Big J

May I make an addition Tommer? Spell Check | Online Spellchecker Now nobody has an excuse!

Update: The Navara is with the garage until next Wednesday. I asked for a van replacement for the time being as transporting timber is more important than 4x4 capability at the moment (they couldn't offer me a tow bar). They did however give me a fairy small van, which isn't a great deal of use. On the plus side, they very quickly agreed to put it through it's first service for free.

No never. If anything, I think they are more dangerous than a good modern pair of grippy rubber gloves. They are slippery in the wet, hard and brittle once they've dried out, utterly unnecessary, and 5 times the price of a good rubber and textile glove. Jonathan

The sycamore that I cut that was similar was a stunted little troll of a tree - very old, but not more than about 35ft tall, with a bark that was fissured and ugly. Amazing inside though - it was cut into monster turning blanks: Jonathan

Very poor indeed. I must say that most of the staff are pretty pleasant, but there is one rude older chap who seems to be most put out each time we are there. I've had a number of heated exchanges with him resulting in me simply requesting to speak to someone else. I do crave a new 'old' truck. Can anyone do me a pristine, 3000 miles on the clock 1997 Hilux?

Update: The lease company have been speaking directly to Nissan UK, and Nissan want to offer me a Navara for the duration of the repair, but without any towing capacity. I have a lot of deliveries going out at present, so that's mostly useless, but it's a start. I'll see if they can just fire a van over to me for the time being, as 4x4 capacity isn't too crucial at the moment, whereas load carrying is. Jonathan

I'm not permitted to clean shave. My wife says I look 12. I'm inclined to agree with her, plus I think people take sawmillers more seriously when they have the capacity to hold a significant amount of sawdust in facial storage!

Good ideas, all of them. Especially like the sleepers idea Tom - some quite large garden centres locally that might go for them. Squared beams like sleepers produce a lot of firewood off cuts anyway. Jonathan

Update: Into the garage again this morning (visit #7). There is nothing that they can do anymore without taking it for a week or two. They can't offer me any courtesy car at all this week, and even when they can, it won't be a 4x4, and even then, it has to come back spotless. Utterly useless given what it's needed for. So spoke to the lease company and they are going to try to sort out a replacement for the duration of the (I'm hopeful, the final) repair. If they don't, I'm going to cancel the lease. What a bloody palava!

We've cut well over a thousand tonnes of hardwood cord in the last year and a bit. Seeing as processors are the only quick way to convert firewood, I wouldn't want to put a good deal of what we've cut through a processor. Too bendy and knotty. If you weren't to process it though, it would just be wasted. 500 cubic metres is some number though. You would need to shift that though to turn a £15000 gross profit, which isn't much at the end of the day. You then have capital costs like a processor, a delivery method, vented bags. How the hell do you firewood merchants make any money?!

Very useful replies - thanks everyone! As it stands, I don't sell any firewood, but can only see it as an industry that will continue to grow. The margins are small though, and that is what puts me off. I would have to be very careful not to tread on the toes of the estate that I will rent the yard from. Jonathan

We are moving to a new and larger yard to allow us to expand with the sawmilling business and part of that is that we want to commit to being onsite at least a couple of days a week. In order to fill that time whilst there aren't customers there, we need to do something. If we were milling for all that time, I think that we would produce far more sawn timber than we could realistically sell at this point. However, if we were to sell firewood, it could be a viable use of our time. We have good local access to stands of good quality (and fairly large) Sitka, Larch and Douglas which we can fell and extract ourselves, probably getting it to our yard for £25 a tonne. Would you bother? All the local estates only sell hardwood. Most of the local tree surgeons sell mixed loads. I'm pretty sure that it would sell quite well for about £50 a cubic metre (two cube to the tonne, so £12.50 cost, plus my time and a bit of petrol for conversion). We would need at least a couple of hundred cubic metres to make it worth while, which isn't an issue for storage (could probably stack and store 3-400 cube). I know that in various parts of the country softwood sells well, and in others it's impossible to convince the customer of it's value. Jonathan

Nice mill - not sure what it is though. Lovely piece of sycamore there too. I've only once had sycamore like that, with the dark and colourful heart. Also nice to see a mobile miller demonstrating with hardwood - most up here just run douglas fir on demo days.

That's marvellous Darren - very kind of you. He just uses his stove for general heating and isn't fussed what goes into it. I'll just have to dig out his address and I'll PM it, along with phone numbers to you. Thanks again - Jonathan

I can't afford the time to do this, nor do I think that I should have to with a 6 month old truck. They can't give me a curtesy Navara so it leaves me stuck. See what the chap at the lease company says tomorrow. Jonathan

My father lives not far from Civray. Should you ever need somewhere to offload arb waste, he would be delighted to take any and all timber. A cheeky ask, I do realise, but I don't know what the situation for firewood is like over there! Jonathan

As I've always maintained, it's a cracking truck to drive when it works, but I just can't have a vehicle that has electronic glitches every other week. Manual says you invalidate your warranty if you don't immediately take the truck in when you see the warning light. Frustrating!

We have a large thinning job near Aviemore next month - 450 tonnes of predominantly birch.

I did try a couple of landies a few weeks back - a 90 with the seat put further back and a standard 110. The 110 was impossible, the 90 was merely very uncomfortable. Problem is that I'm now accustomed to the comfort of the Navara - I'm not sure I could change to something as agricultural as a landrover!

Yep, all trips to garage/breakdowns and faults are recorded. Anyone any recommendations for something to angle for as a replacement?

Turned out that the engine malfunction light was a knackered glowplug relay, so it went in again this morning to have that changed (trip to garage number 6). Not three hours had gone by and the light was back on again so I just called the lease company. I want a different car. Not a Navara.

Better milled than carved I would say. The repaired wound devalues it a bit, but it's otherwise a good stem by the sounds of it.

Good news for you Landie fans who aren't so keen on it's replacement: Current Defender to live on to 2017 - Autocar.co.uk

Speaking to my uncle last week, a few months back he was driving up a steep hill (21% gradient) in Luxembourg towing 3.5 tonnes (a mini digger) in the wet with a 90 on normal tyres. He had to stop momentarily for someone who helpfully didn't stop, at which point the trailer dragged him back down the hill. It was 50 metres before he came to a stop, thankfully having missed a whole line of new cars (the only type of cars in Luxembourg). Shortly thereafter, he sold the 3.5 tonne trailer and doesn't tow more than 2 now!

A lot of money for beech is £60. I just don't do spalted beech (too much of a gamble and too much hassle) but if I had some really good stuff, I'd ask in the region of £30-35 a cube for it. Assuming a £2 a hoppus foot cost price, it would only be about £8 a cubic foot total cost once sawn, stacked and kilned, so £60 seems a bit high. Jonathan