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Sticking a 5l can of Thompson's Water Seal into diesel would achieve a fairly catastrophic result.... Alec

Another way of thinking of it - imagine you have a piece of cellotape stuck on to something. When it's stuck down end to end it's really hard to peel it off. However, if you have an edge of the cellotape sticking over the edge, it's easy to peel it off. The chrome plating acts like the cellotape and peels/chips upwards if too much is sticking out. Alec

Have you spoken to TRADA? They produce a series of reasonably priced guides for this kind of thing. Alec edit: having just looked at their website, it looks like quite a lot of the basic content is now available to view free if you register: TRADA ...all about timber

Actually, not quite correct. Cutter bodies are carbon steel, not mild steel. The difference is the amount of carbon present. If there's less than 0.08% carbon it's soluble in the iron at room temperature (mild steel = unhardenable), forming the ferritic phase. When the carbon content is higher it is only soluble after the high temperature phase transition to the martensitic structure. If you cool quickly (quench) it locks in the martensitic phase. Cool slowly (anneal) and you get a mixture of ferrite and pearlite (alternating layers of ferrite and iron carbide within the grain). If the carbon content is even higher (8%) you get precipitated graphite, as found in cast iron. The martensitic structure is stressed and hence the atoms don't move easily, i.e. it's hard. It's also brittle. Re-heating gently (tempering) causes some of the martensite to convert to pearlite/ferrite. Conveniently, hardness drops more slowly than toughness increases with increasing temperature. A characteristic colour of oxide film is also formed with temperature, hence tempering straw, blue, purple is progressively softer and tougher. You choose your tempering temperature depending on what you're doing, so scalpels are left harder and more brittle (straw), metal cutting tools are taken to light blue, springs to dark blue etc. This matters on a chainsaw because although the chromium is the cutting edge, the softer the backing, the more easily the surface layer flakes off (think ice on mud). If you under-temper, the chain is too hard to file, over-temper and it won't support the chromium cutting edge. If you overheat the chain when grinding it cools quickly (as Spud says) and hence becomes harder. Re-tempering is theoretically possible with a hot air gun, but difficult to control, so you're better off taking care when grinding and not doing it! Alec

There is no such thing as a blade which does both well. There are compromises which will sort of do both, slowly, but you're trying to cut fibres in different directions and it needs a different profile to take the wood out. So, really you need both, although if you're startng by cross cutting you don't need both at once. There are different profiles for rip and cross-cut, and for hardwood and softwood. There's a handy guide in Spon's Mechanics Own Book: Filing And Setting Saws (it runs over several pages). Alec

You sometimes get clogging of the oil pump on a 2-stroke saw, so it stops oiling. The symptoms are smoke from the bar as the residual oil buns off, then the hain teeth go golden followed by blue and eventually the bar rails do the same. If nothing has gone blue then all's fine - fill with oil and carry on. Alec

It's a Contra, which is basically an 070 without a decompression valve (not the Contra Lightning which was the 090 forerunner). You can tell from the flywheel cover. The top covers can often be had new from Germany for a reasonable price - search ebay worldwide. Alec

Also had very poor yield this year - same problem with pears and plums. Everything except the Worcester Pearmain apples and Diamond plums which for some reason are loaded as per usual. Spent the day picking both, so arms are now somewhat shredded from the latter! The Worcesters are about 8ft high and the Diamond about 30ft, so it's not low lying frost or high level drying winds. Just presume it will be back to normal next year. Alec

Inspired by this thread I've tried using a froe on small stuff (up to about 6") which worked quite well. Alec

Yes you can. Bird Brand (R.K & J. Jones of Thetford) still make and supply it. The legislation says for professional use only, but this was practically accommodated by limiting supply to 25l or larger containers, on the grounds that Joe Public wouldn't buy that much. They do dark brown and the extra-carcinogenic jet black that I used (lobbed about 150l into the boat). Round our way Ridgeons the builders' merchants keep it in stock - the Bird Brand website has a facility to email them and find your local stockist. Alec

If your starting bit of wood is bigger than about 4ins across and a foot long then I thoroughly recommend a less blunt axe - the Gransfors double-bevelled side axe would be my suggestion. If you don't already know this, you use a side axe across the grain rather than along it. A drawshave of some form will then get it thinner and more uniform - takes less skill than learning to use the single bevel side axe. The other way would be an adze, particularly if you don't like either your current footwear or your toes. I like adzes, and still have all my toes! Alec

I use an engine hoist for loading and unloading saw logs - a ton log is a fair size! They are slow - a lot of handle pumping needed to lift slowly, and they're very difficult to move around other than on smooth tarmac (although I've done it with a ton log on over grass). Probably no use if you're just loading up firewood/scrap but worth considering if you're moving big stuff around for later milling. Alec

A lot of British parish records have been put on line by the Mormons - it's part of their structure to need to be able to trace your ancestry but they make them available free for anyone who is interested. These are at: https://familysearch.org/ Genesreunited is also good - if you've got back to about the 19th century then there's a good chance of finding someone else with a shared ancestor who may have linked together other people's trees. It needs cross-checking, but gives a very good starting point. This route got me furthest back - one verified line now goes back to about 400AD. Alec

I would agree with you, but then if they didn't check the carb (or fuel line?) in the first place, so maybe they wouldn't think of this either. Unless you have a long standing relationship with them where they've been successful in repairs in the past, I would be exploring what level of experience their technicians have at this point, and maybe looking around for alternatives. It's very handy to have a good route to repair on your doorstep, but couriering saws is cheap compared to the repair cost, and very cheap compared with fixing them again and again and again. Direct to Stihl may be worthwhile, but again my experience was of a very defensive attitude, trying to find ways to avoid warranty claims, even when none are implied. This was admittedly about 12yrs ago, with a 10yr old 064 which was one of the saws they used to identify the issues with stale fuel in modern unleaded. No implication it was their fault, I just wanted a diagnosis to stop it happening again, and instead got a long statement about how it wasn't under warranty so it wasn't their fault! However, things have moved on since then and as has been said above, it's being discussed on a forum where the free publicity about good service from a satisfied customer may be very worthwhile to them..... FWIW, Spud fixed my 066, and I'm very happy with the results. Alec

I think a lot will depend on your relationship with your dealer. The information you've provided indicates the original problem to be a weak mixture. If you assume that the original assessment was done properly, by experienced people, then it suggests that there is an intermittent problem which wasn't picked up in the original assessment, something like a partial fuel line blockage. I would be slightly concerned that they didn't think to investigate the carb - I would have expected them to work their way systematically through the fuel delivery system, but maybe they hadn't got to it yet - you'll know better than anyone else. What you also don't know at the moment is whether the ultimate catastrophic failure is due to the same cause having got instantaneously worse, or due to a different fault caused during reassembly. It could be either, although the fact that it idled, then went pop, and then you're seeing aluminium on the plug suggests maybe a different cause. If the dealer is anything like some of the ones I've dealt with round my way, their first move would be to deny everything and try to blame me for the failure (this is why I no longer use them!) Note - I'm quite happy to acknowledge when it's my fault, but it's not helpful in solving the problem to simply point fingers, either way. However, you may have a decent dealer with a professional approach, or a reputation to protect, and you may put enough business their way to want to keep you as a customer. I would be inclined to take it in, otherwise untouched, explain the series of events and ask for their assessment. You don't lose much this way - if they acknowledge they worked on it so may have caused a problem then at least it gets assessed, if they deny everything as soon as you walk through the door then you're unlikely to get any further but at least you know what they're like. The only thing I would add is, ask them up front to please not throw away any of the parts - even the damaged ones. If you do end up going somewhere else for the repair, examining the parts can give a clue as to what failed and how, and to any secondary problems (e.g. scuffing on the lower skirt of the piston indicates problems with the air filter leaking etc). You also, with luck, may be able to recover the pot, which will save a lot of money. Good luck Alec

Likewise, fruit trees only for me. I find (in agreement with East Malling) that I have a much higher yield with chip budding than with grafting, usually over 90%. The only difficulty is that it's done in late summer/early autumn (just about to start) when things are generally busier than in winter. Alec

Definitely an 090 flywheel cover, and that doesn't look like a recent replacement! My guess is it's an original 090 but the other photo will confirm. You can also check whether it's an 090 pot and piston from the way the decompression valve is configured (without having to do any internal measurements). Alec

If you can take another photo with the clutch cover off and a photo from the other side, showing the shape of the finned part over the flywheel, I can confirm whether it's a converted 070 or an original 090. This will influence the value. The proper 090 is popular for milling. A few have turned up on ebay over the past year or so which give a guide as to price. It's the AV model which helps - last one I saw sold for £350 and there have been a couple at £400, one didn't sell on first listing, the other did. If you're interested in selling, drop me a PM. Cheers Alec

I am lucky on this in that my local dealer is only 2miles from where I work, and my wife drives right past it on her way to work, so if anyone wanting to try it happens to come close to Haverhill I'll happily pick them up a can on the way and they can pick it up from here. I am an occasional user (mostly milling) and realised that I was throwing away more unused fuel than I was using on some occasions. I tried mixing by the tankful and using the rest in the mower, which was fine in summer but I tend to mill in autumn and winter for preference as it slows down surface checking when air drying, so didn't have much use for it in the mower. The real problem though was that I have twice had problems with fresh pump petrol. The first was in the very early days of formulation change which caused the problems (c.1998), so it wasn't well understood. My 064 was of sufficient interest to Stihl that they wanted it back to assess the failure, and concluded it was the fuel (not my mixing, or it being stale, actually the quality from the supplier) but this being several months later there wasn't a lot I could do except change the pot and piston. The second occasion took out the 064 and the 066 on the same day - a few days later was when the news story broke about all the issues nationally with silicone in the fuel, but again impossible to prove, so I had the 066 repaired at my cost and gave up on the 064. Having had these problems (probably I've just been unlucky) caused me to rethink the cost equation, so when I became aware of Aspen through this site - actually after the 066 failed again, due to the botched repair following the previous failure, I added up the fuel-related costs and decided that you could buy an enormous amount of Aspen for the price of the pots and pistons I'd got through due to fuel problems. The pro user is far less exposed to stale fuel issues, but one contaminated tanker-load at the pumps, or the tank being low when you happen to fill up, so it picks up water from the bottom, formed due to condensation, could take out a lot of high cost machinery. It won't affect cars so the supplier won't know, and it's virtually impossible to prove anyway without an oil analysis laboratory, and you won't be covered under warranty as it's a fuel problem. Everyone has to make their own assessment of the risk of the above happening, but since it happened to me, it made my own calculation much easier. The lack of stinging eyes and sore throat were just an added bonus! Alec

Hi Kelly, It's hard to say exactly what form of plum it is - if you can post more pictures when it's ripe then the size, colour, shape and season (and your assessment of the flavour) will help narrow down which type. They will all make decent jam though. Worcestershire was formerly a major plum growing area, so depending on where in Warwickshire you are this could be influential on the origins of your tree and there is even a variety called Warwickshire Drooper, so definitely some commercial plum-growing history. With regard to pruning, you want to do it between blossom and the end of August, so not much time left if you want to do some this year. Blossom time can make it easier to see the structure of the tree - which way the branches go - before the leaves are out. If you prune outside this timeframe you risk the tree contracting a disease called silverleaf, which is usually fatal. The symptoms of the disease are self-descriptive, but be aware that there is another condition called false silverleaf, which is physiological, i.e. the tree isn't actually infected with anything but is responding to stress, so don't immediately assume the worst. With regard to pruning, try to take out whole branches, rather than hacking back (I would describe the final picture in your first post as hacking back). This is because hacking back makes a lot more wounds than necessary, and the tree will respond with vigorous growth so you'll quickly be back where you started, plus you will have cut all the fruit-bearing bits off! Try to take branches either right back to the main branch they're joined to (at the base you'll see a short swelling collar - try not to cut this, so don't cut quite flush), or cut to a fork, or to a side branch at least 1/3 of the diameter of the branch you're cutting through. When choosing branches to remove, start with dead, diseased or rubbing (look for damage to the bark). Then remove anything badly placed or that has got too long and is at risk of snapping off. Don't worry about trying to make it too thin though, plums are quite happy with a dense mop head. Hope this helps. Alec

I recognise this may be outside the scope of work planned, but one observation from working with someone using a hydraulic mill (I hire him and the mill when there's something big needs milling on-site in a day) is that whilst hydraulics are very useful for production volume, they aren't always capable of handling the biggest thing the mill will take on the bed/through the throat. We once milled a 20' long oak butt, 3' at the narrow end and it went on the mill quite happily but we had to use a telehandler to lift and rotate it until we were well over halfway through. Granted you could freehand chainsaw it in half first, or take an Alaskan to it, or reject anything too big for the hydraulics, but my personal feeling at the end of this exercise was that whilst hydraulics are great for nice regular sized stuff, i.e. production milling, for a hired-out milling operation where the customer will typically have small volumes, or handling really big stuff, it may not be so helpful. I know that if I eventually scale up to a bed-based mill I might well go for non-hydraulic and invest the spare cash in something slower but capable of handling really big stuff. Alec

I have no personal experience of this mill, but use an Alaskan and some observations on points of difference: The vertical posts are round rather than square. This probably makes clamping to them a bit easier (no special blocks required). The vertical posts are painted - this will probably rub off pretty quickly. Doesn't matter so long as the height marks aren't painted on! The minimum thickness is slightly greater and the maximum 10" slightly smaller. The minimum probably won't matter - milling much under an inch is unusual, although if you're skimming faces on a beam for example to get to a particular width or to take out a rot streak then it can be useful. The maximum would probably be fine for a 24" mill or smaller. For big stuff I like to split it up the middle first to take the stresses out of it. I find the 13" capacity on the Alaskan restrictive (don't forget you need to add in a guide rail the first time which takes 2-3" off) so this would be too small for me. It does say they can build different sizes though, so asking them to make the uprights take an 18" cut on a 36" width mill would be a useful size. It looks relatively heavy. The fact that it's painted suggests it may be steel rather than aluminium, which would make it heavier still. The Alaskan on a saw is heavy enough to lug into the woods. I wouldn't fancy it with anything heavier so it depends on how you are getting log to saw. Otherwise, looks a bit cruder but perfectly functional. Just my observations. Alec

You may be able to subdivide the site, from a planning/use point of view. We've looked at this for Mum's place, which is a domestically occupied agricultural holding. From a land registry point of view it's pretty simple, and it might allow you to own the house on a conventional (cheaper) mortgage and own the back part of the land outright and secure use of the site for business purposes through the correct planning procedure. You can easily re-merge sites from the point of view of ownership but getting change of use may be harder, so it may impact the resale value, but an estate agent can tell you this (this is how we checked what to do with Mum's). Alec

Likewise I would also be interested in the 090 at the right price. Yes, the bar does have the same mounts as the 880 (and the Contra/070/051/075/076/088). Cheers Alec

I think the problem with a true ratchet system on a pole lathe is that you can no longer directly drive the workpiece. If you are running a conventional pole lathe with the drive string from pole straight to wrapped around the workpiece there is nowhere to insert a ratchet. If you're turning between centres it could be done by pushing a drum ratchet piece onto the workpiece, but I suspect you're not turning large bowls between centres. If you're hanging the bowl one side of the headstock, fixed to a runner through the headstock, you could apply a ratchet drive through a drum mounted on the other side of the headstock. Otherwise, you'd need indirect drive, with string to ratchet drum on what is effectively a layshaft, with a second drive from layshaft to workpiece (probably with an additional idler for tensioning) but that's quite complicated. The ratchet drum itself could be quite simple - you want a free running drum mounted on the shaft, with a set of ratchet teeth around one end. You then have a fixed wheel on the shaft, with a click mounted on it to engage with the ratchet teeth. Drum and wheel (disk) can be turned, the ratchet teeth are just cut square to the radial lines around the centre and sloped back towards the next one (think handsaw teeth, rip pattern). The click could be carved up and pegged on to the wheel. The drive string goes around the ratchet drum. This is basically a simplified version of a weight driven clock drive drum and ratchet wheel configuration (without the gear teeth), a design which hasn't changed since the middle ages, so pretty straightforward. Slack ma girdle's approach is much simpler though! Alec