Big J

For some reason, I read the title of this thread as 'Amazing BoobJob' - I think I've perhaps had too much coffee this morning!

Exactly what he says! Would be fine as part of a load, but not much value in them unless you have someone very local with a chainsaw mill.

I have no idea what you mean Rob! I feel at my height it's unlikely that there will be many folk taller than me. There have to be some perks to being over 2m in height!

Hehe! Well if we are going to start this, I would like to request the prefix of 'huge' before 'member'. I'm 6ft 8", I feel it's only fair!

Again, I'm not sure that that is true. The pay in social care isn't that bad comparatively (certainly better than checkout work etc). It's the nature of the work that puts people off. Additionally, we don't really have a strong cultural imperative to care and look after - other cultures have a much stronger family unit. I am digressing, but my feeling is that we live in a society where the number of jobs for those without skill or education are diminishing, whilst at the same time the population of those without skill or education is increasing. This disparity breeds to the kind of hatred you see in the lady in the video. Jonathan

She does have a point though Huck. As British society moved through the 20th century there came a certain expectation that certain jobs were below your average Brit. Social expectation and all that. With the demise of British manufacturing (read: unskilled manual jobs) came larger employment problems for the lower working classes coupled with the unwillingness to do menial jobs that just have to be done. My previous line of work was in social care, and whilst in Manchester, a huge proportion of the staff were first generation immigrants. Fairly depressing that in our culture there is such difficulty in getting reliable staff in social care that we must look overseas. I don't see a decent resolution for this lady, and those like her. They are uneducated, ignorant and embittered. Seriously, what can you do with people like her? Jonathan

To some degree I would disagree with this. Our stove is on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through winter. There is absolutely no tar or soot build up in the stove or in the chimney. The key is a flue thermometer. Before going to bed, the bed of embers is usually fairly substantial owing to a night of stoking the fire regularly. I will then (usually 5 minutes before heading to the land of nod) fill the fire as full as possible and blast it, all vents open. I'll take it to the point where it's at the very bottom of the 'too hot' zone on the flue thermometer and then close down fully. Experience (from stoking in the same way through the day) is that the temperature will very slowly creep down to the middle of the 'goldilocks zone' and there it will stay until there is nothing but embers. I've met so many people who run fires, and even people who run them for heating who just don't understand how fire works. They'll just chuck one or two logs on and then shut everything down immediately. The log might last a touch longer, but it will give you a tenth of the heat, and clog your chimney. Jonathan

I do close all vents and the damper too, but only once the stove temperature is sufficient that it will sustain itself. If you close it down too early, it will just smoulder. I don't know how I managed before without a flue thermometer!

Trailer screw splitter log wood processor conveyor with petrol engine | eBay Maybe a bit pricey, but not a bad set up for a small scale log producer.

I'm sure that many of you have seen the media coverage regarding the woman ranting on the tram in the past week or two. I thought that I would watch the video itself and it's pretty horrifying: Caution - very poor and offensive language from the start. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i47HoiM0Au8]My Tram Experience - YouTube[/ame] What on earth can you actually do with people like this? They are so embittered by their own shortcomings that they lash out at anyone they can scapegoat for their problems. And worst of all, what is the poor child sat on her lap going to end up like?

Thanks for the heads up. We are supposed to be in the woods felling tomorrow, but I'm not sure that that is going to happen. Can I request a sticky thread entitled "Peckerwoo's weekly weather forecast" please?!

A lost day like that can be heart breaking. They will look lovely in the end though. The difficulty with the polyurethene was due to damp and cold?

I did have a cheapo moisture meter that I would swear was a differently branded version of the Stihl one, and it was inconsistent to say the least!

Painful! Sanding varnish is like sanding green timber - the sand paper lasts about 15 seconds. I'm trying to figure out the timber - is that some of my elm?

I am inclined to agree. The most efficient kilns are heated by furnaces fed by offcuts. The most local on of those to me cost almost £50,000 to set up though.

No worries! One thing that I forgot to add is be very picky with your species. Avoid Oak at all costs as it hates being dried. Sycamore, Elm and to a lesser extent beech are your friends! Jonathan

Well I had heard previously that it was £30 a tonne standing, but then I've been offered good stuff for £35 a tonne roadside

That was going to be my suggestion too.

Hard to say exactly how long it would take to dry the timber. You could be very aggressive with your kilning to speed up the process - a luxury us miller can't afford as it would destroy the aesthetic and structural properties of the wood. At a real push you would be able to get 20 standard builders bags into an 18ft box (900x900x900mm, not cubic meter). You need air flow, and lots of it. Carpet dryers are very good for the large amount of air they move for the relatively small space they occupy. I wouldn't bother with a dehumidifier - they can be unreliable, and don't operate above 35 degrees c (assuming a standard building dryer, not a specific timber dryer, which is very expensive). Basically, have an extractor at one end, a vent at the other, 3kw of heaters in between with a carpet fan either side. Make sure to keep a minimum of 6 inches of air space down each side of the stack. No airspace means no air movement. Also, put the bags on pallets so that the air can get underneath too. I would think that if you had the firewood cut fairly small (no more than 3x3 inches by whatever length) then you should be able to get it dry in 6 weeks to 20%. Bear in mind that you will have the best part of 5kw of electricity running through the kiln, costing almost £600 over the course of the cycle. Jonathan

Two sheets of newspaper, rolled together and tied in a knot and you shouldn't have any issue.

We've just taken on a new yard with: * A 60x20ft barn for air drying timber, freshly resurfaced in rolled shale chips. * 1/4 acre of hand standing, also resurfaced. * New electrics in the barn. ....and we are paying £250 plus Vat a month.

Can't really see the point in anything that cheap. You aren't going to get a reading that is anything apart from inaccurate.

Yeah yeah yeah! I do miss the narrow back handle on the Stihl, but little else. It's things like the air filter constantly needing to be cleaned that bugged me. Basically, the MS260 cut wonderfully when freshly sharpened, cleaned, air filter cleaned and lovingly maintained. One tank later, you were back to slowsville, population 1! As I said, the 45cc 346 is definitely a faster saw. Pulls a 15 inch bar like the 260 does a 13.

I did my first year in the woods with an MS260. It was a good enough saw, reliable and efficient on fuel. That said, switching to a 346xp was a huge improvement. Much much faster, noticeably lower vibrations and fumes. I now have two 346s, the 45cc and the 50cc. Even the 45cc is a faster saw than the 260. Jonathan

Quick edit - reticence should read reluctance. Long day!