Big J

Very nice Cracker - I really like the style of furniture you produce

A little bit big for kilning, but for air drying I use used tree stakes from failed planting. Some of my work is taking out the tubes and stakes of failed trees, so I'm left with a stack of literally thousands of perfectly air dried, inch square stickers. Might be worth speaking to anyone you know locally who has recently planted trees - they usually skip or burn them so will be more than happy to get rid of them! Jonathan

Update on the kiln: Temperature inside is now up to 34 degrees and at best measure is pumping out 25 litres of water a day. Both statistics are still increasing, and I anticipate a final output of about 50 litres a day at 40-42 degrees. That said, the higher external temperature does warm things up a bit inside. Fingers crossed, all is going well! Jonathan

Some wildly different opinions here!! Can I ask the 'larger saw' crowd why you would go for a heavier saw, even if it is quicker? I suppose that I have a propensity to go for small and lightweight at the expense of power but my colleague uses a 361 and it is a fine saw. I have used a 260 in the past, and enjoyed it, but even that seems a touch like overkill for sub 12 inch trees (and the incumbent MS261 seems to have been on a bit of bulking diet). Finally, excusing my inexperience, but is there anything beyond the obvious Stihl/Husqvarna that is worth considering? Jonathan

Apologies for the daft question, but based on your experiences, what would you recommend as the best all round thinning saw for hardwood? I'm going to be doing a lot of hardwood thinning this year, primarily up to about 18 inch trunk diameter (though most in the 6-12 inch range). What's stood up best to the abuse of being chucked around and felling dozens of trees day in, day out? Thanks in advance! Jonathan

Looking through this thread it seems that most folk are on terrible money for felling! Just started thinning with the estate I'm on - thinning out 40 year old primarily beech, sycamore, ash and Oak woodland. We get £15 an hour, providing everything ourselves. Due to the access issues and the widely varying sizes of trees (anything from wrist thick sycamore regeneration to 18 inch, 70ft sycamores) we aren't to cut or stack, but await winch extraction. From purely the felling, we were averaging about 2.5 tonnes an hour, but obviously we haven't been processing. That is the average though, as there were some epic hangers of trees that brought that down. The best day I managed about 32 tonnes on a 10 hour day. Anyway, having fun and looking forward to the 100 odd acres that they still have to mark up for thinning! Jonathan

Daft as it is, I love my 088 for ringing up big firewood. With a 21 inch bar it's about 10 seconds per cut on an 18 inch log! You just need to have more regular breaks to recover from the weight and the higher vibration. Get's the job done very quickly though!

I have the tiny DCS230T, which is a cracking little saw. Sod all power, but for lighter work up a tree it's 2.5kg weight makes it invaluable at arm's length. As a cross cutting saw for my milling, I will be purchasing a DCS7901-18 in the near future. I've only heard good things and you can't argue with 6.2hp and 6.3kg. Jonathan

Supposedly, you need to replace your rim sprocket once for every two complete chains. Alternatively, replace once you notice any significant indentation in the sprocket. They are very cheap (£6) though. Jonathan

Haha! I do seem to have been grossly misinformed!

I supply a small quantity of logs in the Edinburgh area - I've sent you a PM log supplier. Thanks!

Fair do's - thanks for the correction

I have been informed by a number of people that Poplar is almost incombustable (was contacted by one chap wanting poplar for cladding for a traction engine as it won't ignite until it reaches 220 degrees). Might be better to save for milling - very durable and useful as a cladding timber?

The best stove I have come across in terms of heat efficiency and design is one from Bullerjan. My uncle in Germany has one of the mid sized stoves (around 11kw I think), which heats his entire house (150 square metres). It's considered dire if the living room drops below 30 degrees, even when it's well below freezing out. Bullerjan-UK What's unique about it is the way it convects air - for a fairly small stove using very little fuel it emits a huge amount of heat. All we have at home is a crappy Villager stove that came with the house. Time for an upgrade! Jonathan

I throttle lock, but don't have two handles yet. Will do shortly though. For those of you putting the ladder on for each cut, how do you attach it without screwing into usable timber? Jonathan

Just planks Pete. I'm lucky enough to have a fairly enormous supply of bone dry standing wood (felled about 8 larch, a silver birch and logged a fallen elm this evening - all dry enough to burn now). I haven't thought about firewood loading for the kiln but I imagine that with the approximate volume of 10-15 cubic metres for firewood and a £200 electricity bill, it wouldn't be economically viable? Also, difficult to ensure correct airflow? Jonathan

I've got a friend who fabricates with steel. I've got a few ideas in my head on how to construct a user friendly rail system that is quick to set up and completely solid. If they come to fruition, I'll pop the design up on here. It's basically along the lines of a pair 3200mm box section (something like 80x30mm) with double holes drilled at every 100mm. Two cross members just beyond the ends of the log lock into the double holes, one of which has a screw tight clamp (like one a carpenter would use). The plates in contact with the log are drilled so that you can screw into the log with screws for additional security. Shouldn't cost more than about £80-100 to have made which is comparable with the cost of a good ladder. I spend so much time pratted about setting up with ladders, working out what slice to take off so I don't hit the screws etc - I would just love a simpler system! Jonathan

Thanks Rob! Bloody satisfying to get the whole lot done. I'm feeling like I've over vibrated my wrists a bit though - a week off chainsawing should help with that! Kiln went on on Friday night - been back to check temperatures twice. Saturday was 14.5 and today 16.8 - certainly heading in the right direction and it's pumping out plenty of water too. Hard marketing starts this week - hoping to have half of it provisionally sold before it's done. Maybe a pipe dream, but it's an aim nevertheless. Jonathan

Some sort of method to pull the saw through would certainly make the milling easier. I've a few questions and ideas.... The greatest inaccuracies with the milling for me come with the lead on and lead off the timber. In terms of design, a single flat plate on the bottom rather than two rails might result in a smoother finish. Also, a second handle to vary hand position. Does anyone here use a double ended bar with two drive units? Is it worth thinking about? I have two 088s and a 5ft bar I've yet to christen. Would it be worth doing away with the sprocket nose and replacing it with a second drive unit end (if that's possible)? Does everyone use a ladder for that first straight cut or does anyone have any designs for an effective, reliable rail system? Jonathan

Thanks 18 stoner! I just use a spring clamp on the throttle so that I can control the mill with both hands. I lead on and lead off the board with manual throttle and set the throttle lock for the duration of the cut. So long as I'm steady and consistent with my progress, the saw very rarely bites in and stalls. It's also less tiring, I've found. Regarding the safety of the setup, after a couple of hundred hours milling, I've never had the saw do anything even remotely unpredictable - it's got no where to go but forwards or backwards and if that happens, it's locked into a mill anyway. Jonathan

Thanks for all the responses! Josharb87 - the shed was a real trial. Being one of the very first jobs of my own I chronically underpriced it and underestimated the time it would take to build. All timber in it, bar the OSB for sheathing, was self milled. I have a tendency to over engineer, so the walls are double skinned, with moisture permeable membrane. The cladding is 25mm brown ash, with a primarily 2x3 inch Scots Pine frame. I (16 stone) can comfortably walk on the roof! Robert T - I don't have any plans for the timber other than to sell it. Over the last year I've been fortunate to meet a number of very helpful people, one of whom (Chris Holmes - a cabinet maker/kilner of 35 years) has been kind enough to walk me through the kilning process. I was lucky to get quite alot of very interesting Elm and Yew (between them they make up 75% of the kiln) and I'm going to spend the next 6 weeks marketing it to the the best of my ability. Speaking to a chap at ASHS (Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers) there isn't anyone to the West of Edinburgh milling and kilning anymore, so I'm hoping the gap in the market will allow me to get a foot in. I'm always going to be small scale, hopefully producing 1000-1500 cubic foot a year, but I'm going to try to keep the quality as high as possible. I sell a bit of green timber too, but it's far harder to shift as folk aren't interested in waiting for it to dry. Cracker and Targettrees - thanks guys! Jonathan

Nice wide boards sir! What's the plan for them?

It seems to work for me, but here is a link for the whole album (some random tree work and shed building photos in there too): Jonathan Robinson's Photos - Photos from Robinson Sawmilling and Tree Works | Facebook

Regarding the pictures, they're linked from Facebook so if you open them in a new tab/window, they work.

Hello - new member but I've been milling for about 8 months now. For one reason or another it's taken me a while to get the kiln filled, but it was switched on last night with 240 cubic foot of Elm (wych, wheatly and lots of burr), Oak, Yew, Beech, Maple and Cherry. My milling set up is a Stihl 088 with 36 inch bar and mill. I have a 60 inch bar from Rob with all the bits but haven't got round to setting it up yet. I have a 40 inch Oak sat at my yard which will probably get milled with that. Filling the kiln was utterly exhausting but very satisfying. Highs and lows included getting much more elm than expected (130 cubic foot of the stuff!), destroying a chain on a completely embedded sandstone in the yew. Also, not being able to get suitable stickers meant I had to rip 600m of dry cedar on the table saw! Lessons learned from the week included: * Employ a help for the whole week (someone competent with a chainsaw so that they can dimension and prepare the logs ready for milling). * Have backup kit for everything - when efficiently stacked, my kiln will hold 300 cubic foot plus and something is bound to break! * Get logs that are as uniform as possible. The more waney edged it is, the more inefficient the stacking and the more space wasted. * Cut logs to 8ft 10", as that is just a touch under half the length of the kiln. Would make life much easier for stacking! Anyway, here are some pictures from the week: A stack of Yew A close up of some very wide (24 inch) Yew Posing for the camera with a slab of Wheatly Elm Stacking the kiln - sending my shorter and more compact colleague up to the top of the stack! I don't have so many pictures of slabs from later in the week, so nothing of the burr elm sadly. A question regarding the cherry - I've not milled it before and found it very tough going. Had a good sharp chain on, oiling well and struggling like hell to get through it. Also found it to be very chattery, though the finish was smooth and consistent. The cherry was quite wide (for cherry) at 21-23 inches and also leaking resin, but I can't figure out why it was so slow. It was munching through elm of the same thickness just beforehand at twice the speed. Jonathan