Big J

Hi all, Wondering what your experiences have been for felling hardwoods out of season. I've been offered timber from a lovely semi mature stand of beech, oak, ash and cherry. Amply sufficient to fill my next kiln - 70 to 80 year old trees, 18-22 inches DBH (bandsawmill perfect too) with no branching at all. Anyway, we are past the traditional season for felling hardwoods, and was wondering what effect this would have on the timber if it were felled around now (next week most likely). I realise sycamore is prone to staining if felled in spring or summer, which is why I'm not considering it, but the remainder would be brilliant (especially the cherry - 20 inch DBH and 20-30ft of good sawlog!). Thanks in advance! Jonathan

I enjoyed planting last year - not doing any quantity of it this year though Worked best for us in a production line fashion. There were two of us working, so one would put the stakes in, the other would knock them in. Then one would lay out the plants, the other would plant. Then one would lay out the tubes, the other would afix them to the stakes. We were planting newbies, but still managed a little over 200 per person per day on difficult sites.

Hehe - looks like classic potential for a stunt fell! Wizz up the tree, take off the branches and straight fell the stem with a line on it if needs be Nice video though - stunning location.

If it would make you feel better, I could call you stupid. That said I fear it might have dire consequences for me - your daughter looks sinister in those glasses, like she knows people who know people who could mess me up!

Firstly you will need a felling licence. It might well be a little tricky to obtain if you are planning to clearfell the site without any plans to replant. I'm no expert though, so I might be wrong. Secondly, you shouldn't have any issues selling the timber, whether as cordwood or split. For maximum return I'd split as much as possible and hold onto it until seasoned. Sell the pine at 80% of the price of the birch. I think that the best way to make the most from any section of woodland is to sell final product where possible. Why sell at £35-40 a tonne when the final split, dried product is worth £160 a tonne (based on green weight and volume). Much of the product will be processor perfect - hire one in on a day rate! Just ideas, but it's something I would consider in your position.

An 18 inch bar is much too much for a 250. I used to run a 15inch bar on my 260 until recently buying a 13. Now the 15 feels stupidly long and underpowered. You would be amazed the difference a short bar makes - I would bet it would make the saw a good deal more economical too.

Pictures 10 and 11 - new NPTC unit on 'Gob' cuts beckons? I'll stop now.......

Oh good God that's grim! Pop the saw on Ebay without cleaning it up - 'One Stihl chainsaw, covered in Sperm..........whale'

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!