Squaredy

Ah yes you have reminded me of a peeve - employees who stink. Had a couple of them over the years. Really difficult to deal with. Especially when they don't believe you when you tell them. Needless to say I no longer employ them....

Totally agree with you, very sensible. But surely there are some things that just wind you up.....?

Behind our sawmill this morning in the Forestry Commission (now NRW) forest I heard an awful noise so I investigated and found a walking floor articulated lorry and a very large chipper with loading crane munching through old stacks of milling size logs which have been abandoned and taken over by the wildlife. Does anyone know, have NRW suddenly decided that an old pile of logs that the purchaser has not collected is a danger and must be removed? The particular pile that I watched being devoured this morning was at least a full lorry load of Spruce that was past it when I first noticed it in 2011. It would have been very rotten now and I struggle to see how it could be of much use even as biomass. It is a bit upsetting as these logs must have become quite a valuable habitat to vast numbers of critters. I am no expert in woodland management so I would be delighted to be informed of the logic of such an expensive and apparently destructive operation.

I personally use the speedo. I don't often use satnav. You should try a double cab truck and remove the front seat and sit in the back seat Jonathon...

Very nice. You must do a lot of chopping...

Nice board, but don't get too excited about the ripple. If you get a long board rippled more strongly you have something special. That said, it looks like the board is pretty special anyway. What are you making with it?

No but it is rippled ash. Very slightly rippled. Got a pic from a bit further away?

The local authorities around here (Newport and Cardiff) have started using wildflowers in verges in places. Some of them are just lovely, though some just look a bit neglected in late summer. I suspect it is more of a cost-saving measure than anything else but as long as they use the right mix I guess the bees will love it.

Yes agreed....Stephen Fry put this into Room 101 years ago. Back then it was a bit of an Aussie thing, but maybe it is spreading?

Not a collosal peeve, but certainly makes me wonder what planet people live on at times. I run a very small sawmill business so I am not an arborist. I get phone calls or emails from customers who have a tree they want removed asking what I will pay them for it. Usually once I take into account transport costs the answer is "Not much" or something similar, and sometimes the response comes back "It is worth more than that as firewood". Well yes it may well be, but you will have to chop it all up, split it all, season it for a good while (or build a kiln and kiln it) advertise for buyers, deal with all the enquiries, deliver it to multiple addresses, etc, etc. And even better is the odd picture I get sent of an overgrown Leylandii or similar in someone's garden asking if I will cut the tree down and pay them. I always refer them to local tree surgeons.

Thank you Openspaceman, in that case I am wrong about motorways, it is just dual carriageways and single carriageways where the limit is less. That is well worth knowing, if even more illogical!!

My one full time employee recently attended a speed awareness course and was duly informed that most vans are only allowed to do 60mph on dual carriageways and motorways and 50 on single carriageways. I doubted this at first but found it is correct. It is rather important for me as I sometimes ask someone to do some driving for me (in my work Transit) and would feel awful if I failed to inform them of the lower speed limits on the vehicle and they were then fined. Our work transit has a speed limiter fitted at 70mph, but legally can only do 60. More surprisingly my daily driver, a 2004 little VW Caddy van, is also only allowed to do 60. I have driven similar vans for at least 30 years and am shocked that I have been maybe breaking the law all this time. It seems the only type of vans allowed to do car speeds are classed as "Car derived van" on the registration document. My little Caddy says "Light Commercial" on the reg document. I am aware that long discussions have taken place on this forum regarding pickups and how some of these are classed as Dual Purpose Vehicle and some are classed as Light Commercial, but I could find nothing really about vans. How many white van drivers bombing along the motorway at 80mph know they are actually going 20mph over the limit?

Correct me if I am out of date but many farmers and other landowners have licenses to abstract water from rivers and streams. In fact I believe this sometimes causes serious problems downstream where river levels are much too low for the wildlife attempting to live there. Hasn't this thread covered a lot of ground.....water wastage, poverty, as well as log goblins. I have been a log goblin years ago.....but always with permission from the owner.

I completely agree fitting poor quality parts is a false economy. It is wrong to suggest however that the only way to get good quality parts is to buy from a main dealer. A good example of this is bearings. Matching up virtually any bearing is usually simple via a bearing specialist and you should be able to get hold of the identical bearing. And contrary to what some manufacturers would have you believe you will not invalidate a warranty by using non genuine parts as long as they are the correct spec.

Yes I am aware there are certain exceptions, and I assumed the original poster was not talking about game birds. I thought it worth mentioning the general law as it sounded like the poster who suggested destroying the nests was unaware that this is usually illegal. He did not say you would need to check the species and have a specific license and use certain methods. As professionals we all have to be careful of what we tell the public. I am sure we are all aware on this website about the laws relating to felling trees but maybe not disturbing bird nests.

In the UK that would be illegal no matter what the species. Check out the RSPB website.

Yeah agreed, I get this quite a lot. I downgraded my Norwood sawmill from ceramic blade guides to rollers and got the correct roller kit from USA about half the price I could have got it over here. It was the identical part actually purchased from Norwood themselves so wasn't a cheap alternative. And I needed a new carburettor for my Lucas Mill shortly before Christmas 2016 and the local Kohler dealer in the UK said he couldn't even order it for me until the second week in January the following year. So I phoned a dealer in the USA who had exactly the correct original part on the shelf and shipped it the same day. It left the USA on a plane on Christmas day and the only delay was with UK customs who faffed a bit, but it still arrived before the local dealer would even have ordered it for me, and was nearly £160 cheaper even with postage and import duty. I don't know who is taking the mickey but someone is! I remember some years ago a trend started of going to Europe to buy a new car. It sounded like a bit of a faff but apparently a correctly specified right-hand drive car with plates and everything was in most cases several thousand pounds less just because it was ordered in Germany or France.

If you are concerned about having no long term sickness benefit because you eventually will become self-employed the type of cover you are after is called Permanent Health Insurance (PHI). This will pay out a fixed amount per month if you are unable to work and it will be paid until you are fit to return to work or until retirment. Unless you are young and in good health it could prove costly, and if you never claim you will get nothing back from it. Before considering this you should attempt to work out what help you would get from the state so you can evaluate what your actual shortfall would be. Most self employed people have no such protection and simply have to deal with whatever life throws at them. And for most it works, but of course it is possible you could be one of the unlucky ones who does have a serious accident or health issue and is off work for an extended time. You should seek professional advice if you want prices and detailed guidance. Even this advice of course will not be free! I personally have no cover in place, but to an extent I could still run my business even from a wheelchair.

I looked into smokeless zones in 2008 when I installed my logburner and couldn't find any proper info online about which areas are smokeless zones. Is there a website where you can check using a postcode? I certainly couldn't find one when I installed my logburner so I just did it anyway. I live in a fairly rural area so I assumed it would be fine but I wanted to check but got nowhere.

My understanding from literature I have read is that the Elms in the UK are a rather complex mixture of sub-species. I know of the Cornish Elm and the Huntingdon Elm for a start, and apparently they hybridise readily? I do hope they start to overcome the disease some day for many reasons. I have just bought in a load of Scottish grown Elm and it is very beautiful timber. Not as clean and straight as Ash or Sweet Chestnut, but for character and beauty it is unsurpassed. Now Sweet Chestnut is also dying out I believe? That will also be a great loss, but not comparable to Ash of course.

Would the electricity company not have a responsibility to fell or top the trees? Or is that only the high voltage lines?

Well sadly it is wonderful firewood also!

Holm Oak....very beautiful timber once milled, even with the fungus. Got any stems for sale?

I agree I just bought a pair and they are good. Max twig size they will cut is about 8mm or so.

As a general rule logs do not dry very well until they are cut to short lengths or milled. This does vary by species, for example Oak barely dries at all in the round. The fact that the log is sprouting shows it is still alive and has enough moisture in to grow. If it continues to be deprived of any fresh moisture it will eventually dry and die. If it is touching the ground some species especially Willows and Poplars will actually take root and start to grow properly. So to answer your question the log may still be drying but very slowly. I have got logs in my yard sprouting now that were felled in 2016, and they are not touching the ground.