Big J

This afternoon I felled, sned and ringed up (to 6-9 inches) 6 cubic metres of sycamore. Only two trees though. I used about 5 tanks of fuel and oil with an MS260. So, around 0.4 litres of fuel and 0.2 litres of chain oil a cube. And I must admit that I didn't go nuts on sharpening the chain (running a 13 inch bar, with most stuff at or below bar length, with the first 6 foot being double bar length). I think you are using too much fuel for the job in hand. I would argue that it might well be the MS250 that is at fault. I had one, which I used for thinning for about two months before swapping it for the MS260. It was just very poor, with the oiler never working fully and the AV mounts falling to pieces. Pop the 250 on Ebay and get an MS261. Or, if you are going to be doing firewooding as opposed to thinning, get an MS361/MS362. Bit more grunt and not much more weight. Jonathan

Haha! Not having a jibe - just correcting for the original poster. I do know what you mean though - today is my first day off in 19 days!

You'll be selling logs by the m3 (volume), not m2 (area). Prices seem to vary hugely by area. The figure stated above sounds about right though

I've finally decided to give up on old vehicles and I'm lease purchasing a pickup. After much research and reading, I'm going for a Nissan Navara, and on paper, it seems the best choice. Best MPG, highest engine power, cheapest, largest inside and out and seemingly pretty tough. I'll reserve judgement until I've had it a while, but pretty excited about getting it. I am in agreement with some of the sentiments here regarding the L200 - it really is butt fugly! Jonathan

I'd forgotten about that! I don't think that I've ever had a week of work cause me so many scratches and cuts.

I stand corrected! Wikipedia lied to me!

Not a Leylandii, but we have a couple of truly monstrous Thuya (positively identified by Robert S - thanks!) outside our house. Reading up on them, they are only supposed to make 18m, and I should imagine that they are both that, and around 3ft DBH. They aren't a bother though - we have a lot of garden and they do keep out firewood lovely and dry.

Always had an interest in wood and the like, and purchased my first chainsaw around 2 1/2 years ago for firewood at home. Then, our old neighbour passed away in the village, we bought his greenhouse from his brother, who gave us permission to take the tools from the shed. That got me started on woodworking, which then lead to thinking about producing timber with a chainsaw mill. Started milling, and producing various things such as rabbit hutches, a bloody big shed, menu holders for a restaurant - just about anything to get me out of my previous line of work (used to be a support worker, working with adults with severe learning disabilities). The increasing amount of chainsaw work lead to the forester on the estate offering me work, provided I had CS30+31. Then met my now colleague (IainArkle on arbtalk) on the course. Did lots of felling, pruning and planting, to support my fledgling sawmilling business. Started milling more seriously around April last year (which was when I went fully self employed), set up a kiln, and am now on my third. The sawmilling provides the bulk of my income now, and I'm gradually winding down the forestry. I still want to do some cutting, just not day in day out, or in softwoods. Training up to use an Alstor forwarder presently as well. Just coming to the end of my first year now, and feeling very positive. I started the business with absolutely no capital at all - I mean not a sausage. One year on, I've made an alright wage and am in slightly less debt that at the start of the year. I'm getting my act together this summer and will be applying for grant funding for expansion in the sawmilling, and hope to be running two or three kilns by the years end. Good thread by the way!

I run a DIY kiln that operates with a combined dehumidifier and heat vent system. The dehumidifier is a fickle beast (an old Ebac BD150) and has had a new auto defrost timer (got stuck on defrost, rather than cooling) and still isn't working properly. It now doesn't defrost, so you can't turn it on until the temperature is over 25 degrees, or it ices up. My point is that there is probably some truth in the notion that using non-timber drying dehumidifiers can be problematic. However, on a DIY scale, they are far far cheaper, and provided you monitor the environment in the kiln, you will be fine. My kiln is as follows: * Ebac BD150 dehumidifier * 835w Carpet drier to circulate air * 2100w oil filled radiator * 75w extractor extracting 210 cubic metres of air an hour. The heater is on a thermostat at 37 degrees, and the extractor runs on a timer meaning it runs for 50% of the time. The kiln has a capacity of around 280-310 cubic foot of timber, and dries quite happily from green in 8 weeks (with certain constraints on board thickness - for instance Oak above 1.5 inches takes 12 weeks, though most other timbers are OK up to 2 - 2.5 inches). It's actually just been switched on and the dehumidifier is removing 84 litres a day and the extractor 60 litres. This will go down considerably in the coming days, but there is 3400 litres of water to extract to get the timber down to 10% moisture content. Very important as well is a wireless weather station, so that you know what the temperature and humidity in the kiln is. You can get them for about £20-30. I would seriously consider trying to make space for a freezer box if you can. You can get the backs off the supermarket delivery trucks that are a lot smaller. You need it to be well insulated and airtight, and it will prove more expensive to try to make it yourself. I got my kiln (an 18ft freezer box) for £500 delivered. Regarding the size of kiln that you have specified, you will have a capacity of about 90 cubic foot. Go for a dehumidifier with a 30 litre a day extraction rate. In addition to that I would seriously consider getting a separate heater and extraction system as I've found that the dehumidifier cannot extract beyond a certain point (insufficient free moisture in air, whereas a heater/extractor combo can continue to remove water). Spalted beech can be troublesome in the kiln. It's already so full of mildew and bacteria that when you put it into a warm environment it goes nuts and can look quite unattractive in the end. That is just my experience though! Good luck with it - would like to see any progress photos as they happen. Jonathan

In addition to Rob D, message Wadkin. He takes large and high quality timber and is well worth a shout - top bloke as well.

I had one for a good while, but ended up selling it as I don't climb. Lovely saw - not much power, but for light pruning it's perfect as it's only about half the weight of an MS200. It's also very very robust. Highly recommended!

Unfortunately my boards are milled thinner than that. Next time maybe!

Hi Slackbladder, Are you looking for yew in the round to mill yourself, or sawn yew? I have a good stock of large, clear yew boards that are kiln dried. Delivery is quite cheap by double pallet (£90+VAT by Palletways). Jonathan

I personally love the Bullerjan stoves. My uncle in Germany has two in his house, and despite having a very modern woot pellet central heating system, he only ever uses the larger of the two Bullerjans, even when it's minus 20 outside. They are completely unique too - nothing comes close IMO for combining style and industrial craftsmanship:

We've been in our house three years now, never replaced the fireblocks in the stove, use it as our primary heat source and consistently ram it full of timber. One block is cracked I think.

I would struggle to get my head around such a variable power source such as the sun - difficult to control the drying I suppose. It only costs me about £1.90 a cubic foot in electricity to get my timber to 8% MC from green, so it's not a huge cost. Thankyou for posting the link though - useful resource!

Wooo!

I don't know very much about them, but a vacuum kiln might be the best way forward. They apparently cause very little defect in the drying process, even on quite thick, difficult boards. A wood carver customer of mine has one - I'll pick his brain about it next time that I see him.

No tolls in Scotland - I'm apolitical, but the SNP policy of removing all tolls was a good one, especially as the Forth Road Bridge is something I cross most weeks.

Just stunning - cracking find there! We, as a nation, can be quite disparaging of the Americans at times, but to their credit, they do still have proper, heavy industry.

I've got the Samsung Solid Extreme too, as well as at least 50% of all people I know who work in outdoor work requiring a tough phone. It's really really good, with excellent signal and the torch is superb. I even accidently mashed it in the car door, and the only thing it did was break the waterproof seal. Highly recommended!

Done

Sounds like you got an excellent deal with that DB! After yesterday's kiln fill I'm swinging towards investing most in a telehandler (Manitou Buggiscopic ideally - they are tiny but still lift up to 2.5 tonnes), and having a small, cheap bandsaw mill for day to day small milling jobs. For day to day larger stuff, I'll use the chainsaw mill and when filling the kiln, I'll hire in a bigger band mill like a Serra or Autotrek.

Like Slasherscot says, look for the weakest, most suppressed trees first, and continue taking out 1 in 5-8 every few years. Your final crop spacing (achieved on the final thin) is one tree every 7 metres. However, with ash, assuming a 100 year growth cycle, it won't be yourself doing that work!

It was an LT40 as well, so not a baby by any standard. I've got a lot of very good boards, but only really the ones that I squared up first on the chainsaw mill. I also have a number of quite swoopy boards too I think from a financial point of view it makes sense to always have a forklift/telehandler. I also think that unless you are shifting huge volumes, the best idea is to hire in the best saw available. That said, I can still see myself with a bloody bandsawmill in the near future!