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See first comment (re. uncertainty). Alec

It does. However for most people firewood is a luxury. Very few people actually have to heat their house with it and those that do tend to make other arrangements for supply. People stop buying luxuries when money is tight, so relative price makes little difference to reduced demand. Alec

I doubt it will be good for firewood suppliers. Firewood is a luxury item. We are net importers of goods and the current uncertainty is likely to last at least until a deal is concluded, ie several years. The uncertainty will keep the pound weak (it has been since the referendum was announced) so imported prices will remain high. This, combined with lower confidence in consumers (reduced house prices make people feel less well off) is likely to reduce spending on luxuries. It will be interesting to see whether I am right or wrong over the next two or three years. Alec

Brexit impact so far for me: Today, I told the technical director of a company with around 100 employees who wanted to schedule a meeting to discuss strategic investment in a niche technology area where the UK are currently leaders not to bother coming to see me as we could no longer help them since a UK-based project would now be unfundable. It is likely that this will cost around 20 jobs. Alec

Thanks for that, very useful to know. 15yrs really is quite short - I presume planting heavy standards at a typical age of around 10yrs? If so that is 25yrs total life on the tree. That is very interesting with regard to elms as it indicates what would be a suitable planting trial. Cheers Alec

If you are wanting to tip off on the way home, Mum's place is reasonably en-route (Hartley near Longfield). No ideas any closer I'm afraid - what are you needing to tip? Alec

I have loads. We grow for Wrights and I have some reject material I could cut for you as your spec is easier. Drop me a PM if it's of use. Alec

Hi All, I am interested in people's thoughts on the planned lifecycle of urban trees. I am thinking particularly of street settings, as opposed to semi-natural settings such as parks. The growth and development of trees in a natural setting could be considered in three stages - growth, maturity and decay. In a tree grown without intervention, it is the end point of the latter which is usually taken as the lifespan. For trees in settings with more intervention, I would anticipate that they would pretty much never reach the natural end through decay, so the effective lifespan is shortened. I am interested in views as to what the expectations of lifespan would therefore be. I suppose the simple ones are short-lived trees such as flowering cherries, which will probably not ever outgrow a space. However, I can see the potential conflict in, say, removing a row of street limes because their trunk diameter and root structure is now blocking the pavement, even though their crowns are well maintained in the available space. I have seen plane trees of 2m across in parkland, where in a street setting they would block the road, let alone the pavement. Any thoughts on how these expectations are managed? I am particularly interested because of the current position with elms. There are now elm strains and hybrids which have proved highly resistant in controlled testing and are now fairly widely planted in The Netherlands, but of course nobody knows how resistant they will be in the field, or how they will perform over their lifespan. The most controlled approach would be to plant out and monitor in settings which do not matter, but 300yrs of monitoring is a bit much! Hence the interest in thoughts as to what would be satisfactory for a realistic specification? Cheers Alec

An update on this which may be useful to some. The seller was not at fault, so I gave him the time to get the refund through from Parcelforce, which he received a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, in the meantime the window for opening an Ebay case closed, and the seller has decided to take advantage of this by ignoring all communication so at the moment he has both my money and the same again as reimbursement from Parcelforce! I was just gearing up to start figuring out how to use Small Claims, when a conversation with a very helpful person at Ebay (yes, you really can speak to a person, and they ring you on a callback so it's free!) established that, because I had paid by Paypal, this gives a six month window in which to make a claim. The seller continues to ignore efforts to contact him, either from me or Paypal, which results in a default position of a refund, straight from his bank account, which in my view is much better than the Ebay position of him getting away with keeping the money and me being reimbursed from Ebay fees, as this just keeps fees high and effectively condones theft. Should be getting the refund in a couple of days. Alec

Decide what style of flower you like - hybrid tea, old roses etc and also do you want scent? The old roses only flower once in a single flush whereas most of the more modern varieties are perpetual to some extent. Personally, my favourites are the English Roses bred by David Austin (absolute favourite The Prince which is a very tricky to grow but the flowers are out now and it is stunning). I like their range in general though and find their website good for inspiration. They have a great cafe too, and the most spectacular rose garden imaginable which is free to wander round if you visit: David Austin Roses - Bare root roses, Container roses, English Roses, Climbers, Ramblers - Buy online Alec

Quite true, at the current price. At worst I would expect overplating along the waterline to be needed and you couldn't get a hull, even a bad one, for that kind of price. Alec

I'm alright thanks - I have my own boat/wreck already! Before it was converted, mine was used to raise at least one boat which was sunk below the gunwhales at Bradley yard in Birmingham. You stick the boat alongside, sling a chain at each end under the sunken boat, pump the floating boat full of water to the gunwhales, tighten up the chains and then pump out, lifting the sunken boat in the process. As soon as the gunwhales are above water, start pumping that one too and it should come up. My guess is that the steel is pinholed at the waterline but a big pump will keep the water coming out faster than it goes in. A boat I previously owned which was rescued from the Basingstoke was so bad that the stem post snapped out on the Thames! The lock keepers decided not to argue about the lack of licence (it was being towed off for repair) as there was a serious risk it would just sink in the lock in the meantime Wooden canal boats are what originally got me into milling. Alec

Should be possible to raise that without a crane if you can borrow a couple of work flats and a good sized pump. Alec

I reckon it's Delabodge going round doing something nasty to them to ensure a constant supply.... Alec

Since you are proposing to sell it rather than keep it, you can work out a price on pure commercial grounds by working backwards. How many knife blanks/bowl blanks do you conservatively estimate it will make? How much can you sell each blank for? The above gives you a gross income figure. What will the cost of sale be? e.g. Ebay listing costs, Paypal costs, postage costs. What will the cost of production be? e.g. saw chains, oil, fuel, bandsaw blades. Subtract costs from gross income and you have a figure for raw material (the stump) plus your time. You can then decide how much you want to make out of your efforts and therefore the maximum price you are prepared to pay. Alec

You can use an Alaskan to make quartersawn boards or beams, it's just more work. In combination with a vertical mill such as the mini-mill it is fairly straightforward. A circular saw takes a narrower kerf and cuts faster but the portable ones are fairly limited in the dimension they will cut and I wouldn't say they are in the 'start-up' bracket for most people. Alec

I thought I'd mention that the Abbott's Ripton open gardens event is coming up on the 25th/26th June, just off the A1/A14, north of Huntingdon. Details here: http://www.abbotsriptonhall.co.uk/ The event has a good selection of plant and local food related stalls and there are generally some good speakers on gardening-related subjects, however the real interest is the gardens themselves. They are only open for one weekend every two years and there are some interesting specimen trees, however for me the stars of the show are the elms. These survive both in the gardens and in the wider landscape across the estate and through the village, due to the careful management instigated by the owner, Lord De Ramsey from the 1970s onwards. A few photos from 2014 below. The pub in the village does excellent food too. Alec

On the saw, go as big as you can stretch to. If you don't, you will just end up buying a bigger one later. Assuming you don't want to buy a brand new MS880 I suggest a secondhand Stihl 075 or 076 at 111cc is a good option. They are solid thumpers that last well and parts availability is good. If you do go down this route, make sure you know how to distinguish the above from an 051 - don't just rely on the badge on the top! On the mill, I would go with a 48" Granberg Alaskan MkIII. The above saws will pull a long enough bar and this will mean you can process the majority of what comes your way. If you wanted to, you could start with a shorter bar, say a 46" Sugihara, which would give you most of the capacity, and then go for a longer bar later on. You should be able to make good enough cuts with the above, particularly if you fit a ripping chain, that no further re-sawing is needed on beams. However it is a lot quicker if you add a vertical mill, such as the mini-mill, to make the first perpendicular cut (you then roll it through 90degrees and use the Alaskan again to make sure the cut on the other side is at a constant width). Your cutting spec is slightly unusual. You would normally make beams box-heart where possible, rather than quartered. Is there any particular reason for it? Alec

And just what's wrong with a 60 grit sanding pad in an angle grinder then? Alec

For hobby milling it will be OK. It will cope with smaller sizes, up to around 15-18" at a reasonable speed and will slowly get there on larger sizes. If you think you will ever need it then I would go for a 36" bar and a 30" mill. If it hasn't already been done I would swap over to 3/8", or if you can find a way to do it then 3/8" lo-pro and a GB lo-pro bar would give you the best performance. Alec

Yes, that's an 070. The clutch is the 3-shoe type (behind the washer) whereas an 090 clutch is 6-shoe. Under the top cover you can see the decompression lever goes side to side whereas the 090 goes front to back. On the top cover you can just see the remains of the white paint on the Stihl lettering and '07' under the tape of the label in the air filter cover. The top cover with the cast Stihl lettering appears to have been in use from the beginning up to the early 1980s. It was then replaced with a rivetted label. The orange paintwork suggests a date of around 1975 onwards, so roughly 1975-1985. Everything you can see goes together as original. Alec

I suggest having a play with this before getting too far down the line - cleaving tends to veer off line unless there is a fairly equal, or very weighty, bit on each side. It also tends to work very well radially from the centre to edge, ie right across the growth rings, but not so well at other angles. Alec

As has been mentioned, the starter is definitely from an 070 (earlier type). It would be useful to have photos of: The clutch side with the cover off. The top of the orange top cover. The top with the orange top cover taken off (it is held on with three screws, two visible and one at the back, under the air filter cover). From that it should be possible to confirm 070 vs. 090 and whether the visible parts go together. Assuming it is an 070, it is 106cc with a lot of torque. It will chug away all day on up to around a 4ft bar. Alec

I know you got a double-ended bar, but how exactly are you planning to get all four mounted simultaneously Alec

Yew longbows use the heartwood on the inside for compression and the sapwood on the outside for tension. The ideal is straight and clean without knots but I have seen some surprisingly twisted bits used successfully. You are looking for a piece around 6" to 8" diameter - much smaller and the interface between heartwood and sapwood is too curved in the section, bigger and the sapwood can get rather thin. It doesn't matter if there are knots up one side - you only need a wedge shaped section. The best option is to split it rather than saw it - that way you know how the grain runs. If you split it end to end with wedges, then split that in half again so you have a quarter then that is about the best size to dry. If you are good at cleaving then on the larger end you could probably get away with eighths. Alec