate in public transport!

The semi chisel chain that it came supplied with Jon. I much prefer semi chisel really (more durable for forestry work - one sharpen a day is all that's required. Even then, it's perfectly sharp when it gets sharpened again) and I'm deeply intolerant of a blunt chain (hundreds of hours of chainsawmilling will do that to a man). Might try it with a full chisel at some point though.

I have a 550 on a 15 and I'm never left wanting for power on hardwood thinnings. It's extremely quick and a fair bit quicker than the 346xp as well as being 200g lighter (fully fueled with bar and chain - did weigh to check).

Common misconception - you mill the timber when it is as green as possible and then dry it after. Rule of thumb is a year per inch of timber, though in practice it's quicker in a barn with good air flow.

Very good stacking there! I'll not hold the species misidentification against you - the two can be fairly similar at times. It's the smell that distinguishes them more than anything for me.

I stand corrected! It's certainly better than I would have though it would be - my only remaining reservation is the healed pruning cuts and how much rot they introduced into the butt. Look forward to the milling pictures!