agg221

I think the longest I've done is around 7.5 metres, but that was using a 1.2 metre guide plank, running down the bank into a disused canal. That was my first ever milling Alec

Can you cut a small piece off an end - squaring it up or something? Turkey oak has a very distinctive smell. Alec

Can't see from the picture but is that a Duromatic bar or sprocket nosed? Is there a chainbrake fitted? Is the manual oiler present and correct? Main use is milling, but it's always good to be able to use them for stumping or ringing up big stuff if you have one. For this you want the chainbrake so it adds a bit to value. If it's a Duromatic bar then the bar and chain add no real value over the powerhead alone. If it has the oiler present and working, all's good. If it doesn't it will ask questions about whether it is rebuilt on a TS760 case or is actually an 051 (the top covers are interchangeable). Seeing the location of the fuel and oiler caps would also be handy to confirm on this, and also that the top cover hasn't been swapped with an 075. These all affect the value, as for example does whether it's actually running? Alec

Sitting in the middle of a small wood near me are some logs. Nobody 'uses' the wood apart from walkers and horse riders. The logs have been there a while. The wood in question belongs to a friend of mine. I fell the standing dead as he prefers them to be down - they are mine when I want them. Mostly they are slightly undersize oak and I leave them there until I need to mill them as hauling them out of the wood complete is a pain and they aren't in the way where they lie. The sapwood rots away but the heartwood remains fine. When I need one, I will go and mill it, extract the planks and remove them. Don't assume that because a wood does not appear to be used, or the timber is 'laying about' it is abandoned and up for grabs. Alec

No pictures I'm afraid. It was actually Mum's Dad it belonged to (the same one who let off all the WW2 ammunition in lieu of fireworks one bonfire night). Mum and Dad were dating at the time and Dad used to go over there on Saturdays. One Saturday he turned up to find Mum and my grandmother were out shopping. Granfer had obviously had this idea in his mind for some time and Dad didn't exactly feel he could say no, so the two of them went up into the woods, lashed it behind the car (no wheels on the bench or engine) and dragged it down the track. Dad's job was to stop the engine from falling over. They then set up the engine on bearers and lined up the bench, right outside the garage near the house, went indoors and had a cup of tea, which is where they were when Mum and my grandmother got home. I think at that point Mum and Dad got the impression it may be a good idea to leave for a while and let the inevitable 'conversation' take place! I need to sort out the return fuel pipe from the carb on the engine but once it's done I have a pile of wood to cut - mostly apple from the orchard, so I'll take a photo of it working, probably sometime over the summer. Alec

I have sort of inherited something similar (it technically belongs to Mum but I suspect she won't be using it!) Mine is a separate bench and engine, connected by a long flat belt. The engine is a 1949 Lister B and the bench is a Dennison, which has never had a guard and has not had a riving knife in living memory. It was used by woodsmen who worked my grandfather's land until the clean air act of 1956 when they abandoned it in the woods. It was dragged down the track out of the woods by my grandfather behind his Hillman Imp sometime in the 1960s while my grandmother was out shopping apparently as she was not going to be impressed (she wasn't) but was also not going to be able to do anything about it. It has been in use on and off ever since. From experience: Keep out of the line of the blade. This is done by pushing the wood through with both hands on the same side of the log and then using a push stick on the end near the blade when it gets to the last cut. Keep a good set on the blade. These blades should properly be 'smithied' for tensioning and set. The skill still exists and it is well worth getting it done as they are then taught and not floppy which keeps them a lot safer to use. Check for cracks on your blade and remember to file gullets as well as edges. My grandfather lived to the age of 94 and still had all his fingers. The woodsmen, Dad, my uncle, various cousins and I, in fact all known users, still have all fingers, toes and no scars from the sawbench. Everyone has, however, always treated it with the greatest of respect and been well aware of the risks and taken care to avoid them. Alec

Yes, but I was working on the assumption that the thing which looks like a Sorbus actually isn't. Continuing that thought, Pinkfoot's idea of Viburnum could be a good one - particularly if grafted. One of the could be opulus? What sort of flowers does it have, and when? Alec

Hornbeam?

I bought a cheap one from Ebay which has worked fine. I found that the sprayer is compatible with standard good quality nozzles, so you can get a standard nozzle pattern to suit what you want (angle etc). I like the air infusion ones myself - Drift Reduction/Air Induction | Spraytips Alec

OK so there are four possibilities I can think of, assuming that it isn't just that those two main branches from the ground are different plants and produce consistently different foliage. 1. It's grafted. This is done with some named varieties of Cornus but most grafting is done low down so you tend to only get different leaves from suckers, not from branches. It is possible that it was high worked - this would be done typically with something that does not form a good upright stem, such as a weak-growing or weeping cultivar grafted onto a strong, vigorous form which does not appear to be the case here. It could have been high-worked anyway, perhaps to try to form a standard from something which typically forms a multi-stemmed shrub on its own roots. If this was the case, you would see all growth below a certain point with one form of leaf and all growth above it with a different form of leaf. This would mean the Cornus leaves at ground level would be seedlings, so you could check by excavating around them and seeing whether they are suckers or seedlings; by looking at whether there is a definite line somewhere up the trunk where the bark changes slightly, above which all leaves are 'normal' and below which all leaves are cut form. 2. It was a particular form which has reverted. The more likely desirable form would be the cut leaved one, however this may be weaker and therefore crowded out by the reverted, normal form. If this is the case, you can get complete loss of the original type in all growth above the reversion point, but if you get new growth on the original part of the plant it can show the original form. This has a similar appearance to the grafted situation above, but with a slight randomness over which form arises and no graft line. 3. You have got a natural sport occurring. This is how a lot of cultivars arise, but it typically comes from one growth point only, so a single branch. The fact that it shows up at several points down the trunk suggests not. 4. You have a chimera. This is extremely rare, and therefore unlikely, but can happen when two plants are grafted together and both manage to contribute to the growing tip, so genetic material from each is combined down the branches. Alec

A picture of the top of the main stem of the tree would also be useful, where it branches. Alec

Couple of points on bar length/type. First is that when milling you lose 6" of bar outside the mill anyway, so a 36" bar allows maximum of 30" in the wood. I think from memory 30" or thereabouts is the recommended maximum for the 461. Second is that Stihl's recommendation is for the standard 3/8" pitch, which is what they make and supply. Switching to the narrower kerf of 3/8" lo pro puts a lot less stress on the saw and cuts hugely better/faster. It's worth around a foot on bar length. Alec

What is the cage wall made of? Alec

You don't 'need' very much at all to mill with an Alaskan but there are various things which make life a lot easier if you have them. The mill is very simple. You carry it to the tree where it lies, set up and away you go, removing liftable bits of timber. However, the first thing you will find is that the logs are never the right way up, so you need some way to lift/roll them. Milling is a lot easier downhill than level, but if you can't set this up then you will find a winch kit makes life a lot less painful. The first cut is made down a flat, level surface fixed to the top of the log. Some people use a ladder (obviously one with no bits sticking up from the face you are working off) but there are other options. The cheapest is a scaffold plank, or at the other end of the scale I use a custom designed bolt-together sectional rail which allows me to go up to 22' with the current parts and could go longer. If you want lengths which are longer than your first cut rail, there are ways to set up to slide the rail down the log but it is fiddly and slow. Most milling with an Alaskan is fiddly and slow anyway. You probably spend more time setting up and adjusting than actually milling. It helps to design your building to allow for this, so for example I would rather mill sections 2" to 4" thick and then rip the edges down if necessary using a big Makita circular saw than edge them with the mill, but if I have to make beams I would rather use the mini-mill than roll the log and square up the Alaskan. Anyone can cut a log into bits, but a lot of the art of milling is in seeing what is in a log and cutting it to get the best out of it but this comes from experience and asking questions. Go for lo-pro bars and chains. For your 461 I would buy a 30" mill, a 36" lo-pro bar and a 24" lo-pro bar. This will let you switch down for thinner sections which will cut faster and be a lot easier to work with. If you do need to make beams and hence buy the mini-mill, the 24" bar will work very well for this, although with care you can run a 36" bar full depth on a mini-mill (I have on the 066!). What you are wanting to do is perfectly practical. Just be aware that it will not be very fast and will be hard work, but it will be very satisfying when it's done. Alec

Well, if you come over Haverhill give us a wave! Alec

Yes - roundup should kill it and once dead the soil will be fine for re-use, although figs can be hungry so it will benefit from adding some nutrients (compost/fertiliser). Alec

Figs are tenacious and their root systems are strong. They will spread where they get the chance, or go deep when against an obstacle such as a wall. They also tend to re-sprout from very little. I would be inclined to kill it first and make sure it is definitely dead before removing. As mentioned the sap is a problem in contact with skin - it can cause a severe rash. Alec

True, and the hexavalent chrome adds a nice yellow colour and a slight tang, a bit like mustard

The closest my two got to cooking this holiday was marshmallows over the charcoal burn this evening. They were happy though, which is what counts. Alec

Are you familiar with 'through-and-through' ? - if not, imagine looking at the end of the log as a circle - then draw a series of horizontal lines on it. That's through-and-through sawing. The top one and the bottom one should be a minimum width of 4" on the outer faces, ie taking a thin sliver off first and leaving a thin sliver at the end, although in practice you are likely to have to flip the last bit over to hold it and then take the final cut 4" up from the bed. 2.5" would be board thickness, so you would have to add allowance for the kerf when dropping the head down. Alec

Depends what it was treated with. The wood is going to get a lot hotter as you burn it than it did when you pyrolysed it. This means different things will come off. If you can be confident that the wood was treated with an organic biocide (the type of thing you can buy in B&Q) then it will have thermally decomposed, just like the wood has. If it was commercially treated then it could be copper, if it's modern it could potentially be boron-based, if it's older it could well be copper chrome arsenate (CCA). Burning the charcoal will also add oxygen, so the remaining compounds will convert to oxides. I don't fancy arsenic trioxide flavouring on my burgers myself.... Alec

When I need to mill something there and then, often contract milling where the customer wants the tree cut but doesn't quite know what for, I generally advise through-and-through at 2.5". This will plane up nicely to 2" when dry which is good for solid looking furniture, or can be re-sawn at a later date to make 1" boards planed on one face for flooring or just under 1" planed on two faces for lighter furniture. It is only wasteful if you end up wanting 1.5" finished size, which is fairly uncommon. The further from the middle of the log you get, the more likely the boards are to cup, so I tend to take the first and last slice at 4", making sure the outer face is just over 4" wide. This can then be cut up for legs etc. Alec

Poplar does make excellent sidings for sheds if treated. It is stable, easy to nail without splitting and generally has few knots. The same properties which make it naturally low durability and take up water easily are actually an advantage in that the preservative soaks in really well. I know of a fairly large barn which is all clad in poplar, well soused in something oily (probably best not asked what) about 15yrs ago which shows no sign of degrading yet, and a quick re-coat is all it will need from time to time. The question is, do you need a load of siding? If so, it would be very cost effective to get someone in with a portable bandsaw mill, drag all the logs to one place and process the best lengths to get what you need. Before doing so, I would cut rings off an end of a log until I got to good stuff with no degradation. If you are lucky and it's one ring back, crack on. If you find it has already degraded I would just firewood it. If you don't need a load of siding, it will cost you money to get milled, then sit around, get in the way and gradually rot, so I would just cut it up for firewood instead. Alec p.s. I have a couple of poplar logs which I milled a year or two back and the outer section which I decided was too narrow to bother at the time is still stood on end in the garden and looks fine. I will be finding out whether it really is this weekend - I'll try milling a board of each section and if they are good it will be yielding the boards for my new interior kitchen door!

I haven't found anyone good who is that close. Spud is one option, near Baldock, or W.J.Green in Hadleigh. Both are a fair distance though (my wife happens to work near Spud which helps!) Alec

My grandparents (the safe ones, not the ones mentioned earlier) lived on Grain when I was growing up so funnily enough I was looking up the SS Richard Montgomery in relation to this thread earlier this evening. Stable or not stable? Well, with 1400 tons of TNT on board, the question is do you feel lucky punk? Well do you? Alec