agg221

Stihl does operate a face-to-face policy, which dealers tend to strictly adhere to, and I would be very wary of 'new' saws on ebay as there are a lot of fakes floating about. There is an arrangement whereby once you are known to a dealer they are able to supply, so if you ever come back to the UK this may apply - you may be able to buy one item and then have things shipped in the future. Not sure as I'm not a dealer (and only buy really old saws on ebay!) but it might be worth dropping Jonesie on here a message for a definitive answer. Roughly speaking, saws with the first two digits as 26 or 36 would probably suit (basically, based on the old 026 and 036 for power range), or 39 which was more of a 'farmer's' saw. Alec

Most older mills are belt driven. I imagine this would be due to running a remote power supply - Steam engines aren't exactly compact and portable and even a traction engine can't get that close to the driveshaft without getting very cumbersome. I can't see why you couldn't set up a water mill to run a sawmill via a pulley arrangement. If you put a pulley on one of the shafts in a convenient location and ran that through to a fast and loose arrangement on the saw then it should work OK. You'd want to get the rotational speed right, so if it was a circular saw you would need to determine the correct peripheral speed for the blade, know the rotational speed of the shaft and adjust the ratio through the ratio of the diameters of the driving and driven pulleys. It's unlikely that you could change the driven pulleys very easily if they are pre-installed in a fast and loose arrangement, so there would need to be an approximately correct input shaft speed to get it to work. I doubt lack of power would be an issue. Alec

I think it's less that they all have inherent faults, more that there are actually quite a few different purposes, so you get a number of different models to fulfil these roles. There are also factors of budget - so Stihl and Husquvarna are highly rated but high priced. From the Stihl side, which happens to be the way I went, the 026, 044 and 066 were very long-lived models, as they are pretty reliable and span the range of ground saws from small stuff through to large rings. Alec

One medium-term fix is to very carefully squeeze the rails together again. Try the feel of the chain in the groove near the powerhead, under the spikes. That's what it should be like. If it rocks significantly more than this in the middle then it can be nipped up in a vice. If you overdo it you can tweak it back out with a large flat blade screwdriver. If you do the above, watch out extremely carefully for cracking at the base of the bar groove. Check regularly as it may be initiated when you do it but not show until after you've run it for some time. Do check that you've still got clearance for the chain in the groove though before you bother. If in the end you do finish up buying a new bar and chain, and as a consequence you find yourself unnaturally attracted to your mill as Rob D suggests then all I can say is that I hope you're using bio-oil. Alec

You could try taking the mill frame off and just trying the saw on a rip cut on a bit of scrap. It'll tell you if you have bar/chain problems. I've had some where I've clipped something hard on one side, like a really hard knot, which dulls the teeth so it tries to climb in the cut. I've had one where the bar rails opened up a bit too much causing the chain to rock in the groove. I think the former may have eventually caused the latter. At least if you test the saw off the mill you can be confident whether it's a saw problem or a mill problem. Alec

I'm sticking it round fruit trees planted in grass. I tend to use pieces about 4ft square. Needs a new bit of cardboard each year but sometimes the mulch can be raked off and just topped up, or you could just use weedkiller instead. I go pretty close to the trunk - inch or so, and if I'm watering in dry spells I feed it in through there so the water goes under the cardboard rather than over it. I'll be putting it down in the next few weeks as really you want it down after the winter rains (ha ha ha) but before the weeds start growing. Alec

Yes, I use it. You need a mulch on top to stop it blowing around - good thick layer of something that won't rot too fast and deprive the soil of nitrogen in the meantime. I wouldn't use grass clippings, but do use wood chippings or old bark. With a mulch over the top it stays damp underneath and lets water through, rather than running off like dry cardboard does. It's annoying when you clip the edges with the mower, but not as bad as old carpet! Carpet is also bad as I find it lasts too long and the mice move in underneath and chew their way through the tree roots. Alec

I can't help, but I empathise. When our first daughter was born we were stuck for a name (well, that we both liked anyway). We also like old names, and eventually found "Mahala" about 3 days before she was born. Then we had another daughter.... Took us three weeks after she was born to find something, and we only decided then as otherwise we would have started losing out on child benefit. Eventually went for Keziah. My G Grandfather was Reuben. He had a brother called Absolom. I quite like old testament names, not for any religious reason but they have a certain ring of solidity about them. Perhaps not Nebuchadnezzar though. Alec

I would agree with the comments on larger being better. The difference for me between an 066 and an 076 was significant, only about 15cc in it, but lower revs, higher torque made the difference. A MS880 would be my choice of modern saw. One feature where Stihl scores for milling is the side chain tensioner. If you run a very long bar relative to the mill width (say a 47" Duromatic with a 36" mill) you can stick the mill far enough down the bar to still reach the tensioner, but it's a bit of a waste of money on the extra length, and drops the power a bit. I only do it because I picked up a cheap 47" bar and only have a 36" mill. Alec

Even if the top does die, don't give up on it. Last year's winter hit several things in our garden really hard. Olive and fig in pots, fig in ground and bay in ground. Olive lost all its leaves and leafed out again in June. Fig in pot (slightly sheltered) leafed out in June and the fig in the ground only leafed out in August. The bay top did die, but it's grown back strongly from below ground (shoots didn't show until July/August), and I'll pick one to form a new head in time. Alec

I have a DeWalt DW733. It's a thicknesser only, which is a bit limiting as you can't joint edges, but is otherwise very useful. The infeed and outfeed tables are long enough and it takes up to 12.5"x6". It has mounts to bolt it down if needed, but is nominally portable, and is certainly compact if you are short on space. I've always found it heavy enough not to need to bolt it down and have run some serious stuff through, although I don't look forward to doing more full width elm. I like the fact that you can buy any parts for it, and the parts list and repair manual are online on the DeWalt site - it's always good when the manufacturer expects you to want to work on and maintain your own tools. If I had the space and money I would buy a Wadkin, although you're a bit limited if you only have single phase as I do. Alec

Most boards will come out with a width somewhere between a third to a quarter of the diameter of the log. So, a 2' log will yield mostly 6" to 8" boards. That's about as small as I would go with a bandsaw mill, and only if it was very straight and round, as otherwise a lot of the boards would be too narrow to be very useful by the time they're trued up. With a chainsaw mill, I wouldn't consider it with anything less than 2'6", probably more like 3', as the amount you're losing in kerf just wouldn't make it worth it for me. Note, the above measurements apply to the part of the log I'm interested in, so for me, never over the bark, and usually dimensions of the heartwood only, as I don't use the sapwood (too prone to insect attack). Alec

Makita 4-stroke. So far, very reliable and pleasant to use. It's pretty quiet, with a low engine note as the revs are lower (i.e. no screaming) and it seems to go a very long way on a tank. Can fit a brushcutter blade or a nylon line strimming head. Alec

Jon, I disagree with Tony on this one. The tree may well not be in terminal decline - I've sorted out my parents' orchard of semi-dwarf apples planted in 1919, over the past 25yrs. This started out as mis-shapen things with small fruit and a mass of spurs. Many of them are now fully back to reasonably decent shaped trees and only 5 have died in this period. Left alone, I have no doubt that Tony is right, but with intervention apples and pears are some of the most forgiving trees going. They will, in arb terms, pollard (which would be described as re-heading), can be heavily retrenched by either gradual reduction to promote epicormic growth, or by drop-crotch pruning, depending on whether there are branches placed where you want them when you start, or not. You can decide that you don't like a particular variety and literally saw the top off of a 50yr old tree and re-graft it, with a good chance of success. The one thing they do have, which is core to this thread, is a weak root system. Even on their own roots they're pretty small as trees go (compare David's pear with a fully mature beech, oak or ash for example), and man's intervention has deliberately bred smaller root systems for convenience of picking the fruit and increasing yield per acre. As such, it's not surprising that intervention is needed to maintain them, to a greater level than with a 'forest' tree. They need pruning to keep the sail area down and to maintain vigour, otherwise they go into senility and die. They can't compete with grass, for either water or nutrients, so it needs removing. If you leave bare earth you get rapid water loss and since they have a weak root system the trees will then either need irrigation or measures to enhance water retention, such as a mulch. Keeping weeds off can be done chemically, but mechanical methods will damage the shallow root system, so again a mulch scores. Personally, I don't regard maintaining an orchard (or even an individual fruit tree) as looking after an ecosystem so much as deliberately altering one, just as any form of farming or gardening is. Hence, if you have issues with particular fungal species threatening weak trees, killing the fungi is a logical route (yes I have used Armillatox, about 20yrs ago with successful results where otherwise honey fungus would have ripped through the orchard. One of the previously infected trees is still there, quite healthy, with no fbs in the last 15 or more years). Yes I do want slightly enhanced nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous levels to promote increased vigour and yield over that which would be achieved if I didn't apply them. And yes, I do want a mulch as it's the best compromise available that I've identified to swing the odds in favour of the tree, which is the part of the ecosystem I'm most interested in. Personally, I try to use unrelated species, or even straw mulches, to reduce the likelihood of any imported fungal species which specifically target the tree species in question. I'm sure the above is contrary to the views of some, but it has worked for me. Alec

In answer to your other question, you can get away with building very close to such trees - but you'll need to see the building regs table vs. soil type to work out how deep the foundations have to go. For example, in a medium clay it would be 1.65m, although this could step up to 1.5m when you're 2m away, and so on. Personally, I'd look at making sure the tree was reasonably balanced, and plums can take some reduction - if it's going to be done then now is about the ideal time of year. The root system will cope, so long as the area which is about to be built on isn't the only area that currently lets water reach it - so if it's currently lawn but the other sides are all paved for example. I've just stuck footings 50cm from a pear on clay with no issue so far as the building inspector is concerned - just made sure I complied and got them inspected properly, and pears require slightly deeper footings than plums according to the regs (which can't cope with the fact that in reality it's grafted onto a much weaker quince rootstock!). Alec

Yes. Not for the 076 but for several other saws, and for milling. No problems. I've bought from gardenhirespares and Mr Solutions - both list on ebay and also have full websites. Quality seems fine, they offer a 1yr warranty (and were still happy to offer it when I explained I was milling and what that entailed). Alec

You do it as Trollspiel's excellent illustration shows, and yes, stability is its biggest advantage, not just against warping as shown, but also with respect to seasoning shrinkage. Many timbers show much less shrinkage across the rings than around them (look at the ways the cracks typically form) so you get a board that can be used greener, and also they don't tend to expand and contract with changing humidity, so are less likely to crack later. There are others - some timbers can have very different and attractive markings when quartersawn (e.g. oak). You can do it with any mill that has the capacity to go straight through the middle of the log. The downsides are, as you can see from the illustration, either pattern is fiddly and you don't get as many wide boards as with through-and-through sawing (also note that the two true central boards illustrate the typical problem of hitting pith and centre defects, so both of these would also be likely to end up being split in half). I tend to compromise, taking thinner boards from the middle third of the tree, so they're wide and fairly stable, and thicker, more structural stuff from the outer thirds, or even flipped the other way, i.e. I might skim the outside to get a 6" width, then take a 4" slab off, then rip that down into 2off 4x3s with the 4" face as a 'quarter' as both of these will be pretty stable. Alec

I have no idea why children find it so addictive. Our elder daughter loved it (fortunately she grew out of it aged about 2, so we only had a year or so of it). The younger one is, so far, showing no signs of additiction. The only thing I can say is that you do get acclimatised to it eventually. Afraid I can't help on where the woodland is, but for anyone who has had to sit through the original, try this: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZm9h_9pkAc]In The Night Garden, and up the Benny Hill - YouTube[/ame] Alec

The other point is that the mill isn't exactly quick release. You can either take the whole mill off the bar, but since it will have a ripping chain on you'll still need to take the chain off, or you can just unbolt the bar and chain complete and put a different bar on for other work. If you don't really need a big saw for anything else, have you considered buying a sorted out 051, or budgeting for having it sorted out within the price, and using it exclusively for milling. It's a low revs/high torque saw, which seems to work well as a combination and you can get a 3/8" sprocket for them (Oregon). Yes it will spend a lot of time in the shed, but you should be able to get there for less than £150 all in with a bit of luck, and it will have a resale value of over £100, so compared with the mill, bar and chain it won't be tying up too much capital. Just a thought. Alec

Yes, but the problem is you then think "I've got a 30" mill, so I'll try milling a 30" log", only of course it's not quite big enough, and so the cycle continues. I don't reckon a mill is big enough to overcome this problem until it's got a 72" bar on it! Alec

Yes, I used mine a bit last year at one point when the other saws were unavailable. It was very slow on 20" or above and I can't say as either I or the saw enjoyed the experience. Alec

The Makita 7901 is 79cc so should take a 28" bar. You lose the nose and unless you want to swap the spikes on and off you'll realistically have a capacity of around 20", which fits with a 24" mill. It should cope, but may be a bit slow milling though. Have you ever been out for the day with someone using an Alaskan with a big powerhead? If not, I'd do this first, to get an idea of how a larger set-up will run. That way, if you go ahead with the set-up you're proposing, at least you'll have an idea as to what can be achieved to compare it with. Nothing worse than assuming that milling is always like your own set up achieves (speaking from experience, having started out milling 2ft oak with an 064). Alec

I think a lot of people are very unobservant - If you don't notice that your next door neighbour has a cat in 5yrs then you're hardly paying a lot of attention. Wild boar are known to be about, since '87, but how many people have seen them, and they don't have the same agility. There are snakes living in our garden, up to 5ft long, but I've only seen them on four occasions in four years, and I'm actively looking. I therefore think a small population of feral/naturalised/interbred felines could quite feasibly go unacknowledged for a long time. If people on here, who work outside most of the time, are skeptical, imagine what the response is going to be if you report a sighting. The police might wander round if they're bored, the council will write you off as deluded, so why bother reporting it at all? Probably most people who saw something would just note it and that would be it. Alec

Friends in Charlbury returned home one day to find the police in their garden after the next door neighbour had seen one and rung them. Our (domestic - sort of) cat is black, and has always had the ability to hide extremely well, to the point where we have had neighbours who didn't even realise we had a cat after several years. As such, it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few big cats lurking out there that didn't want to be seen. Alec

I have used an 044, 064, 066M and 076 on a 36" Alaskan to mill oak, typical cut width 2ft. I've been milling timber over the past year or so for an extension, so lots of 3" and 4" slabs for ripping down to make joists and rafters, together with a few beams. The first three saws are too slow to make this viable. The 066M copes without stressing it, but some years back I reached the view that life was too short to do this, and tended to lump together the logs and hire in a band mill, just using the Alaskan for occasional bits and pieces. With the amount needed for the extension, I bought a chainsaw driven bandsaw mill - the Ripsaw. It's temperamental, but when it's set up right it's a real pleasure to use. Really fast and efficient on kerf (I bought the 044 to run it actually, as even in a 14" cut the 066M was seriously overpowered). The down side is that it only has a 14" throat, so won't square up anything bigger than a 20" butt, but for most things it's fantastic, if exasperating from time to time. I have been out milling with the 076 today. It's a real pleasure. Still need the bandsaw due to the kerf issue, but I'm not too worried about finish, so I'm running a skip chain, which seems to work well with the low revs/high torque and it flies. Skip chain also means you only have half the teeth to sharpen. So whilst it's not in the 120cc+ category (076 is 111cc), personally I'm finding getting out the Alaskan to be something to look forward to, rather than something to be put off as long as possible. Alec