Squaredy

I know a small sawmill near Swansea where they have an amazing stock of wide slabs (Oak, Ash, possibly some Elm), four feet wide or even more some of them. Made me quite jealous when I visited recently. Not sure you would get a bargain but if you are over that way and like big slabs he is well worth a visit. Let me know if you want his details.

That's what roof bars are for.....! Can't do all those crazy emojis, just a simple semi-colon and a bracket is about as emoji as I get.... They'll make a movie about them next.

Yes almost identical timber, mill those trunks, and get some lovely slabs. Shame on you for even thinking of turning them into firewood....! And yes also like Cedar of Lebanon very favoured by chainsaw carvers. Or if you are near me (South East Wales) sell them to me!

I would say if they are any quality hardwood such as Greenheart then £20 per cubic foot is very reasonable. The problem you face is actually finding someone who has a current need. And remember: seeing something for sale on ebay or wherever is very different from something actually selling. I have one specific suggestion that might help you. Try contacting traditional boatbuilders. There are quite a few of them around and if they need some quality beams to turn into a boat keel Greenheart would be one of the best timbers for this. But getting hold of long beams could be almost impossible. Again timing could be the issue for you but you never know you might get lucky especially if you get hold of the boatbuilding colleges (Lowestoft and Lyme Regis). It might take quite a bit of phone or email work, but a boatbuilder who has the right need would be delighted if your beams really are Greenheart.

Cedar of Lebanon is a timber with some wonderful properties. The heartwood is very durable (unfortunately though it has a very wide band of sapwood) and although not as strong as say Oak or Ash it could be strong enough for construction - it all depends on straight grain and large knots as with any timber. Typically it does have lots of large knots, so this is the reason it is not considered a strong timber. Any length that is straight grained and free of large knots will be strong. Cedar of Leb also is very easy to dry and does not distort much as it dries. Also it has a wonderful smell, although this diminishes over time. I would say it is ideal for garden benches, but of course the sapwood may eventually rot. And also good for bird boxes. I am assuming the birdies will not mind the smell of the wood. It will soon be obliterated by their own smells anyway. Hope this helps.

Ebay are getting very clever at cracking down on fee avoidance. Paying with cash will of course avoid the PayPal fees, but you might find that the seller is still charged the 10% ebay fee no matter how you pay. Even if the sale is not completed through ebay and the item is cancelled before ending they are still allowed to charge their fee. You might have noticed that a lot of listings no longer have phone numbers in the details. This is part of the ebay plan to avoid people completing sales outside ebay and so avoiding fees. It is now against ebay listing policies to include contact details. I think it is all a bit cheaky - after all when browsing ebay you are bombarded with banner ads etc, and there is a small fee for listing every single item. And yet they clobber you for 10% of the selling price as well. It is a genius business model....

Where are you based?

Thank you Big J that is very interesting.

Big J, I meant to ask you what are the thicker blades you referred to? I have had a lot of trouble with blades (mainly trying to find a good sharpening service) but am now happy with Ripper 37 blades sharpened by Stephen Cull Blademaster. Have you had success with a thicker steel blade?

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.