TrollSpiel

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

This is my kiln setup. thought i'd show mine as others have posted similar to draw inspiration from. There are 103 boards in there ( room is 15x8x8 ). Big chestnut that has sat out for a year - boards are 8ftx4ft, 2 & 3" thick. Lots of oak, american red oak, holm oak, cedar, a lot of very pretty Hornbeam and some other bits. Boards are 8,7,5 & 4 foot, from 100cm to 35. 2 circulating fans, a heat source, ebac dehumidifier, duct fan extraction on a humidistat, remote temp/humidity sensor. Startup temp (after wood getting to temperature) , 35 degrees @ 78% humidity. Pulling 10L of water a day from dehumidifer. Took 5 days to cut and transport - including clutch rebuild on the 880 - another 5 days to de-bark, treat with wykabor and then stack, which was a task in itself - not just fitting it all in well, but lifting boards my own bodyweight to the tops of the stacks, alone. (where's the neurofen, wifey?) I didn't take many pics during the stacking, showing off the timbers - and apologies for posting so many in this post, hogging the bandwidth, but if it helps others so see how other people may do it.... All cut with an ms880 48/36, and the power of Alaskan Mill / Granberg. Grrr.

very elegant !

Not sure if this post is still of interest to anyone - but after a day of looking into the science of borates... I didn't want to fork out a small fortune for the "reissued repackaged" (mozza) product from this [top] company, they're a bit cunning about how they advertise it. Great products (I hear) from Wykabor - again, at a cost for 5kg. So here are the two chems they use in their products, with a few minor tweaks amounting to little it seems... To prevent fungi and insects attacking structural timber, preservative chemicals are used. Boric acid (H3BO3) and borax (Na2B4O7.10H2O) are used to protect internal framing from attack by insects such as borer. Both supplied really quite cheaply from the lower link of this mans original post. After spending a grand on gear this week alone, I think I know the option im using! Hope that's of any use to anyone who wants to use borates in the future.

Infinitree - a few of us use water clear casting resin (lots of sellers on ebay) I also use 2 part epoxy laminating resin for loading with brass powder - takes a lot of experimenting to get it 'brassy' and not army green! - east coast marine supplies for the both. talk to slackbladder, he da man for that stuff.

Bob, I'd say as big as you can afford. Recently cutting some oak, which wasn't that big, But I needed about 10mm more than I could get out of a 36" bar + ,mill - luckily I had the 48" with me - woulda been a waste to lose that nice feature by buzzing it off cos my setup couldnt accomodate. big as you can afford mr!