Squaredy
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Everything posted by Squaredy
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I recently bought 26 tons or so of an unknown cypress species from a nearby estate. Planning on using much of it around my site for various construction purposes. The first log we milled though just reminds me of what fantastic timber it is. Beautiful, strong, durable, light and super quick to dry. Here is the stack of logs, some of which have been down for years, but still no sign of rot. And here are a few boards drying in my office/kiln. They are for use in a porch in January and I anticipate they will be dry from fresh sawn in about a week or so. We will see, as it is not much of a kiln! I love the stability and subtle growth rings. I will report back here when it is dry and we will see how much it has distorted in the process.
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I wonder if any tree surgeons include a clause in their quote to the effect that if any dog doo da is encountered there will be an extra charge? I certainly make it very clear to my customers that I will charge every minute of my time taken dealing with hidden nails when I am milling their logs! Is this what you guys do for this type of log? I am guessing it took you a while to properly clean and disinfect your gear after this little incident?
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Now if they are sausage dogs some lolipop sticks stuck in the ground should be plenty high enough...
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Actually that is a lot more useful than most of the ‘handy devices’ my elderly mother buys from those catalogues aimed at people with more money than sense.
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My wife says this is Donald trump in profile - spitting image style….
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If you need cladding you will have a lot of waste, as the sapwood is really no good for this. Find a couple of good leylandii stems for cladding, and mill the oak for beams or something else where a bit of sapwood doesn’t matter.
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Careful guys, at this rate @Steve Bullman will wonder about changing to subscription only!
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Generally only use the bandsaw, except if we have monster logs and then we use chainsaw. We always use the same chain on the chainsaw mill, I forget what it is off the top of my head - I will check later.
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I rarely mill pine but when I do it is always difficult. That might be because they are large knotty logs, but we always find the band mill blades wander badly. Give me nice easy oak any day.
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I love the fact you use invisible chainsaw operators. I bet they are handy at Halloween?
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Bear in mind that you are re-sawing (presumably) fully dried boards. This is very different to milling logs which will never be dry. I am not saying don’t try it, but the timber will be inherently much harder than if it were a log, so more likely the blade will wander.
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Re-sawing boards is very difficult to achieve without very large kit. I agree a larger thicknesser is the way to go. And a suitable dust extractor of course. Or take them to someone else who does have such kit.
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If it is any help I would charge them at £10 each roughly. Assuming I had 3m logs of course. If you have longer logs I would charge for the length the logs are. If you are just trying to cover your time however you might want to price them differently.
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How Much Wood do you Burn in a Week of cold Weather?
Squaredy replied to Billhook's topic in Firewood forum
Goodness me. I bet you are glad you heat your house with wood not gas! We have a 15kw boiler stove with 8 radiators, but usually only have it lit from about 3 or 4 in the afternoon until about eleven (though of course it stays warm to some extent until much later). We are burning mainly three year air dried oak currently and get through about three quarters of a cubic metre per week. Weight would be about 180kg. -
Certainly looks like freshly milled cherry. Look at the bark - cherry bark is very easy to identify.
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I am no expert either, but I have always understood that over 5 cube felling per quarter a felling licence is required. Only exception I am aware of is stems under 8cm, possibly gardens, and trees posing an immediate danger. Being potentially poisonous to pets is irrelevant as far as the law is concerned. FC will soon tell you or the owner if you ask them.
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Why are young’ish people leaving the job market?
Squaredy replied to eggsarascal's topic in The Lounge
There is a lot to be said for abolishing all forms of tax on work. I do realise this would create some problems, but it would make life so simple, save billions in trying to collect the tax and remove a major disincentive to work. Instead tax spending. Basics like simple food low tax and luxuries highly taxed. And luxuries that destroy the planet taxed super high. That way we all keep every penny we earn, and if we want to buy lots of stuff that we don’t need we pay lots of tax. If we want to live frugally we buy less stuff and therefore pay little tax. Of course we also need land reform so normal people can get on the property ladder without depending totally on inheriting their grandparents house. -
Re-sawing with the estate sawmill might be a very sensible option. As long as time is on your side you will find buyers eventually. Beams may sell well and you can get away with more faults.
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That is key….. finding buyers. The size you have quoted is about fourteen and a half cubic feet, so in theory is worth maybe £450. BUT the timber is not seasoned, and for most people is not a very useful size either. The whole reason for milling logs is to turn a not very useful item (a large tree trunk) into a really useful item (a board or beam). So the product you are trying to sell is impossible for most people to handle, not a useful size, and needs years to dry. Good luck selling those slabs, I think you will need it. If you break them down into a more manageable size you might stand a better chance.
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Useful looking telehandler. Makes me quite embarrassed about my old wreck! To be fair we only use it in our own yard, but it would be better with a grab or beak.
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Many times I have wondered about fitting such a device to my old telehandler. Interested to see what response you get.
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I thought it was some arboricultural technical term I hadn’t come across.
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If you can see where the tree was felled, find leaves and this will be much easier to identify. In fact you can use an app like Google Lense to identify it for you from the foliage. Identifying species from logs is not easy for a novice. Ideally identify from foliage and use that to build up your experience then one day you will recognise the logs.
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A disk like that will dry fairly quickly if you let it, as the fibres containing the moisture are really short. It could be pretty dry in a few months but probably longer if your garage is cool. As has been hinted at already it is almost certain to split as it dries.
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I was trying to source a load of cypress about a year ago. Drew a total blank. I would have had that lot off you in a flash!
