Squaredy

Interesting. You have total control over the burn as you can shut it down as much as you like with the three air vents. I just choose not to! I remember a few years ago staying at a holiday home somewhere and taking a bit of wood with me - mainly small stuff - it was hopeless - no way to burn it slowly. Load it up with fuel and it became an unbearable inferno. Ten minutes later it was down to ashes. And apparently that is the trend with modern stoves - no way to slow them down.

I remember when I bought my woodburner with boiler in 2009 the salesman in the showroom said it would be idling for long periods and I believed him. In reality it is running pretty hot most of the time and if I use chunky logs or wood briquettes I have it on max. Very rare indeed I allow it to idle. Now of course if it was only to heat hot water that would be different but my burner heats eight radiators and is the only heat source during the afternoon and evening heating a poorly insulated house. Overall it works very well, so if I ever have to replace it I will do my best to do so like for like. It is a Morso Dove if anyone is interested - 14kw I believe.

Personally I think fuel is a very good way of raising tax revenue. My problem is with the way that money is then spent more often than not. Raising tax through taxing income and business is a very bad way of raising money - it effectively punishes hard work. And the most effective way to make a stand against high fuel prices is to buy less. I do realise that sometimes this is difficult, but build it into your decision on what vehicle to run, where to live, where to work. How many people have a fancy gas-guzzler and are now moaning about high fuel costs? Am I the only person to have noticed that cars and vans are generally way bigger than they used to be? I guess these prices will be a huge push towards electric vehicles. Maybe this is the real hidden agenda.

As you say if you don't fit it someone else will. I think it will give you plenty of future work - after a few years it starts to get scruffy, and of course they will need someone to remove moss, repair damage, or when the house is sold the new owners will remodel the garden.

Apparently we all ingest microplastic when we drink tea made using tea bags. I find the headline figure difficult to swallow (sorry couldn't resist that) but I don't buy tea bags any more. We also breathe in plastic in our houses every day which I guess is largely produced from the plastic clothes we wear. Microplastics: Premium teabags leak billions of particles - study WWW.BBC.CO.UK Microplastics in drinking water do not appear to pose a health risk at current levels, research suggests.

Do the customers know it will get too hot to walk on with bare feet on a hot summer day?

It is clearly what the customer wants, but personally I can't stand a garden so sterile and featureless and "new out of a box" looking. A garden is of course a place to relax and for the kids to play, but surely a little understanding that it is a piece of earth and a tiny slice of nature is healthy? To be fair, is is any worse than a garden being paved over? Well at least a paved garden won't ever cause plastic pollution!

It might be possible, but certainly when steam bending fresh timber is a lot easier. I have tried with pieces that have dried a bit too much and they are likely to snap at any slight point where the grain is not straight. Interestingly (though I have never tried personally) softwoods do not steam so well. I know boatbuilders still do steam softwoods, but they always choose hardwoods for the major bent timbers.

For steaming you want fresh oak - don't waste your time trying to steam old oak. And a wallpaper stripper is by far the easiest method.

Looks like a spruce to me. Can't tell whether Norway or Sitka from the pic but def spruce. It could be Christmas every day if you put lights on it.

Wonderful habitat. Awful crop. Not sure it looks very safe either. Is it your stand of Poplar? If it were mine I would be thinking about felling and finding something that suits the situation better as clearly those trees are not doing well.

Not bad at all for something you found in the brambles!

Ah I see. Certainly for 29 Poplar trees it might be worth looking for a buyer. You near me (South Wales)?

I sometimes get a small load from a local firewood guy - he fells as well and sometimes gets logs he doesn't really want for firewood. He has a tractor and timber trailer so he can deliver. That won't help you I know but have you made contact with your local firewood guys who might be in a similar position? Otherwise there are plenty of forestry firms out there but generally they want to sell you a full load.

So what is the going rate for logs like that going to biomass if you don't mind my asking?

Well to answer your question, the poplar I started this thread about and milled in 2018 went up for sale a year later and was all gone within a few months, so it went really well. Even the sample board I put a photo of on this thread sold eventually despite it only being a sample as it was simply such a nice board. I bought more pop from a local farmer a bit later and that is also all milled and some of it is waiting for me to use in a building I am putting up in my garden. As a timber it dries well, is pretty stable and straight grained, but does have a lot of movement as it changes moisture level. If you mill some and put it to dry properly it would be good for indoor projects where you do not need great hardness, and where the design allows for a little movement. I personally think the grain is really nice and would love to see it used as kitchen cupboard doors for example. From your point of view I think what you have to think about is how easy it will be to sell the timber - unless you are planning to use it all yourself. I can manage to sell most timbers as I have footfall and if I can get any timber in front of my customers it will sell. If you have to rely on advertising you may find it takes a very long time to sell, as people will want the better known timbers. I have just a few weeks ago bought a full lorry load of poplar from an Arbtalk member which I have started milling to standard thicknesses and this will be up for sale next year. I am a big fan of getting under-used timbers in front of customers as there are so many great timbers out there which get totally overlooked.

Yes I have used that type of kit for about ten years and always found them successful. No idea about whether it is legal but they certainly work. Also saves a lot of time as you can often do a repair in just a few minutes - without even taking the wheel of the vehicle sometimes.

Very nice indeed.

And of course my city (Newport), Cardiff, Swansea, Newcastle, Bristol and a few others. Still about a tenth of the German cities we attacked. Nearly as many Germans killed in Hamburg in one week as in the entire duration of the Blitz on UK cities. We must never forget the Blitz, but all too often we forget the other side of the coin. And we deliberately targeted civilians.

I also love the Lancaster - amazing aircraft. So sad that it was a weapon of what would now be called extensive war crimes. Can you imagine a thousand of them heading towards a single city on a single night each carrying around 5 tons of bombs? Bombing of Hamburg in World War II - Wikipedia EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Are you after a full lorry load?

Teak is possibly the best timber you could use for a garden table - highly durable and stable. BUT you must allow for movement of the timber - it will get baked in the sun (maybe for weeks at a time in a heat wave) and rained on and damp for weeks at a time. If you glue it up like an indoor dining table you will have problems. Either leave gaps, or look at the way teak decks are made for boats - they have gaps with a sealant and caulking material in between.

Milling lots of Sequoia at the moment (Coast Redwood not Giant). We should plant more of this - stunning grain and dries in no time and super stable and durable. I will be using a load myself soon so I will upload some pics as the build progresses in an appropriate thread.

Sometimes the old ways are the best!

Wow - stunning! We mill loads of Sycamore, but never had logs quite that dramatic! The colour does fade as it dries, but hopefully not too much.