Squaredy

Thanks gdh, I will PM you.

Thank you for the responses. I would prefer to avoid Spruce as in my experience it is just not very dense. I would be more likely to take Pine than Spruce. Having said that if someone showed me some Spruce that was clearly slow grown I might be OK with it. There is quite a bit of Spruce on my site and it is very fast growing, so very light indeed when dry. Maybe Spruce is denser where you are? In answer to you gdh yes you probably are a bit too far (my Dad lives near Llandovery, but sadly he doesn't posess a grab lorry). Unless I can find a lorry that comes from your way down this way and get a good rate for a back load. I probably need no more than 8 or 10 lorry loads per year, and no timing isn't important so I could take it when you are quiet and then I would sell it the following winter or the one after. Know any good hauliers with tipper lorries or similar?

Anyone fancy the idea of making money from firewood, but not happy about the time it takes doing all those deliveries, and either sitting on the wood for ages, or building a kiln? I am after suppliers of processed but unseasoned hardwood and softwood near to South East Wales. I can collect and of course will pay a wholesale price, as I then have to dry the wood, bag it up and sell it. I am a little fussy about what species I buy - for hardwoods I can take Beech, Oak, Birch Hornbeam, and Ash, and softwoods Larch or Douglas Fir only. I pay £60 per full IBC cage (or euquivalent volume) of hardwood and £50 for softwood. Ideally I would collect in a tipper grab lorry and we can work out volume when it is in the lorry, but other ways may be feasible. Anybody like the sound of doing all the routine processing and letting me worry about drying, delivering, customer complaints etc....!!! You must be within say 45 mins or so of Usk/Newport of course or the transport cost will be too high (Bristol would be fine). And yes I really don't care how fresh and wet the wood is. Anyone like the sound of that?

Hi these stems are not in my area, but I am always after Cedar of Lebanon, Deodar etc in South East Wales if anyone else has any. Also very keen on getting London Plane, and Lime. In fact if they are good sized I will even pay a modest price for Leylandii as long as the stems are pretty clean - not knotty all the way up. I also buy Birch, Alder and Poplar by the way. I am talking about milling size logs at least 8 ft long, and straightish.

And this is the reason that so many small landowners do not manage their woodlands for timber. Value of the timber is less than felling and extraction cost. I think it is different for the guys doing it on a big scale and bringing in harvesters and forwarders of course, as they will fell and extract perhaps 1500 cube in those 20 days.

Rippling is very common in Ash, Sycamore, Sweet Chestnut among others but usually only a small length near the base of the tree. When the bark is peeled the timber underneath is clearly rippled like corrugated cardboard. The value is if a log is strongly rippled for a fair length so whole boards will be rippled. It is then valuable for musical instruments and so on. Usually though it is just an interesting feature at one end of a board and has no real affect on the value because it is not strong enough or there are other faults. By the way, it is of course a nightmare to plane as the grain is dipping up and down.

I can't resist sharing this picture of an amazing carving completed by one of my regular customers (Chris Wood based in Caerleon). He is a seriously talented carver and this is the usual standard of his work. I hope the picture shows OK - I am a bit of a novice at such things.

Yeah I agree two years is a bit too long -best to sheet it over. Processing firewood and finding half is soft is not much fun. Also it all gets very messy - dusty and mucky - not such a clean product.

One technique is nearly what an earlier post described. Cut the whole middle section out (maybe a six inch diameter disk or even more) with a jigsaw or similar. With a large disk maybe cut out two or more concentric disks. Then the large disks with the hole in will shrink without splitting (probably) and the smaller ones have a chance. Then when all drying has finished you will need to carefully fit them back together, maybe reducing the size of the inner ones to fit, and gluing into place. Also of course you will need to dry them really slowly. Or my personal favourite - let them split - they will still be beautiful. Or if you don't want a split get hold of some Giant Redwood or Coastal Redwood - they may well not split.

I am sure the Forestry Commission will give you advice and send an officer to discuss options. They may expect a full management plan to be drawn up, and bear in mind the value of 35 year old standing pines may be only £12 per ton or so. I may be a little out of date but these will probably be logs suitable only for low grade fencing or just pulp, not proper milling. And of course felling all the pines may cause all sorts of problems with the hardwoods - leaving them exposed to windthrow for example. If this isn't your area of expertise I think some professional advice is essential.

Wow that is a fascinating video about the train brake shoes - I thought that had died out 50 years ago. When James the red engine first arrived at Sodor he had wooden brake shoes and they caught fire and he crashed, so the Fat Controller repaired him, painted him red and gave him metal brake shoes! By the way, another good use of Poplar is for young children to learn simple woodwork as it is easy to cut. Bit of a small market I admit.

I am not a bandsaw or motor expert, but I would say it is far more likely to be the switch than the motor. Only other thing that comes to mind is if there are micro-switches on the doors which would stop the motor if a door is opened they could fail. If you don't have these then it is either the switch, the motor or a loose connection, and the most likely of these to fail is the switch. Also if you replace the switch it might only cost you £15 plus fitting so it may be worth a punt, whereas a new motor would cost lots. Hope this helps.

They can be mounted on wheels, but this costs extra so unless you need to be mobile they just sit on the ground. There are many other makes available, cheaper than Woodmizer - I don't have the experience of them to compare. By the way, you said large hardwood; I think a woodmizer HD40 will have a maximum cut width of around 28 inches - so will cope with medium logs - large logs will be too big for this.

Woodmizer is the tried and tested equipment. HD40 with hydraulics gives you power loading, turning etc. And if you go for a diesel version you will save the hassle of getting petrol all the time - just get a bunded diesel tank and buy a bulk load and cost will be less than £0.50 per litre. I would not be seduced by the Norwood mills like I was a couple of years ago. I bought a brand new HD36, and it is flakey, and was a nightmare to put together, and almost impossible to get the bed straight. Hope this helps a little.

I will see how many fit in a Jiffy bag...

Nice looking stock, how does this amount compare to an IBC cage? A little less I would say. In which case the price you are quoting is nearly retail surely?

From me....if you are near to South East Wales....

Yeah totally agree with Daniel Bos, using the middle of the log isn't a problem. Do expect some cupping, especially if you will be using boards 9 inches wide or more.. If you can stick to narrow boards (say 6 inches) you will get less movement. And of course allow for some shrinkage when you fit. If you fix a wide board top and bottom it may well split as it dries. Fix it top only, or top and middle (that's horizontal cladding I'm talking about).

Ah no worries, I guessed as much. If you ever are looking to sell nice milling logs in South Wales, let me know!

I have a site not far from Cwmbran ideally suited to tipping milling size sawlogs, especially Walnut, and firewood size ash. Nice and clean and straight please......!

Totally agree about the coracle - it is a shame more kids aren't given that sort of encouragement and opportunity. I wasn't criticising the coracle at all - it is awesome. I went to a school which did woodwork from age 4 for boys, and I loved it - the same school still does woodwork from age 4 but now for girls and boys I believe.

Getting back to the original poster's intention, I don't mean to be negative, but is there any really good reason for using the bone Oak? I am just thinking it will be almost all sapwood so it won't be at all durable and it would be so much easier to simply use young freshly cut branch material or sapling that will be so flexible it won't need steam. Sweet Chestnut would maybe be best as it will be durable but a whole host of species would be more durable than Oak sapwood.

Wow...I hope you put a bungee strap on that to stop it falling out when going uphill...

No-one came forward to move my logs on this occasion, so I did it myself using my Transit. Not really the most efficient way to move logs - took four journeys, but they are done now. Only worth it as they included some top quality Cedar of Lebabon - the largest log was 1.3 cubic metres and just about the limit of my little crane's lifting capacity. Thanks to Steve the tree surgeon who offered me the logs.

EB saws Sheffield made my last one and I am sure Atkinson Walker would do them - they export top quality circular saw blades all over the world.