Squaredy

3 hours ago, Big J said:

Any timber is more stable when quarter sawn, albeit with some timbers you might lose some of the figure.

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!

17 hours ago, Big J said:

My inclination is that if you are finding that you've a ready supply of large diameter logs, that having a chainsaw based log halver fabricated would be the way to go. 

 

Before I got the Trakmet saw, I used to halve all of my larger logs with a chainsaw mill with extra long uprights. It's not that easy, and isn't something you'd want to leave your employees doing. 

 

£7-10k would probably see you to getting a carriage based chainsaw mill. Spec it with a 120-140cm throat, and it would mean you could halve just about anything. Or, you could mill it through and through if you are feeling masochistic. 

 

I can't stress enough how stable boards are from large logs, with one side straight edged through the heart. They mill really quickly on the sawmill (you just stand the half up vertically, mill through until you're a board shy of the heart and flip the cant) and you eliminate 95% of all movement and drying defect. It's brilliantly easy for your customers to select bookmatched boards as you'll have thousands of them, all of them with a perfect straight edge (not a rough and ready edge from free hand halving). 

If I were milling hardwoods again (which I won't) then that is the way I'd go. Wide throat bandsaw technology is hit and miss, and you'll get perfect cuts until suddenly the blade decides its' blunt halfway through a cut and you waste £200 worth of timber. 

 

If the carriage based chainsaw mill is interesting for you, I've got a little one coming from TCF engineering next week which could be scaled up I'd have thought. Mine's only 3.5kw 240v on an 18" throat, but you'd fly through the timber on 10-15kw three phase.

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.

2 hours ago, astra25 said:

Hello I'm currently trying to get my hands on a elm log if anyone has one or gets one in the near future.

Any advise for who I could try contacting?

Size wise somewhere around 20 to 30" diamiter  6 to 8 foot long or anything simular anything considered willing to travel anywhere to collect and don't mind paying good money for a decent log many thanks Wayne.

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

1 hour ago, youcallthatbig said:

I run an autotrek with a 4" wide blade, cutting up to 1mt wide, unless the log is mild without knots I would only attempt such a cut with a recently sharpened blade,  on a 2" wide or narrower blade i would say the accuracy of cut along with speed of cut would be open to question, so tend to wholeheartedly agree with Big J on all his points. 

Seriously, how many logs do you have access to that requires a 48" or wider T&T cut so that the purchase is a no brainer....otherwise stick with what you have got.

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.

57 minutes ago, farmerjohn said:

Have you had a look at Hud-son sawmills?

iv had a few de-barker's from them and they were really helpful and posted to uk no problem. a few years ago i asked them about shipping to uk and they said it would not be a problem to give  a cost for it, but never took it any further.
i like the look of them, the band wheels are a bit bigger diameter which i think will be less stress on the bands.#https://www.hud-son.com/product/oscar-52-portable-sawmill/

the next size up mill is a big jump in cost though.

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.

57 minutes ago, Big J said:

I always liked the look of the Cook mills and I did consider them when I imported my Logmaster LM2 from Texas.

Now as regards wide cuts. There are so many issues with wide boards and they include:

 

• you have to have complete handling for logs and boards of that size. Logs can easily weigh 5000kg, and 500kg boards aren't uncommon.
• they are prone to serious drying defects, whereas simply ripping out the heart leaves two very wide, very stable boards that can be rejoined together.
• they much up your stacking system, as they have to be stacked in log form, as no stack will accommodate two wide boards wide.
• cutting accuracy on a 40mm band would be unreliable at best. With 1.3m between the guides, there is little to stop a little blade like that deviating, and possibly wasting a very expensive log.

My point is that in my experience, wide boards are best avoided if at all possible. Otherwise, mill with something with a very wide blade and you might be OK!

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.

32 minutes ago, difflock said:

When I was "prospecting" for bandsaw mills, and with the 10 year(ish) ago favourable exchange rate, looking keenly at US stuff, Cooks were a front runner, from my own extensive internet based research, probably thee front runner, and SUBSEQUENTLY backed up by a local Engineer, with significent forestry machinery experience and  currently works for Jas P Wilson as a NI/Irish rep(or did until very recent), who stated they would be his first pick.

I will try and find his contact details in my phone.

Just remembered, Geoffrey Boreland, I will give him a ring to check.

Cheers

Marcus

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!

22 minutes ago, Big J said:

I'm glad that you've got a market for it, but with the profusion of elm that was the case in Scotland until very recently, very few people would look at it. Customers would generally either want elm or oak. Sometimes ash, and occasionally sycamore, but not enough to warrant much effort in sourcing it. 

Ah well I must have very discerning customers!  

15 hours ago, Big J said:

Boring timber though, unless rippled or highly figured.

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.

11 hours ago, Chrisy B said:

?, sorryyyyy. 

 

I’m in too minds to go for a Lucas/Peterson or bandsaw. Currently have a logosol m7 and Alaskan, but looking for something a bit quicker and easier. 

 

Been looking for a few months for both on usual places, Lucas keeps popping up on eBay which seems to be a con as is same pictures but always a different location.. Difficult to know what genuine and not on there these days!! 

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.

37 minutes ago, benedmonds said:

He has yet to respond... 're video..

 

I know the client socially and enough to have a joke.. I am trying to help him out but you know some people's expectations..

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.

39 minutes ago, eggsarascal said:

Here ya go.

 

 

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

3 hours ago, Gary Prentice said:

Owner is now looking for a new contractor, apparently! 

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

4 minutes ago, benedmonds said:

I have a client with 2 redwoods 25-30m, one has been dead 7 + years the other died this year.  

We could get it roadside in 3m or 5m lengths.

In 15 years I have yet to sell any arisings for anything other than logs or biomass.. Is there any value more than £23 a ton for biomass?

The client thinks it must be worth £1000's. I have sent him the black walnut 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.

41 minutes ago, Stere said:

Why can't the spoil go back in the holes they dug it out of instead of behind dams?

 

Probably it will cost alot more but surely a  better system is possible if the regulations were in place?

 

 

Yes it must all be down to money.  Of course if the mine is open cast this would be very difficult whilst the mine is being used.  They could create more smaller mines and fill in the old one as they create a new one, so constantly dealing with the waste.  But costs go up.  It is all about maximum output at minimum cost, so unless they are forced to do this they won't.  And in countries struggling to develop their economy and compete with the developed world it just isn't going to happen.  Countries like Australia and Canada have no excuse though.

The simple fact is us humans make a mess when we exploit the Earth's resources and the default response is to just leave the mess and move on.

9 hours ago, farmerjohn said:

Same old question,

I have the chance of buying a large oak log in photos below.

It is 32 feet long and starts at 42 inches wide and by the first 8ft tapers to 34" wide then the remaining 24 feet remain at 34" wide.

There is a bit of rot in the end, and a few sections where large limbs have been.

It's been dead standing for years.

 

As usual i want to offer a fair price for both myself and the land owner.

 

Ps, out of interest if it was cut into 8 10 or 12 feet sections at 34" wide what will each size weigh roughly?

 

Thanks for anyone's time who replys.

 

I make it 160 hoppus feet and judging by the quality maybe £4.50 per hoppus foot.  That would be my limit anyway.  But extraction of a single log is always costly so I would deduct the cost of this from my offer.  

You may may well find it contains much clean timber but you may also find rot and lots of worm.

Finally the world seems to be waking up to global warming, air pollution, etc.  Not enough is being done yet but I detect a sea change in attitudes.  Why then is no-one talking about the vast scale of industrial pollution that is Tailings dams?  Even when one collapsed in Brazil in January killing several hundred people I don’t recall much discussion of the 11 million cubic metres of toxic mud that then was spread down the valley.  I didn’t even know it was a Tailings damn until I read about it in Geographical months later.  I thought dams were massive concrete structures built to provide drinking water and provide hydro-electric power. 

It turns out there are thousands of dams in the world (800 in Brazil) whose sole purpose is to hold toxic waste.  And is this just a short-term storage facility whilst the waste is disposed of?  No, these dams (which are themselves built of mining waste and so are potentially unstable) will be around for thousands of years, and need constant monitoring.  I wonder who will pay for that!?

The UK stopped using home sourced Iron Ore many years ago and now imports because it is so much cheaper.  Well here is one major reason it is cheaper – in many countries they extract the ore, then just dump the waste in vast pools endangering the lives of anyone living downstream, not to mention local wildlife.

If you want to read a nice little summary is here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47159216

Quiz question:  What is the largest man made structure in the world as measured by solid volume?  Yep, you guessed it a Tailings dam (the Syncrude Tailings Dam in Alberta Canada to be exact).

I would say most Arbtalkers have a greater than average awareness of environmental issues.  Anyone got any views or other snippets they would like to share?  Am I the only person who was very ignorant of these vast toxic dumps?  Apparently there are even a few in the UK – anyone know where?

2 hours ago, patterdale terrier said:

EVENING COULD SOMEONE GIVE ME ROUGH VALUE OF CHERRY STICK APPROX 26" TO 23" X 25FT LONG THANKS OR DOES ANY ONE WANT TO BUY IT ALSO BLUE CEDAR AND YEW 

Difficult to judge the quality of the log from the photo, but if it is straight and fairly free of branches it is worth around £3.50 per hoppus foot which works out about £275.  I bought two very similar cherry tree logs a few months ago from a local estate.  There is no demand from UK sawmills for native Cherry which is surprising as 25 years ago it was sought after.

A few years ago I was offered two lorry loads of quality milling cherry so I rang around my local sawmills to see if I could share them with another mill.  They didn't even want to know the details - just had no interest in UK Cherry logs.

If you were near me I would be interested, but I am much too far from Norfolk.  You could advertise locally and may find a buyer - Cherry, Yew and Blue Cedar are all good timbers - depending on how clean the stems are.

2 hours ago, arboriculturist said:

Everyone appreciates the complete process chainsaw milling from the felled stick to stickered, covered milled timber back at your base is hard work and time consuming.

From what I hear -  nationally there is a mass of milled products stickered and covered, which the producer is unable sell.

We process a lot of timber up to 500mm, which could easily be milled to add value but have held off buying a Panther Mill due to the uncertainty of demand for milled timber. Perhaps there are routes to a market that I am unaware of?

Is this actually the case that there is a very limited market for air dryed slabwood?

To some extent you are correct.  There is a market for air dried slabwood, but it is laregly hobbyists and people doing house improvements; so often  they will not want exactly what you have, and it is very easy to overlook how time consuming and expensive it will be to find these customers.  This is what I specialise in and I have a premises which customers can visit 6 days a week and a stock of over 100 cubic metres of air dried native hardwoods and it is a full time business to look after it and deal with all the customers.

There are lots of joiners, kitchen fitters etc out there but they are already very well served by the imported timber market, and are very used to getting high quality rather boring timber off the shelf in good lengths and a huge range of sizes and low prices.  Arb arisings, or even forest grown UK hardwoods are never going to compete in this market.  So you are left with specialist and niche markets and thousands of hobbyists who will want a very diverse range of stock.

The only useful suggestion I have for anyone wanting to mill is to sell to me!  Of course there is a limit to what I can take but I am selling at least a cubic metre a week so am always in need of native hardwoods.  Of course I will only pay wholesale prices, but at least I will take a whole batch rather than sorting through looking for the perfect board!  I have 20 cubic metres arriving from Big J on here within a week or so, which will be my second lot from him this year.

23 minutes ago, Coletti said:

25 minutes ago, Rough Hewn said:

It can be good, spalted or burr are particularly nice.
It's not a durable timber, so it will start to rot.
However cut at 4" thick it should last a while.

Read more  

I was considering 3" but I'll suggest 4". The client has got a bit sentimental that the tree had to be removed so wants to try and make use of some of it for something other than firewood

Maybe something could be made for indoors.  If is has some character maybe mirror, sconses, tables, bookends, blanket box...

13 hours ago, Rough Hewn said:

Thanks Squaredy.

PM sent.

2 hours ago, Rough Hewn said:

Hi Squaredy,
I'd be interested to mill it,
But I'm up to my neck for next couple of weeks.
Probably could do mid-end of May?

I will PM you the contact details if you wish.  As it has been down a year he may be willing to wait a few more weeks.  Apparently there are also some pine logs he will throw in but I have no idea what they are like.