TrollSpiel

aye Rich, a nice water based lacquer, to keep that sapwood nice & light - 4 or 5 goats at a 50% gloss. and thanks ;-)

Probably shouldn't have posted this yet, because it isnt finished - but I couldnt wait for my new spray gun to arrive & get some lacquer on it! form is typical of Trollspiel Bespoke (as in the spikey/curvy thing) to accentuate certain areas of grain... the top has a gold nugget ( pyrite wrapped in gold leaf) set in resin, as well as some turqouise.. someone said, make me a table.. so this is it.

cor, u lot make things difficult ! Circ saw at an angle, then kerf it, knock the slithers out with a nice sharp 25mm chisel. or if your'e lucky and have a nice dado bench like me, whizzo, 10 mins.

yowza! fabulous.

dear santa, I know i've been really bad n'all, but...........

Look, I really only posted this because I knew I could get away with writing a salacious title! As far as 'customary', I'm not a very customary kinda man. And I have 20 boxes in my garden, all lived in at some point - old copper jugs, boxes that were noxiously treated 20 years ago, bare cedar boxes, varnished... This box is oiled. I might experiment with just olive oil. But what brings the birds, and the same great tits every year, is not whether a box has been weatherproofed ( and at 50£ I'd expect it to be ) or not, its that lovely 'huntress of vermin cat' pictured left. And the birds know that!

& its not that posh! cutting and planing on the machine, glued & screwed, hit it with an angle grinder a bit, thew some decking oil over it.. 1.5 hrs.

they do.. what kind of tits would you like?

I'm sure it will be "moderated" (ooh, how british!) Ta mr ;-)

Chestnut, milled via Alaskan Mill. Dried for yonks. Thought i'd make a few birdboxes, cant be making massive tables all the time... Great tit sized - comes in all tit sizes

Rob, there should be some instructions on the back of that holder that read something like "horrible pointless cumbersome invention dispose of at earliest opportunity"

2 part post,, Moisture meters and bug/preservation treatments. Just a review on a product. I bought the Stanley moisture meter today ( and took it back within 2 hours ). Total kak. Weighed against the readings of my Doser Messtelhnik meter, I may as well have used a bar of chocolate to get a moisture reading. Couldn't get a reading above 17% on timber thats only been in a kiln 2 weeks. If you buy one, buy it from B&Q, then you can take it back again for a refund! Wykabor - Working with a rep from Sovereign Chemicals, on a house restoration that needs lots of treatments; he cocked an eyebrow at me when I said I'm using Boron based products for treating timber before kilning. The man seems to know his science, so if anyone else is looking for an alternative ( im not that impressed with wykabors 'mould retardant properties' ) to boron products for mould/insecticide, look at SOVAQ standard, FLX. I will be on the next kiln-ful. (the offending kak)

with the luck I have kilning oak, i'd say burn the damn thing

Rob, For sharpening - if you are using the granberg chain - I'd definitely be talking to robD about getting yourself a 12v sharpener. The scoring cutters will murder a new file in a few strokes; something I recently complained hugely about ;-) but I wouldn't go back to hand filing big or granberg chains. I cut a fair bit of old wood too - and I never go cutting without a small axe, chisel, brush etc to clean up that old timber of grit & stones etc. sometimes you'll find pockets of dirt and all sorts when cutting boards ( from old dead branch nodes, bark inclusions etc ) and I dig / brush them out - far less work than regrinding chain on a 48/36" bar! only other thing i can say, from personal experience, is start with a good first cut - a warpy / bendy guide will give you warpy / bendy boards - I use an Alu ladder with nut adjustable 12mm bolts - tips ground to a point. And I see-saw the alaskan when getting to the ends of the boards, keeping as much of the mill on the timber as possible - but then, an 880/48 is a heavy unit to be using.... I know i cut some truly awful boards at my first go

ditto. im not scots, but i'd get a kilt just to sit in it.

look at that saw! I feel so inadequate... and all those boards just chucked in heaps! Awesome, thanks for posting

Cedar? Oak, surely! Even the beetle that's been muching on it is a hardwood beetle. Ideas? Cut the waney edges off to use as frame, few 45 degree angles, a rebate here and there, and mount a mirror in it - & finish it ( but in something other than a dull wax ). Should sell. and it's definitely oak. I just notice wisewood had the same idea..

As ever, great advice. I can now give the accountant some idea of the value of my own wood - cos I too am clueless regards its worth. I'm alright at cutting and building with it, but when it comes to £££.......

sold.. i'll definitely take it at logwood prices

yes, I might be interested. but you'd have to give me a figure they're looking for

well there was a monster bit of beech I was planning to cut - but if even you find it tricky to sell.....

Alright J, you got me paranoid about the air thing now ;D i'm going to turn it into the Gobi desert in there and put in a HV fan this morning. Too much I know can give the boards a skin, too little, mold - just going to have to play with this.

J - criticisms are always welcome; as Ive only ever done things how i 'think' is right. Really, I had to de-bark. Some of that wood (holm) and one bit of english - was crawling! - so I went the whole hog. Desk fans not enough? Those two are really pushing some air. I thought it might be too much movement - they cross each other and blow through both middles of the stacks, and behind them at the walls. Am I really looking for more movement than that?

Thank you. Hornbeam... I don't know yet. Well I sort of do, but I don't know how it will come out. I've never cut it before, it just looked so nice & twisty and shapeful that I wanted to cut some. When I statred cutting it I was seeing some great grain , and loads of ripple & quilting - including a dragons head, which if this dries well, I may have found the bit of wood i was looking for for a guitar body..

more pics