Big J

Far fewer issues with summer felled darker woods than with the white woods. Oak can be dropped at more or less any time of the year. Elm is very rare in your neck of the woods (I would imagine), so make the most of that too. No issues as far as I would be concerned.

I think that there is more coming into management. Much was planted and forgotten about - a lot of the big estates have fairly large hardwood stands and really struggle to get anyone with the experience to cut them sensitively. I'm going to speak to the chap that originally did my chainsaw certs (Chris White) for guidance on this. Got some interest from a forestry training social enterprise too.

Lovely colour in the Oak - good job!

Very good! Is the fourth photo in Fife near Auchtertool? Looks like one of the Lomond Hills in the background.

Fair enough. I do stand by my statement that using a large Elm for such things would be a waste. Mike, I know Falkirk Wood quite well. There are other sawmills in Scotland that have similar arrangements with councils. It can be a double edged sword though, as they have to process some real rubbish too. It's best to be as selective as possible with regards to timber you mill - it's all the same time and effort to mill a crap log, but without the quality timber at the end. Leave the rough logs to the local authorities!

I fully understand that, and indeed applaud the initiative, as there aren't too many councils that do that. However, my question if, what possible use would a council have for an oversized Elm? Traditional infrastructure work with elm would have included below water level pier work, water pipes etc. It's just a waste of Elm with there being so little left.

With the best respect for such initiatives, the processing and marketing of specialist trees such as elm is not best done by local authorities. Particularly as it's a diminishing resource, the best that can be done for such a tree is for it to be carefully processed and sold to those that will make best use of it. I'm not saying that it's not going to happen with the council, only that it's unlikely.

I messaged you Dougal - thought it easier.

I do like a big tree! That said (with the greatest respect), tree surgeon types tend to round up the diameters up to the nearest foot, but even a four foot stem would be lovely. J

Sounds very interesting. Could you please give me some indication of how long it has been dead, and where abouts in Scotland you are?

A little, yes. Perhaps 15-20 cubic foot or thereabouts. What are you needing?

Haha, just realised that you meant the place Keith, rather than the Woodmizer Agent Keith Threadgall. It was a very long and tiring day yesterday! I think you might be right in terms of management. It's funny - I looked at that schedule (out of curiosity, I like to keep an eye on estate and woodland sales oop north) the other day. It's a vast parcel of woodland that would be a lot to manage on one site, but with it strewn across such an area could be tricky. Jonathan

Meow!!

The Rosebery Estate have the old Sawmill at Rosebery available last time I checked (which was a little while ago I must admit). It's in Midlothian, perhaps about 25 miles from Keith. Are you moving up to this neck of the woods?

The Makita DCS7901 has a power to weight ratio of 1.37kg per kw, so a touch better! Hard to find now for some reason though.

The height of those stumps! Was it being clearfelled for development?

It's Oregon chains that I typically use (I much prefer semi chisel over full - smoother, more durable and no slower IMO). With the thinning, there is so much repetition that it gives you a pretty good idea of small differences in sharpness/general performance. A new chain is undoubtedly slower. As an example, a friend recently bought a new 660 on a 25 inch bar. First job is a monster Noble Fir needing to be chopped up. He didn't believe me that new chains were half blunt, so I sharpened it, took the depth gauges down and it cut a full 50% quicker. That was a Stihl full chisel chain. I reckon that they have very tame performance out of the box as unless you are very adept at chain maintenance, an aggressively sharpened chain can be difficult to safely use in the hands of the inexperienced. Probably the same reason that stock saws usually have a fair bit more welly in them once ported/modified.

Ultimate G Wagen: Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG 6x6 first drive review - Autocar.co.uk Review | Autocar I about creamed myself going through the photo gallery. Now if they could just release an arb spec version at a tenth the price I'd be in heaven!

Might well be, but I might test it with the lads and see whether they prefer a practical or theoretical approach.

Try being a size 13. Quality boot purchase becomes irritating at size 13. For instance, almost all boot manufacturers stick on an extra 15-20% to the price beyond size 12 and availability is a nightmare. Just got a pair of Oregon Fjordlands today - slightly wider fit that I need, but very comfortable. I choose them (despite them being a relatively inexpensive boot at £130) as they didn't charge extra for man size and the tread is extremely aggressive (with a spiked metal cleat for not slipping on brash). Recommended thus far!

Completely disagree. Chains do not perform well out of the box. The teeth are half dull and the depth gauges are far too high. It usually takes me 4-6 sharpens (and depth gauge drops) to get the chain to how I like it. Result is a chain that is no less smooth than out the box and I swear at least a third quicker. With reference to the original poster, you need to learn to sharpen your chain by hand. Grinders have their place for heavily damaged chains, but are no use for day to day sharpening. And dump the Chinese chainsaw - there are many makes of saw that are quite reasonably priced for your needs and a thousand times better than Chinese rubbish. There is a very good video of a genuine Stihl being subjected to industry standard stress tests versus it's Chinese copy. Needless to say, the Chinese saw fell to pieces.

Fascinating work, and sounds like well managed and planned forestry practice. Thanks for posting that! It seems like there is a lot more hardwood further south. To put it into perspective, not even taking into account any of the other coniferous species, Scotland's forests are 47% Sitka! Spruce pirate/NI Tree - would certainly be a useful workshop as much as anything else. If we could get a variety of people with different experiences together for a day or two of felling, we might all learn a great deal. Matt - shame on you for mentioning the H word! This is delicate, selective thinning - no place for bloody great harvesters and the motorways they need for moving around on!

It's more the manual forestry that I'm interested in. Their is no reason for machinery on smaller trees and the production felling is generally covered by CS30-31 from an insurance point of view. What is doesn't cover is the technical adaptions/learning curve required to make the transition from softwood to hardwood. I should stress for the record that I'm not that quick in softwood. No experience in it and I find it pretty tedious!

That is a very valid point! Perhaps I should amend my statement to "we have proportionally too much softwood". It's certainly an issue up here. The Commission have almost no hardwood, for instance. All training that I'm aware of is done on softwood. The two chaps working for me came through a social enterprise forestry training company and have had very little time in hardwood. All their funding comes from the commission so all their training/felling has to be done on their land, resulting in no hardwood experience. Jonathan

I just wanted to float an idea around amongst those who regularly thin/fell production hardwoods. Up here certainly, there is very little professional training (NPTC) that takes place in hardwoods. As a consequence of this, most folk coming out of their courses have no idea how to efficiently fell hardwoods and a lot of hang ups ensue. I have a couple of newish guys working for me presently, who are as keen as mustard and technically competent. Virtually all of their work and training has been in softwoods up until now, and whilst they are putting as reasonable tonnage on the deck, there are a lot of hang ups and a lot more effort expended than is necessary. To illustrate, the last two days out, I've not had anything I've not been able to get down easily myself, and the felling lever made one appearance yesterday. Conversely, the other two guys hung up at least 4 or 5 times as many trees, and often had more work to get them down. It is not that I feel that they aren't proficient, only that there is so much to consider in hardwoods that aren't issues in softwoods. For instance: * Hardwoods are rarely line thinned. Softwoods are often line thinned. * Hardwoods will more often than no have asymmetrical crowns, trailing limbs/secondary/tertiary leaders etc. Softwoods rarely do, and certainly at the size where manually addressing hangers becomes tricky, they are nearly always single stem. I usually find that in self selection, I'll identify a tree I want to remove, identify a slot for it and then identify what needs to come out to minimise hang up risk. Then I'll go to the tree which needs to be removed to create that slot and repeat until I reach a tree that doesn't require other tree removal to create a slot. This ensures a quite quick production rate with minimal wasted effort. Don't work hard, work smart! Anyway, I'm now at the point where I would be happy to instruct others in tackling manual hardwood thinnings/felling and was wondering if anyone else did anything similar? If so, how do you approach it? I would certainly present it as a reasonably advanced course, separate from any certification like NPTC, done solely to improve production and quality of work. This country has too much softwood and a pretty negative public perception of forestry. Without better training in what is increasingly becoming a public amenity, that's not going to change. I just don't think that doing a few weeks worth of work in Sitka is going to give anyone much experience for slotting a 70ft, 10 inch DBH Beech down through a 3 foot crown gap. I'd love to see a situation where commercial and amenity forestry where pretty much one and the same (as they are on the continent). We've had lots of members of the public on the estate say they were pleasantly surprised that the forestry work had actually improved their experiences. So in short, do you do anything similar? If so, please elaborate on your experiences. If not, what would you do in my position? Jonathan