Squaredy

Ah well if it is for sale let me know - if it is a milling sort of trunk that is. It might be a bit far for a single stem, but you never know. Or maybe you wanted to mill it for the customer?

Agreed. BMI takes no account of the fact that muscle is very much denser than fat. According to BMI most male gymnasts, boxers and sprinters are obese.

It was a bit nasty to be honest. The book detailing how to assemble it ran to 130 or more pages! And even then a few steps were missing or wrong. And the technical data sheet delivered with the mill quoted the wrong size blades (someone doesn't know how to convert inches to mm) so when I used this to order blades when the blades came they didn't fit. I was lucky I had only ordered two on that occasion! On the plus side it is a good engine and very economical and we do mill a fair bit with it. I also thought the ceramic blade guide blocks were a very bad idea (wore out quickly and pricey to replace) so I downgraded to rollers like most other similar sawmills use and these are much better I would say.

As has been said definitely tropical timber. I suspect you will struggle to get a positive ID unless you are willing to pay a laboratory to analyse it for you.

I wonder if the owner might be more interested if he thought the tree were worth lots of money and that he might make a profit on the job....! Actually thinking about it maybe the financial blow could be softened by getting a good price for the stem....or does it not have a good stem? Holm Oak is very beautiful timber and doesn't come up that often. I would love to buy it if it is near me.

Hi I appreciate your concern and offer of help. I don't think you can help however. I think it is what it is. Assembling the mill is a big job (way more than the two to three days Norwood quote), and very difficult to get right, and the quality of both the design and build of the mill is mediocre. We are using the mill and mainly it does work but I would not recommend it.

My advice as a Norwood owner is don't consider the Norwood. Maybe a good second-hand one might be OK (there are two on ebay currently), but I bought a new HD36 3 years ago (£7300 for the basic version), and with hindsight I wish I hadn't. We are using it quite a lot, but the word that springs to mind to describe the build quality is flaky. And being self-assembly, if there are any problems it is difficult to pinpoint whether it is down to faulty manufacture or a problem with how it is put together.

For what it is worth my system is a 14.5kw stove that is plumbed into about 8 radiators in a 4 bed semi with very poor insulation. I have no heat store and it doesn't heat the hot water, just the rads. In really cold weather it takes a good hour to get the rads nice and hot, and it needs genuinely very dry firewood. At this time of year it has to be turned down quite low and copes easily. My system is simple but is very limited by having no heat storage capability. So we use other means to heat the house for an hour or so in the morning before going to work. Also on chilly evenings when I get home the house is chilly for the first hour or more. I would say if I was buying all my wood it would not save money compared to natural gas. Financially I think it only works for me because I can burn offcuts from work. It is not free wood, as it has to be cut and dried. And it is rarely decent chunky stuff as I can always sell this! I personally think the most important thing about any heating system is the insulation of the house. If I could get my house insulated to modern standards I could turn mine down by about 80%. In fact I would get a smaller stove as any stove turned down low results in incomplete combustion and therefore more smoke and pollution and soot in the flue. In fact often I hear people who live in super insulated houses (e.g. straw bale) say they need almost no heating, maybe a small woodburner for the entire house. After all humans, televisions, computers and so on all produce quite a lot of heat; the only reason we need extra heating systems is that most properties are not well insulated.

Apple is a very dense fine grained timber, a bit plain maybe. One option is to simply split the log down the middle and let it season as two pieces and then woodturners will be able to buy half round pieces about a foot long which will be a nice bowl size and shape. Splitting it down the middle should minimise other splitting, especially if you don't cut it to short pieces. Might even be worth selling green - a lot of wood turners turn unseasoned woods.

That should be fine then.

If you have used weatherproof ply it will be fine. If you have not it will be ruined by rain eventually whether you wrap it or not.

This is so true, and now more than ever - colossal amounts of money are being spent on property these days. With an ordinary house in many areas now costing half a million quid property owners have come to accept paying professional chippies, brickies, builders etc £250 or even more per day. And let's be honest these trades need skill and some kit, but not as much as Arb work. Getting off topic a little now but can anyone tell me why half a day's work fitting a woodburner should cost £600 or so plus parts??????????? To get back to the original question, you should follow your heart I believe, though you could make a bit of money brickingfor a few years first. As a freelancer of course if you want serious money.

Well Yew logs are worth about £3 per hoppus foot round my way (South Wales), or nearly £100 per cubic metre. You have about 11 hoppus feet of timber (one third of a cubic metre) so the total value is maybe £35. Yew is very beautiful timber, but not a fast seller and so not a very valuable log.

I have made a decision - I am going to try to build a bandmill on to my Lucas MIll. Plan is to use the existing 27HP engine and clutch so I just have to build a new frame to sit in the tracks to hold the bandwheels, then work out the best way to drive them. I am upgrading all the chains that take the weight of the tracks so they will cope with the extra weight (they are pretty ropey so this is a good investment anyway). I am hoping I might find someone who has a knackered or broken Lucas Mill they can sell me cheap as this would be a huge help for parts etc. Anybody know someone who is sitting on a broken one? I have posted an ad on Arbtrader. I will post some photos as work progresses......

On the plus side you are clearly getting a good amount of natural light into the building.....

The replacement of those timbers is going to be a tricky job. Respect to you for taking it on, and I would love to see some pics of progress as it takes shape. Bear in mind that woodworm love Elm (I am sure you know this) so maybe when done the new timbers should be treated to protect them once they have dried a bit.

As has been said it will burn OK if it is dry, however the amount of heat a wood gives off is directly related to its density. In other words a light timber that is dry will give much less heat than a heavy timber that is dry. All the best firewoods (Ash, Beech, Oak, Elm) are dense woods.

If i was near you i would offer. How about a neighbour with a small trailer like a camping trailer. Even the tiniest one will take 200kg and they are very low so should be possible to manhandle it in.

I agree a structural engineer might be wary. In reality any skilled chippy should be able to judge timber strength and integrity. After all the mighty oak can have all manner of structural weaknesses. Whatever the species someone has to judge the strength of each beam which will be quite easy when milled.

Ah yes it was a large tree. Got a lovely slab from this one 4ft wide and 8ft long with the lovely heartwood dark streak running up the middle. Was a near perfect table top. Dried really nicely with no splits.

Thanks Big J that is interesting. I have found a pic of the Lime with the coloured heart. Anyone come across this?

Well it isn't rot in the logs I just bought, and in Ash it is usually just lovely olive colour timber. I had some Alder logs a while back with some crazy colours in - picture below. Very pretty. I even had a large Lime which had a really dark lovely colour through the whole heart - a gorgeous chestnut colour. Usually of course Lime is so white it is almost featureless.

I agree the Lucas Mill is a good option for converting large logs so long as you are OK with 9" wide boards (or 8.5" or whatever depending on the model). I would offer to swap my Lucas for your Trekkasaw, but as you say the width of cut is in fact 1m or so which actually is not wide enough for me. I have started the plans for building an add-on to my Lucas to get it to power a bandsaw blade. The plan is to use the existing track and engine and raising and lowering mechanism, so I just need to build a frame for the wheels and get it driven off the existing pulley. Simples.....

Wasn't in a wet area at all. School ground - well drained. I will post some pics when milled.

I bought a few tons of Poplar logs from a local tree surgeon a few days ago. Each log had a clear dark area in the middle (like you often get in Ash) which I assume is going to stay darker and will hopefully make for a more attractive board when slabbed. However I have little experience of milling Poplar, does anyone know more about this? Is it certain species which have this or all Poplars once they are mature? They weren't especially large for Poplar (2ft diameter or so) and the tree surgeon had no idea which Poplar they were. In case it helps I have attached a photo. Any thoughts?