ARV

Hi A customer has asked us if we know any Alaskan millers in or near Edinburgh. A residents group has an Oak stem that they'd like milled. He specifically mentioned Alaskan milling so I'm guessing there is limited access. He's sent us a picture, but no dimensions, but looks to be 3-4 ft diameter. I've asked for more details and will post them here if/when I get them. If anyone is interested, send me a message with your details and I'll pass them on to the customer. Andrew

Yes, my Dad was Chair of the Parish council. A lump of Portland stone to keep it fairly local.

That'll explain why a lot of the roads/lanes In Dorset have a ruddy great bank on either side. I went to school in Dorchester (25 odd years ago). My parents and brother live in Shitterton.

Are these prices for the board size AJStrees quoted (approx 4ft³) or per ft³?

Ouch! What the hell is that? The rest of the boards look stunning though.

Yes, Beech, Sweet Chestnut, Oak, Sycamore and Elm as well as the Cedar, Douglas and Larch. We just need more time!!!

Today's milling... First find your logs!!

We have a moretens ph260. Which from what I can see is the same as the Logosol/woodmizer machines (but a few years older). We mainly run WRC and Larch through it. It's a good machine and has definitely earnt its keep with us (though we did buy 2nd hand). You need to have decent dust extraction sorted. We've found that it's worth picking a couple of sizes for cladding and sticking with them so you can mill and build up a stock of the rough sawn boards to give them time to air dry! Switching between different profiles can be quite time consuming. It's not too bad switching between different types of t&g Cladding, but switching from t&g to par could take an hour or so as you have to adjust the height of cutter blocks and all the fences and pressure rollers.

A Sycamore today. Borax applied and stood up under cover now. A few nails in it unfortunately, but we got it for the cost of a hiab hire (along with a couple of Oak stems and a lump of horse chestnut)

Glad we have hydraulics on the mill (though they struggled a bit) and a telehandler to shift the beams!

Finally milling something other than Cedar and Larch. Contract milling some 8in X 8in X 20ft Oak posts/beams. With 40mm boards from round the sides.

Bit late to this thread, but there are some reasonable trees round the back of Blackford hill, along the hermitage of braid. Along from agassiz rock. Copy this into Google maps to see where I mean. 55.920744,-3.193388 .

We buy our blades from EPS. The Roma Gold at 55mm wide. These are last year's prices though. We get a small discount if buying more than 10 blades at a time. We had some issues with the welding on one of the batches of blades we bought, but Ross Anderson in Kirkcaldy, sorted out the problem and got the blades replaced with a quick turnaround.

We'd have been about the same price as Topchippyles. But that's just based on the volume of wood. If the board had been planed or a straight edge put on, we charge for the original volume plus a charge for the work.

Big J moved on from milling to forestry. I took on his milling business and we do still use the Kiln he put together. Andrew