Big J

Great to see you out milling Andy, and I applaud your efforts in self sharpening your ripping chain. I've only ever once sharpened from standard to 10% and it's an endevour! However, if you get the opportunity to get a genuine ripping chain (I'd highly recommend the Granberg chain), you'll find that the quality of cut hugely improves. That said, I've never cut Robinia, and the degree to which the chain will score the timber varies from timber to timber (Elm and Oak are typically quite smooth - coarser timbers like ash and poplar have a harsher cut). Jonathan

I would never belittle the role of a mother, nor deny it's value in society, but I think that we would all agree that a woman has every right to choose her own path in life. At no point should they feel pressured to have children because of advancing age. Regarding IVF, I often think that those who choose to have fertility treatment are the best of parents as a child is something that they truly want and have considered. I would imagine that such considerations are rarely contemplated by Chantelle, aged 17..... Additionally, is it surely not better for a parent to have a degree of life experience prior to having children? Parents have an enormous role in shaping the lives and minds of their kids, and I think it invaluable for those parents to have a wealth of experience and knowledge to draw upon. This is something that comes with education and life experience, two things that are very hard to achieve if your first child pops out before you are 20.

I think you are confusing selfishness with the procedure of attaining qualification for certain professions. Take my wife for example - she is an architect and it took her the best part of 10 years to qualify (fairly standard). So, aged 29, she was finally in a position of being fully qualified in a profession that only pays reasonably if you are prepared to work in places like Dubai building pointless skyscrapers. If you want to do worthwhile, environmentally friendly buildings, it is a different matter. So fast forward a few years, to an age of 33. We're only just starting to get the financial position where having a baby is a tenable proposition. How would you propose that this situation is best avoided? Should women perhaps not embark on career choices that are detrimental to one's ability to reproduce? Should women simply stay at home and focus on being mothers, instead of carving out a career and identity for themselves? An integral part of women's emancipation is the acceptance that women have the right to not only choose whether they want children, but also at what stage in their life they want them. I hope you are not suggesting that we should all be rushing to procreate at the earliest possible opportunity regardless of how suitable (or not) the prospective spouse is. I can tell you now that I would make a far better parent at my present age (28) than I would have 10 years ago, and would hazard to suggest that in another 10 years my parenting skills would be better still. I'm sorry Lee, but your remark is tremendously sexist, discriminatory and ill informed.

I found the quality of the little Makita to be very good. Thing I really liked about it was that it would remain warm for a long time meaning that starting was always a one pull affair. Even cold starting was never more than two. I'm now hankering after one again for this first thinning/formative pruning we are doing at the moment!

Just talking about it in another thread, but I used to have the tiny Makita DCS230T and sold it in a time of need (and I didn't really need it) and have always regretted it. Lovely saw. Sod all power compared to the 200T, but I think in the right job, you would be no slower and a lot less tired at the end of it. Googled it and you can get it for £294 including VAT. Jonathan

I have the DCS7901 and it's a cracking saw. Best 70-80cc saw I've used bar none. I also used to have the tiny little tophandle (the DCS230T) and that was excellent too. It's incredibly light (2.5kg) and for small branch pruning much better than the Stihl 200T. Tank of fuel seems to last 2-3 times as long too.

He really is. Does it because he loves it. Does it very well too. They've been there for over 50 years and he's been on the saw for most of that time too.

Watch out for blue stain on it. Don't leave it sitting for long before milling. Not a fan of it myself - sappy as hell, quite hard to cut really. Give me a nice Oak stick any day. Jonathan

I've left a message posing the question. Thanks for the speedy reply folks. Helmdon is an excellent mill and well worth a visit for an awe inspiring morning. Towers of timber, more logs in the yard than I'll ever likely mill in my life and front loaders with grabs that will lift 10 tonnes. It's like a theme park for me!

Hi there, Trying to find a decent quantity of poplar for cutting for stickers for a mill I use intermittently in Northamptonshire. Up to 200 tonnes can be taken at the moment, and larger and cleaner the better really. Minimum top end diameter 35cm, cut to multiples of 2.3m. If you can help, please either message me or call Steve at Helmdon sawmills ( 01295 760305). It's unlikely he will pick up, but if you leave him a message he will get back to you. He needs around 35-40 tonnes a month ongoing, so could be a useful contact for someone. Many thanks!

I've not come across one. Each time I pick up a non professional saw I'm always left wondering why I bothered. Painfully slow, bulky and pointless. Best to spend £300 on a nice reconditioned pro saw from Spud.

Haha! No MS260 is going to handle any kind of milling. It's amazing just how much quicker a larger saw is - almost disproportionately so. The flip and rip works best with a 20 inch bar or thereabouts, so it will cover any and all sitka you'll have. Obviously running a 20 inch bar on an MS880 is going to result in the quickest cutting, but whether you want to spend that kind of money on a saw you'll only use for milling is your choice. An MS660 would be ideal, I'd say. I can't think whether it comes with it, but if you are going to be using the mill statically with numerous smaller logs, you'll want to build some sort of bed and clamping system. Should be easy enough to fabricate though. Jonathan

Still lots of elm left for orders. Most of the burrier stuff has gone now, so one price of £16 a cubic foot plus VAT. It's really still very good stuff, and if it doesn't sell here, I will mill it all next month and air dry it. Having a big milling binge for a couple of weeks with the plan being to mill and stack to air dry 1200 cubic foot.

In that case, you are probably best with the new Granberg flip and rip that Rob D posted about not long ago. I've got an early prototype of it and it's a well constructed mill that cuts very good quality boards. None of the deep gouges that you can sometimes get with normal Alaskan milling. Also, it's physically so much easier. Rob was talking about it costing a little over £2k, so you are close to £3k once equipped with a decent sized saw and suitable bars. It will cut more slowly and with more waste than a bandsawmill, but if the sitka is freely available, I think this is your best option. With a chainsaw mill you are guaranteed flat boards and you can sharpen it yourself. Jonathan

Excellent post. As a small niche buyer, I can confirm that larger diameter logs are certainly more sought after.

Hire in a contract mill. If you aren't going to go into it in a big way, it's not worth buying one. Plus, bandsawmilling is an easy gig to do badly, actually quite hard to do well. I'm getting there, but I'm not there yet and I've milled about 200-250 tonnes so far since buying my Woodmizer in March.

£2000 is a very tight budget for a used sawmill. Certainly unlikely you will get a Woodmizer. Firstly, what size of logs are you breaking down? Am I right to assume 9x3 is the desired final size? Speed of production is largely dependent on fast cutting and speed of handling material. Fast cutting is obviously easier with more power, but well maintained blades and good alignment on a 10hp mill will outcut poor blades and alignment on a 50hp mill. Material handling is either done by hydraulics or manual labour. In your price range, you will be limited to manual labour. Have you considered contract hiring a sawmill for log breakdown. You'd be surprised how much they can get through if you are well organised with log arrangement, labour and size of logs.

Assuming they are good, clean and flat, £18 to £20 a cubic foot. So a board at the given dimensions would be £115 to £127. Might be a bit less if you have to measure out defects. Pictures would help if you get the chance!

Certainly a very interesting mill. It will give you the capability to saw logs other mills have to turn down, thus most likely reducing your costs. Having a machine in the yard that will lift those logs might be expensive though! Would love to see videos when it's operational.

No problem with that so long as they can pay their own legal costs!

Ah, but is it not a basic human right for a child to expect reasonable parenting?

I do agree, however the only other option is to sterilise undesirable would-be parents, thus preventing the suffering of children in the first place. You are then into the marvelously controversial topic area of eugenics!

Same here. Plus, if you look through all their web pages, you see that many of their technicians wear both sandals and socks. You have to be pretty confident to do that.....

Oooh, very interesting to see someone getting the big Woodmizer. I will keenly look forward to videos and photos of it. The thing that obviously put me off is the lack of mobility and hydraulics, though it would certainly be considered for a static setup. I think they are about £40k if memory serves.

Whilst I do agree that there would be severe implication in implementing such a policy, what choice do we really have? The current human reproduction distribution is unsustainable. We have a society where unskilled jobs are in decline (due to increasing mechanisation and automation) yet an increasing population demographic that requires such jobs. It's sad but true, but children born to such families are more likely to emulate their parents than break free of the self destructive and dependent lifestyle of their peers. There will be unclothed starving children, but something has to be done to reign in this population increase. I'm working like a madmen at the moment so that hopefully when we have children and they are of school age, that we can choose to send them to whichever school we like, so that they are able to get the very best start in life. I remember only too well the destructive effect of having mixed ability comprehensive schools on my education. I wouldn't want to inflict that on my kids. Jonathan