Squaredy

Clear Cuprinol soaks in well and can be painted over. Always test a piece of scrap before you do the whole thing if you are unsure.

Clear wood preserver such as Cuprinol or barretine. Invisible but will protect it to a degree.

Or indeed varnish the worktops with three coats yacht varnish. This is what I have done in my kitchen with my Beech worktops. No black around my sink. Water drying off leaves marks but just slight mineral deposit as I live in a hard water area.

I have been looking into the Hudson mills, and it looks good, and shipping to the UK is not too bad. Might actually be a better option than the Cooks. Is there a dealer in the UK? Anyone got any stories of Hudson bandmills?

Saw this one in London years ago...

Sweet chestnut and redwood a bit soft. Chestnut finishes well. Elm would be good. Most important thing is how you finish it and joint it and if it is dry enough. Redwood is very stable so good in that respect just soft.

I think Big J is about right, although I would also say 3 inch clear Oak is ideal for window frames, and the 6ft length will be fine for many (but not all) of these. Once air dried for 3 years it should fetch £40 or maybe £50 per cubic foot as good joinery Oak. Kiln drying is possible but really only once it has air dried. It can be dried now but would take maybe 4 months in a kiln and the cost would be huge, as it must be done very carefully to avoid checking and honeycomb. I used to sometimes sell clear unseasoned Oak for various purposes and I used to charge £30 per cubic foot. These days I air dry it but it is a long old process. The bottom line is good quality unseasoned Oak is available easily from France at around £17 per cubic foot if buying a lorry load (I might be a little out of date I admit but not much) so the real value is in fully dried timber.

Indeed you will lose the most striking and amazing grain of all timber, with the exception of the beautiful medullary rays in Oak. Even quite boring timber like Beech and Lime can be stunning when slabbed - the first few slabs off the top and the last few slabs from the bottom anyway. As you say though it is a niche market but one which suits my business model. The large majority of the timber I sell is not slabs of course!

Very good advice Jonathon and appreciated. I do have a need to produce wide double edge slabs though. I was tempted by an old Forester with a 1.8m width of cut down in Devon last year but I really do not fancy such a monster and the blades were 6 inches wide and £300 each. Chainsaw milling would be my choice if it were just one or two logs. Imagine a slab through an 800mm wide Yew, and yes I do have such a log.

Hi Wayne, I am expecting a nice Elm to come in fairly soon - South East Wales - any use?

Thanks for your comments. I have offloaded a lot of my large diameter logs recently, but I still have maybe forty or fifty tons of logs which need a through and through cut of between 28 inches and 48 inches or so. I have the logs and will keep getting the logs and I have the demand for the timber. The figures stack up for me I just need the machine! Don't forget it is a very different technology using wide bandsaw blades. They are very expensive and easily give trouble. I think narrow blades are far superior in terms of what you get for your money. I have spent many hundreds on wide blades over the years only to find a few days later they are developing cracks and before long they are scrap. With a narrow blade you could even treat it as disposable. When the blade costs only £25 and it completes six cuts in a large log and produces slabs which I can sell for £900 it works, even if that blade is then scrap. Incidentally I use Stephen Cull for sharpening narrow bandsaw blades and I find him really good. No-one else I have tried can do it consistently, and I am talking about dedicated saw doctors not cowboys. A lot of saw doctors simply won't touch the narrow blades as they are so cheap to buy it is almost as costly to sharpen.

Thanks for the info Farmerjohn. I did not know Hudson did a wide mill. I have to admit the only time I saw a Hudson mill it looked very DIY, but I will check them out.

Thanks for your input Jonathon. I agree with everything you have said, but I do have a demand and a need for wide boards, and the handling is no problem as this wide milling will only take place at my yard, so we have the capability to cope with them.

Thanks Marcus

I am thinking of importing a bandsaw mill towards the end of this year from the USA made by a small company called Cooks http://cookssaw.com/ Why? Because I need wide bandsawmilling capacity and two years ago they launched a super wide bandmill which looks ideal. I am awaiting a shipping cost but it should not be prohibitive. Have any of you arbtalk millers come across any of their products? I am used to using the slabbing attachment on my Lucas Mill for wide cuts but I really need greater efficiency and less effort than this. Comments welcome!

Good post. I suspect the answer lies in supply and demand and market conditions rather than anything else. If you can get away with charging £X for your product you will, not because this is the true cost, but because you can. It would be interesting to know what the cost is in different parts of the world. What is the cost in the USA and Canada?

Ah well I must have very discerning customers!

Have to disagree with this. Not dramatic like Ash, Oak or Elm, but very beautiful and subtle. I would much prefer a Sycamore kitchen than Oak and I find a lot of customers like it also. I admit they don't come to me with it in mind, but when they see planed boards on display many love it. I sell only slightly less Sycamore than Oak. Also it is the most stable of the homegrown hardwoods - wide Sycamore boards will be much flatter than any other species. I know it will probably never have the large scale industrial appeal of Oak but it has its place.

I have a Lucas Mill, which I may possibly be selling soon. I also run a bandsaw mill which I am not selling. As for which you should get that depends on firstly the logs you have and secondly the timber you want. If you get large logs you will be struggling with a bandmill. Even one like mine with a 28" cut will only comfortable handle logs up to about 2 feet diameter, or if bendy then even less. Yes I know the advertising states that a 28" cut bandsaw will handle logs up to 36 inches but this assumes they are perfectly round and perfectly straight. Also they are just too big and heavy too turn, so it is just easier to get them under a swing mill (Lucas[Peterson) or if they are monsters even assemble the mill around them. I have milled logs up to about 8 tons in weight with my Lucas - you cannot do this on a bandmill, unless you get a massive industrial one. On the other hand, loading lots of small logs onto a Lucas mill is very inefficient. So in summary, large logs you want Lucas Mill or Peterson, and small logs you want bandmill. And the other factor is the stock you want. A bandmill can produce wide boards - well about 18" to 24" so pretty wide. This is great if this is what you need. A Lucas Mill will produce boards up to 9 inches or so (varies a little with the model) but they are square edged. In theory this is possible with a bandmill but in reality they will be far less accurate and less square and it is a lot of extra handling. If you want square edge timber go Lucas/Peterson. If you want wide boards go Bandmill. I forgot to say the Lucas mill can have the chainsaw slabbing attachment fitted (and I do have this) but it is really only for occasional use. It will indeed produce really wide boards but it requires a lot of effort compared with a bandmill and lots of tooth sharpening. So a good extra but not something you would use daily.

Maybe best to leave the sale of the stems to him. He is the owner after all. You can fell them and simply bring them to roadside and then he can find the punters willing to offer him huge sums of money for them.

Yes I did vote even though I live in Wales. I voted that both my boys can play on the x-box today as they were well behaved yesterday. My wife and I take a vote on this most mornings.

Thanks Mr eggs that is very weird but made me snigger.

I am intrigued; where do I find this famous video?

If near to me I would pay £60 per cubic metre or £70 if you can deliver in 2.5m lengths. I am south east Wales.

Now this one I did know about. Aberfan. It was not of course a dam but still spoil from mining. My grandad lived about 12 miles away and walked there and tried to help rescue the children in the school. This is the worst UK failure of spoil I believe, but certainly not the only one. Thankfully we in the UK seem to manage the waste now - all paid for by taxpayers of course.