Big J

Very positive reception at the Furniture Makers Exhibit. I spoke to around 20 different makers and most of them were very interested to see my stock. Had another timber sale as well yesterday, so I suppose 15% of the kiln is now sold. I've put in my application for ASHS (Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers) too. Speaking to Jim Birley of Scottish Woods, ASHS seem to operate in a very cooperative fashion, doing training days (for instance Kiln Drying at Falkirk Woods) and a lot of good marketing. Only £100 a year too. Similarly, I've been recommended to become accredited with Scottish Working Woods. Looking at their website it seems very straightforward and worth doing. I'm off up the workshop this afternoon complete with camera, so plenty of photos to follow. Jonathan

A real corker! There is a ride on the estate with a series of large holly. Not quite as large as that, but the largest is a single stem at perhaps 13-15m tall and 60cm diameter. Keep meaning to measure all the huge trees here, but always forget.

Couldn't stop laughing until I saw the forklift flying around, at which point I thought you really don't want to be anywhere near 3 tonnes of flying steel....

I'm heading out there today, but unfortunately my wife dropped our camera, so nothing yet! I aim to have this remedied very shortly. In other news, I'm invited to the private viewing at the Scottish Furniture Makers Annual Exhibit at Greyfriar's Kirk in Edinburgh on Friday. I will be attending with a stocklist and business card for each furniture maker! Better still, there is a piece being exhibited by a maker called Chris Scotland using cherry from my kiln. Hoping that the sales will pick up significantly after that. At about the £1000 mark now, but that doesn't begin to cover the setup costs (estimated £1800) or the timber. I'll see if my neighbour has a camera that I can take with me to photograph some of the timber today. Jonathan

Sounds like a no go then. Nevermind then - I'll try to think my way round the obstacle

Got the last stack of boards out of the kiln yesterday. Due to airflow issues with the first setup, the timber at the back didn't dry as well as at the front. A week with the new fan and dehumidifier sorted that though. All timber is of good quality - some really nice wide elm that I had forgotten that I'd cut at inch and a half. Even the maple came out fine - I thought that it would stain for some reason. Started the modifications to the box - added the plywood coving to aid airflow and built a splitter to sit over the fan to direct air around the kiln. Question for those who have kilns using a fridge box - how did you get the inner workings of the fridge out of the box? It's sitting there impeding the airflow and it needs to go. I'm just a bit concerned about cutting any pipework due to the presumably toxic refrigerants in the machine. Jonathan

Good stuff Rob - I'm there with increasing frequency at present and will be filling my kiln again the week commencing 20th of September. Thanks Harvey. It is a converted fridge trailer, yes. It was from a local commercial hire fleet operator called MV commercial. Not the greatest of companies to deal with, but the two containers including delivery (which wasn't easy) cost £1000. They are both in excellent condition and one still has a substantial diesel generator on it that I need to take off and sell! The kilning process for the next kiln will take 7 weeks at a reasonably well educated guess. The first kiln took far too long owing to an underpowered dehumidifier and insufficient air circulation. The new set up is altogether far more industrial, and will get teh job done more quickly. Jonathan

Thanks Robert! You are always welcome to come and see the operation - my workshop is just outside Uphall. Jonathan

Update: Sold approximately 10% of my stock with a couple of customers coming this week. Also, next Friday is the start of the Scottish Furniture Makers Association Exhibition in Edinburgh, to which I'm invited to the private first viewing. Plenty of business cards and stock lists are going to be handed out to the 50 or so furniture makers who are exhibiting. I have been doing a lot of milling this last week, which has been lovely after a period of relative inactivity on that front. All Oak, some wonderfully pippy stuff, some small stuff for the local church lectern and a beautifully curved section for a green Oak bridge. I'm also really excited about getting the new kiln load up and running. I've had to change my set up a little due to the aforementioned dehumidifier suicide, but I think the change is for the better. I've ended up with an Ebac BD150 dehumidifier. I thought that I would need two in the kiln reading the extraction stats, but putting it in to just bring the last lot of timber down from 15% MC to 10%, it was extracting twice what it said it should. So only one needed. Similarly, the heat it produces is huge, resulting in the need for an extractor fan (previously closed system with only moisture removal coming from dehumidification) as the dehumidifier shuts off above 35 degrees C. No bad thing really, as Oak can honeycomb above that. Also, as airflow was a bit of an issue in the previous load, bought a snail fan (carpet dryer) locally for £50. It pumps out at least 20 times as much air as a standard 10" fan and is amply sufficient for the whole kiln. Anyway, I've yet to finish the set up for the new kiln fully, but I'll post some photos and diagrams of it once it's done - might help someone else avoid the mistakes made in the first run. Regarding stock for the next kiln, it's almost all going to be Oak at this point. I have a beast of a log to mill - 27ft long at an average 3 foot diameter, which will fill most of the 250 cubic foot capacity. Beyond that there are some other random bits and bobs going in too. Jonathan

Very nice!! Only thing I would say is you might need more frequent stickers to avoid distortion (due to the thin boards) - every 18 inches or so at most. Jonathan

Whilst getting involved with the sale of timber isn't necessarily something you need to worry about, the way forward is to advertise on the private market to hobbyists using Gumtree or something similar, and then also contact furniture makers too. You might get more trade from hobbyists, but furniture makers will take more (though will be much pickier!). You could try: The Norfolk Furniture Makers Association 3 inch slabs won't be of much appeal to them though. 1-2 inches shifts better. Jonathan

Very innovative, though I would worry about movement in the ladder when running the mill along it. I've started taking a very rough top slab off freehand to give me a flat surface to screw the ladder to. I also put alot of screws and wedges in to make sure that the ladder doesn't move one millimetre. Jonathan

6ft 8 and 16 stone, but I'm sensible enough to stay on the ground!

I think this thread is getting a little bit too shiny and disco - here is a brute of a chap lifting some very heavy weights! [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65jovqRDaDs]YouTube - Mikhail Koklyaev[/ame] From about 4 years ago, friends from a different lifting forum went. Missed another of his expos the other day back in Glasgow - wish I had gone.

I have a couple of eels and a couple of perch in my pond. Strangely the eels hate slugs and the perch love them. They might struggle with that one though - it is a bloody monster!

Could I please request that the soundtrack to climbing that Monkey Puzzle be posted after? I anticipate something much cursing and the sound of the tree being kicked in frustration repeatedly!

The only possible way that you could make that job less attractive is if you had to pay for the honour of doing it and you had to permit the site manager to roughly take your missus for getting you the job in the first place!

Surely this is reason enough to purchase the £65,000 Unimog? http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/large-equipment/19394-very-usefull-mog-even-if-65k.html 110ft mewp on the back and I guarantee the only way you could make the job any cooler is if you had Dolph Lundgren and Arnold Schwarzenegger as groundies. Think about it

Brand new! Not something you every day - something for the collector. I don't think anyone fancies the vibes off that for day to day use anymore!

3.48 tonne. Roughly.

Thanks for the replies gents. I do have a further free supply of good ash, sycamore, cherry and elm, but I have to fell and process it on my own time. This lot is already cut to metre lengths (thinking ahead you see) and awaiting pickup....... Only problem is the access track is pretty boggy and somewhat oneway, so there might be wheel barrowing involved. There is a lot of it though..... The funny thing is that the site it's left on is so boggy that come three years the willow coppice will be outstanding from all the sprouted logs!

Right, finally, the kiln is open! Due to the length of time in the kiln, the timber has come out with practically no distortion or checking and the yew especially has come out superbly! Sold a bit so far, emailed the secretary of the Scottish Furniture Makers Association and advertised locally. I saw Rob, that you have advertised on ebay? Might try that too. In bad news, for no apparent reason, my dehumidifier decided to commit suicide and throw itself off the wall. So I now need a new one. If anyone has one, I would be very keen to purchase it! I will get pictures up asap. Jonathan

It's sad that even up here (near Edinburgh) the elms have taken a beating. As far as I am aware, there are now only three large elms on the (Dalmeny) estate. The difficulty is that I don't think the large estates can afford to have a Dutch Elm disease control program. There are 550 acres of woodland on the main estate alone with just a few foresters to take care of that. Jonathan

I've been felling to waste quite a lot of willow this last week and was wondering whether it's worth extracting it for my own personal consumption? We burn about 3 cube a month December through to February and the prospect of about 20 - 30 odd cubic metres are quite tempting. Just how good/bad is willow as a firewood? I have plenty of time and space to dry it out fully. It ranges in size from 18 inches in diameter down to 2-3 inches. I wouldn't bother with stuff over a foot though due to drying time issues. Jonathan

A bit more useful for arb work is any form of overhead press/jerk. Bench is great fun, but more of a vanity lift really! Doesn't stop me training it though. Interestingly, I stopped training for almost four months whilst doing more or less full time thinning work. When I came back to the gym afterwards I was stronger in every single lift except bench (only lost 5kg or so on it) without having gained any bodyweight. Back to training again now and strength is up a bit more. Very close to finally getting my bloody bodyweight overhead (which would be 100kg, at 5x1x90kg presently).