Squaredy

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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...

PM sent.

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.

Well yes, but I don't think the owner wants it to stay where it is as habitat!!

Let's see an up-to-date photo if possible. Based on the photo we have seen so far it is ludicrous nonsense. They might as well ask if a nicely cut lawn has damaged the house. That will dry out the ground more than the tree in the picture! And as Gary Prentice said what are they expecting the arboriculturalist to say? "Yes the tree looks healthy." He or she will not comment on damage to the house. Are you sure it wasn't another issue the bank want investigated? If the surveyor has identified a problem with the house shouldn't a structural engineer produce a report?

I have been contacted by a man today offering a large Sycamore stem, which judging by the pictures would produce some large characterful slabs. He isn't after money, I guess he just wants it gone. Whilst it is clearly not a nice clean milling stem I would think someone local with wide slabbing capabilites might appreciate this. It has apparently been down for a year, and is 16 feet long and up to 5 feet wide. Some of the smaller pieces in the photo are also available. If anyone fancies it PM me and I will pass on his contact details.