twmarriott

its a difficult one, i've a mill and buy small quantities, but its often not worth my time goingout looking and moving one log, either taking out tractor / telehandler and trailer out load up and cart back, sadly as said before its probably worth more as firewood now, especially as firewood is booming. i can buy an artic load of oak in the round delivered clean no nails for 4-5k that works out around 3-5£ a cube plus 150-200 for diesel, depends if theyre coming local or not (i have fetched a tractor load from eastnor castle before) and thats much easier to deal with. i generally only cut and air dry in the barn, 2-3-4-5-6-12" Beams mostly. unless its dead local and a nice tree, its just not worth it, the walnut looks nice but looks to have metal. I've only ever had 2 good walnuts, in the 100s i've looked at and slabbed probably over 20, the nicest made around 4k when air dry, but that took 3-4 years....its not easy money!

if and thats a big if, the trekka saw i used had worked there wouldn't be anything else onthe market.. it'd beat anything else hands down, but as you said they aren't up to it. as i tend to slab 2-6" for air drying, usually in oak but occasionally ash, beech hornbeam or yew and usually large diameters and i need accuracy, i want a wide blade, you get too much biver with a narrow one however sharp. thats why stenner use em, if you could build a trekka with bigger pullies, and stronger rails it'd be a handy thing, but i suspect not very portable.... i often wondered if i could pick up a 2nd hand trekka at sensible money i'd have a go...sadly both the trekka money and time have been illusive.

trekka saw is a good idea but we had loads of trouble with the blades, basically if you work them in hardwood, the pulleys are too small for the blades and they crack up in the gullet. i would have tried a stellite one but not at the price they were. if they could be made to work (maybe we just had some bad blades?) i would not hesitate to buy one.

if cash was no issue and i could have anything, i'd have a big traveling horizontal such as a tom sawyer, you put the log down and the carrage with the blade runs through on tracks, great bit of kit, nice wide band 3-4 inch borrowed one in warks a couple of times. not that many about never seen another though and very expensive when put in too.

not massive, probably 3foot or so. i've already an 85 so it seems daft to get an 84! that said he's a mate of my dads, retiring and wants to do me a favour so i'll probably have to buy it (politically it'd look bad if i didn't) but sell one. i did wonder if there was much market for such an old saw, theyre pretty out of date... i'm going to have to offer market price ish... though i expect it will get discounted... as i said its been looked after.

Been offered a stihl 084 AV but already got a large saw so don't really need it, that said i could move it on...it looks in good order (one owner) runs fine, but i'm aware its a big heavy lump and theyre not exactly fashionable now.... if i'm going to go down that route of selling it on whats it worth? had a look on flea bay and theres nowt that big. and before some clever person says what some on will pay... yep but give me a clue... i reconed around the 400-600 mark?

i would buy one if it was any good and at the right price. all of the small horizontals i've used have been to be honest good ideas but in practice not up really to the job. so i've a rack saw and a stenner band rack now, not portable but certainly better than any thing else i've seen, best idea was the trekker saw, but bands all broke up in the gullet, could be maybe cured by better blades or larger pullies but i expect the blade technology or pulleys were not right, If and its a big if i could find somthing like a trekker that was reliable and worked i'd buy it.

its also known as ambrosia beetle, it has a two year cycle, first into the cambium, 2nd into the rest, if its dry it will cycle fly /go and thats it. if its kept damp it'll go for another year at least. what you look to have is first stage so it will fly provided its kept dry that will be it, you can paint / spray sovereign or similar on it but not much point. it will also live in down timber not sawn (not dry enough) i had 12 or so large oak butts that would make joinery grade, sadly not enought time to plank, so now like swiss cheese, not enough to structurally effect but enough to fu*k up the joinery premium. still live and learn, i now plank nearly straight away as once the surface is dry its too hard for it, so will only get as far as cambium level.

apple, thorn, crab, cherry or beech will work, made 100s of them before, it needs to be bone dry if you want apple i've seasoned boards but not that many really dry i'm assuming its for heage windmill?? thats the only one in derbys. operating? elm is used for the actual gear i had some of big J for a windmill gear i made last year. that was 8' diameter with 109 hornbeam coggs.

i once missed out on buying a big horizontal like this, cracking bit of kit. i too have been there, but like i said, best kept under your hat. places like this do still exist i'll dig out some pics.

they're good kit but crack between the gullets on the blades, the pulleys are too small for the blade gauges with wide 3-4 inch bands, if they were as good as they promised they'd be everywhere, we borrowed one for a weekend and planked some ash and oak, cut about 150 cube in two days between two of us, but sadly cost around 400 in blades, 5 blades cracked up) it would mabe be the thing to look at with larger pulleys in a rebuild???

how on earth did you get landrover to do that??? done 30k in our 09 one, gearbox is terrible... they don't want to know...! i'd look at the upgrade on ours once the warranty is up but i'm not convinced the box will stand it!

i'll see what i can do... theres a video of the barrows on face pest Here

sounds to me like the pto clutch is slipping.

1864=6 built banbury only one like it, just had new boiler, runs at 50psi, wooden wheels, ended up in the 1920s in huntingdonshire driving a carpenters shop, i got another 1914 wallis in bits but thats a big long term project

if any one has any large bits of hornbeam, preferably in the worc. or adjacent warks, brum etc we allways buy it for cogg teeth in wind and water mills. very underated timber hornbeam.

rayburn still in here, waiting for summer coal price reduction!

that tree was worthless except firewood, it wasn't big enough and having looked at 100s of walnut trees over the years i've only ever had one worth any thing, that fetched about 6k but was a lot of hassle to get the root ball too. theres no easy money for walnut, 99.9% is rubbish the small portion which is ok is hard work and can be espensive with a digger, removal and transport!

the biggest problem we have is transport, i'd love to buy saw logs locally but theres not enough useable stuff available, most tree surgeons are making too much ringing them up, most stuff i saw is for our own consumption, but it'd pay us to use the mill more. its a difficult one..... like you said get the market.... then the rest will follow

here you go two of ours, about 120 years between them!

the expensive bit is nice, had to be as its making cart wheel rims, so got to be stable, extra extra dry and no incipient or checking. firewood i get around 100 for a 1ton bag locally. its easier to ring a tree than cart it back to our mill, and spend a day sawing and sticking it to dry

large horizontal band mill like a forrester in brown oaks post, swing mills are hard work.

for the work involved and price at the moment better money in fire wood. theres money in milling but theres a lot of waste in ash, oak isn't so bad but firewood is easy money, you may end up milling and seasoning a load of firewood..especially if you don't know what your at. as for ash i've just paid over 1000 for a 6" thick 2foot wide slab 16 foot long. time for me to find some large butts and wind our mill up me thinks. if any one has some up for grabs, south shrops, north worcs. pm me.

now the saps rising they'll be wetter, harder to dry and could lead to problems seasoning (mould etc) but you know what your at Jonathan so should be ok, it may be prudent to ring bark the tree first let it grow the sap out of it before felling???