difflock

I never de-burr, not aware of any peeling chrome plating either, only cutting wee softwoods, not big hardwoods. Well aware of the need to de-burr wood chisels though:thumbup1: However, did I see a comment about 5 file strokes?, I tend to only do 3, but use the full length of the file in quite a delibrate way, rotating the file between each stroke and then wiping the file free of metal particles (on my leg or gut ) between teeth.(anal rentitive/obsessive complusive behavouir perhaps, I appreciate) I also probably tend to keep my depth gauges a tad low, I wonder is the commented apon tendency for new bought chain to be a bit under-aggressive due to the reduced kick-back with a less agressive chain. In respect of Public liability claims an all that? PS Surprised the guy on the Stihl stand said the carbide tipped chain was only twice the price of standard chain, and his mate in the background commented that a stand was selling files for hand filing carbide tipped chain, I can only presume "diamond" coated files. If I had much old Hawthorn, or other dirty wood to cut I would seriously consider that option. Cheers m

I never de-burr, not aware of any peeling chrome plating either, only cutting wee softwoods, not big hardwoods. Well aware of the need to de-burr wood chisels though:thumbup1: However, did I see a comment about 5 file strokes?, I tend to only do 3, but use the full length of the file in quite a delibrate way, rotating the file between each stroke and then wiping the file free of metal particles (on my leg or gut ) between teeth.(anal rentitive/obsessive complusive behavouir perhaps, I appreciate) I also probably tend to keep my depth gauges a tad low, I wonder is the commented apon tendency for new bought chain to be a bit under-aggressive due to the reduced kick-back with a less agressive chain. In respect of Public liability claims an all that? PS Surprised the guy on the Stihl stand said the carbide tipped chain was only twice the price of standard chain, and his mate in the background commented that a stand was selling files for hand filing carbide tipped chain, I can only presume "diamond" coated files. If I had much old Hawthorn, or other dirty wood to cut I would seriously consider that option. Cheers m

Sniff, pity I wuz too slow at the keyboard or I would ave got that comment in frust. Glourious today, looking forward to tomorrow. cheers marcus

I can understand the chap at the local Stihl dealer using the wee grinder, as most of the chains he is asked to sharpen have by default been neglected/butchered/ignored/whatever, by ignorant unskilled chainsaw users. therefore to bring them back the pre-set grinder set up makes sense. In my limited experience though I have never seen a problem with hand filing, on the basis that I keep on top of it and do not abuse the chain, if the chain is kept sharp one never needs to force into the wood and can also sense if it is meeting steel or worse a stone. However if the saw is not being "bruted" no particular unfilable damage should result. All based on a wee 026 running .325 chain. cheers ps mulling over the rapid air cooling of a chainsaw tooth amounting to quenching cheers marcus

I,zis here at the APF, camping (in the car) in a local pub car park, good tip re the S Pool showers btw, otherwise please keep up-wind. pissed at the £3.00 for an ice-cream, £4.00 for a pint and £5.00 for a burger mind:001_huh: Despite the endless English whinging I see nowt wrong with the weather, either on the drive down yesterday, or especially today, glourious sunshine throughout. cheers marcus PS It were a 400 mile drive for me (well the mother in law was visiting otherwise) Back tomorrow, look out for the Stetson.

Hmmmm, I know chain saw chain techonology is more advanced than blacksmithing Treequip BUT I stand by what I said in respect of hardening and tempering. Albeit from 30 year old memories, backed up by subsequent experience. Red heat applied to steel and allowed to air cool will loose the HARDNESS that is induced by the "quenching", which effectively locks the molecular structure of the steel into a harded finer grained state see SEM photos for furthur elucidation. Tempering is the process wherby some of the induced hardness is relived, by application of a lower carefully controlled temperature. Classicaly to jump to another metal, copper is easily work hardened by hammering, one then softens it by heating and allowing to cool naturally. Repeat the process as often as necessary. So if one red heats a steel cutting edge, and does not quench one loses all hardness. cheers marcus PS I will now Google "hardening & tempering" Erm I suspect the comment about being unable to file the chrome on the tooth is erronous, otherwise there would be a several millimeter strip of chrome standing free after the steel tooth is eventually sharpened down to the wear guide This does not happen, therefore the "chrome" must be filable. By deduction, based on personal experience. Cheers again, Swithering to book ferry ticket to the APF, really must decide soon.

From my "O" Level metal work classes (was there such a thing?) I remember "hardening & tempering" as being the process where the correct grade of carbon steel was first highly polished, then heated red-hot before being "quenched" in water or oil (or menstural blood for Zulu spears apparently), to rapidly cool, this steel would then have been so hard as to be brittle, therefore then repolished before being heated to blue heat or straw coloured heat (showing in a rainbow effect across the polished steel) dependant on the level of hardness to be retained in the steel, before being allowed to air cool, ie slowly. I cannot therefore see how grinding "hardens" as the chain is not "quenched" Rather one is overheating the steel and loosing the hardening effect by overtempering. It should then actually be softer and easier to file BUT will not retain the edge in use. I liked Metal Work. Simples think of the point of a chisel for an example.

I was thinking the same as the poster above, yes very hard for yourselves but perhaps done for very genuine reasons. If one needs a working dog for a specific task and not merely a family pet I can understand the need for a pup. Unfortunately when one sees as many pups that were merely bought a a toy for the weans and then binned to the local pound once a bit big and troublesome it is truley upsetting. Especially as the resulting dogs generally have acquired many undesirable habits. We have probably had a doz or so rescue dogs, all different, needed to get 1 put down and one re-homed, but on balance we are very pleased. Our bastard Mastiff is at least 12, and still capable of fighting:blushing:, and the first wee furrball is still living at about 15:001_rolleyes: They are however all pure pets with some (45 +45 = 90kg worth) added security bonus. The latest is a lovely soft big lump of a lab/rotty cross, a bit dumb but very lovable, even after waltering in a somewhat peaty sheaugh. Nobody else would touch the "rotty", silly people. PS it were him and wor bastard mastiff who were fighting, but no hard feelings on either part. cheers marcus I do appreciate the pain btw as we recently had to get a lovely wee Daschund put down a few weeks after getting run over by postie, our daughters dog, hard it was. pppps I take the soft option of keeping 5 or 6 dogs together, then leastwise the pain is a bit less when one loses one, plus they are much happier in a "pack" environment. Mastiff play-fighting with a Jack Russell?, humans could learn a lot from observing that behavouir.

So, like, not to bump this or owt, but iffen I was to buy new vented potato bags at £5.00 each for 900mm by 900mm by 1970mm Hi. Volume of approx 1.6m3 I guess filled with seasoned split softwood these would weigh about 500kg apiece. But I am timorous of the transport stability (if on a pallet) with their height. I would therefore need to sling off the forklift toes, which I am not yet equipped to do. Unless I buy a dedicated forklift. I am aware these will not be UV stabilized, nor have tipping loops but I figger I can live with those limitations. Not for selling merely to allow mechanised handling & storage. Cos this current spell of excellent weather is making me itchy to see progress while my timber stock-pile is reasonably dry. Cheers Marcus

Should I go ahead and purchase a wheen now, or wait to the APF show which I intend to attend an hopefully get a bargain? Between 50 (sensibly ) & 100 (abs max) Cheers M

Might I comment that after burning Birch for 5 years or so before switching to Sitka and Lodgepole of necessity. With our Morso i can see no difference, cept more carrying, plus the inability to get her glowing red hot (which whilst impressive was not necessarily a good thing:blushing:) Now when I switched from hard to soft I stopped leaving the fire "in" overnight as it always burned out on the softwood whereas with the birch there were always a good few embers ready to rekindle in the morning. BUT After 15 years this flue has NEVER been cleaned, and still draws like a train. I would say since ceasing overnight burning I have heard the chimney "kindle" less often. I think perhaps never in the 10 years or so running on softwood. Despite no cleaning regime, but a good straight vertical 9m or 10m flue straight up from the firebox. Just a thought Marcus

New ( & I appreciate that is not in contention) VW SWB transporter with the 115BHP engine ........=44 mpg on the combined cycle. Or make your own Biodiesel or run her on SVO All quite kosher (Ah canny spell ligitimitely:001_tt2:)

Many years ago as a young officer in the TA I had the reputation of being "a good eater", ( being a full time student at this time) anyway since we regularly travelled on the Stena boat to Scotland to exercise over the weekend I generally packed away a right good feed on the Friday night outward journey. I was quite lightly built and one of the other better bred young officers said "G------, I dont see how you can eat like that" In one of my more inspired replies I said........................you havney seen the way I shite. the Dear boy looked quite ill:lol: PS I wisnay joking either.

I had the local building control officer spitting blood when I suggested it. 2 downstairs wood burning stoves back to back feeding into a 9" clay lined flue. About 4 or 5 feet above the fire-boxes. I did not proceed but still cannot see why it would not work. After all if the combustion air is controlled at each stove and the 2 stoves are at the same level and the flue merge point is reasonably above the fireboxs why not. ps however with one stove upstairs?? cheers m

Case No. 1 tractor oil. I took the 1.9 TDI engined Ford/vw Galaxy to 250,000 plus miles running on that stuff. On the origional pump injectors turbo clutch head gasket and exhaust system. she ate starter motors though After such runs as Spain and Portugal in 1999 towing a trailer with a roof box fully loaded uphill motorway work in 40 deg celcius with the oil temp reading 120 or 125 deg. And the air con running full blast:biggrin: well impressed. but I always simmered the turbo still got her parked up for independant strip down and inspection if anyone interested:001_rolleyes: still starting (albeit a trifle reluctantly) in -15 C and running like a clock when parked up be interested to see if the VW507 spec oil does as well for my latest 12/15 year project vehicle with the wee 1.6 VW diesel

Well Derp! (As I understand the young ones say in these circumstances.) I contacted my good NI joinery saw source, he could not have been more helpful, quite genuinely, but allowed any TCT 700mm blade he could sell me would be too dear Gulp At £800.00 plus VAT he be well correct. I will therefore peruse any suggestions as made above with a little more care. cheers m

Ah took a wee dwamle and decided to attempt to fit a siezed up second hand front linkage to the ould DB 1490. Very theraputic until I got showered with hydraulic oil.....twice.......and then the rain came on. And then the dammed dogs paddled through the oil puddles and run in and jumped on the couch. I will spend tomorrow night pressure washing with detergent and make a fresh start. I do have a good contact here in NI but more for joinery shop saws, thought perhaps the firewood market saw blades could be different/different source. Back to "cuttin sticks" soon. After the boiler house build/installation(only been 5 years in gestation) And after a conservatory (possibly, btw, the founds have been in 10 years) Back on topic, thanks for the various suggestions re saw blade sources.

May be in a different price bracket but years ago I saw demonstrated and then myself tried an "Attila" ride on brush cutter, manufactured by Etesia. Out and out impressive. Ferris or Skag stuff is very good too. Generally the Ferris could be fixed with a club hammer, an angle grinder and a welder. But any need for repairs was exceptional. My kind of engineering.

We are in the habit of re-cycling, incl for family names, but since the family has always gone for 3 forenames the burn rate was quite high, hence at some point a "wee late one" (and I was mortified at the very physical evidence that my parents were "still at it") got named Winston Charles Montgomery G...., to kinda introduce a bit of fresh blood. This by an Uncle with a sense of humour apparently. Personally I like the solid Biblical names, traditional ethnic names, snooty upper class English names even, but........... fervently dislike the trendy made up weirdly spelled gibberish names that were/still are in vouge for far too long. Anything to be "different", generally by parents who are also slavishly passionate about brand names especially in respect of clothing purchases. Doh! Hmmmm, on reflection Jonshred would be nice for a boy if I could spell it, ready made nick-name and all = Jobo. P.S. I absolutly seriously wanted to name our first born "Leveret" on account of all the" buck -leaping" he done in the womb. I was firmly told no sigh, us fathers got no rights.

Thanks wyk, But like Sherlock I had reached those same inevitable conclusions by a process of logical deduction/reasoning. Or as it was so expressed in the Army, "Easier looked at than looked for" But regardless of understanding the reasons I still take it strange. PS I do also appreciate it is seriously hard dangerous work.

Funny enough as a rank outsider but with an interest (i) I was perplexed by the short bars favoured by the knowledgable/ professional British mainland users, coming from a farmers background. (ii) Having watched AxMen/AxeMen I was equally perplexed by the ENORMOUS bars on the saws on the West coast of America. As a Victorian Africa explorer said of a particular tribe of natives he lived among "So large as to be almost an encumbrance" But they dinny have chain saws back then.

Any good/recommended brand(s) at a sensible prices, ( rather than excellent at an extortionate price ) I would like a spare for my firewood saw especially as my brand new blade got nicked (but chipped or nicked only not missing) Though perhaps when I find out the price of a spare blade I will wise up:001_rolleyes: I should probably avoid cutting scrap timber (thereby denying my North County Antrim Scotts Presbyterian roots) but even if I stick to Forestry timber with my trees being so handy to the village there are numersous attempts at tree houses etc so nails (possibly steel) in the living trees too sigh.

With a dedicated purpose built metronome? type saw it is only fractionally slower to cut them shorter, after all the time consuming work is done in getting the billets the length of the saw bench, a second or so will do each extra cut. Cheers marcus

So Matt, despite the buggers muddle my shed is in, I finally got rid of 2 stacked pallets in one go. Stacked volume, and photos on Monday, .9m by .9m by 2m hi by 2 No =.81 by 4 = 3.24m, mostly 1/2 rounds, cut probably biggest %age into 3rds or quarters, some prob about 25 to 30% merely cut in half In 30 mins dead. Went into house, looked at clock, outside and started tractor, cleared both pallets incl for moving the conveyor sideways twice, stacked empty pallets and back into the house. Exactly one half hour. Work done between 17.45 and 18.15, after a full days work. Working steadily, not rushing. But the time is taken moving the kit about and bringing fresh pallets forward, and drinking tea etc etc. cheers m Erm PS I only caught on one nail , but of course, it was a steel nail BUGGER!

I understand the 6.5 GMC diesel was if perhaps not quite a "dog" certainly not the best/most reliable diesel, despite the awe inspiring cubic capacity. Do I smell a dieselized gasoline lump?