agg221

I would insulate personally - it is expensive trying to heat the whole district otherwise. There are two basic approaches - one is to stop water getting in, the other is to let it out if it does. I am not a big fan of relying on a perfect seal. When it is breached the water will get in and then not get out again. I would infill the walls with something breathable - eg reed board, sheep's wool or fibreglass (compare prices and lambda values). I would cover the outside in thin ply (wbp) if I hadn't used reed board, with a breathable membrane if I didn't trust my cladding to be fully waterproof. I would then overlay 20mm battens, lined up with the frame below, and clad over this, so there was an air gap behind the cladding. Inside I would board out the walls with half inch wbp ply to minimise absorption of water into the structure. For a Rolls-Royce job I would paint the back of the ply first. The ply doesn't need to be this thick but you can then screw shelves etc directly to it. Roof, I would use Kingspan or Celotex expanded foam boards - thin seconds are pretty cheap. I would then put wbp ply over the top, probably 9mm so I could climb on it and nail it straight through with helical nails. Felt or corrugated bituminous sheet to finish. Infill between rafters or ply under, to cover the foil surface and prevent condensation. Perhaps overkill for a shed, but it would be reasonably quick and cheap on a construction that size. Alec

You want a breathable membrane rather than waterproof - doesn't let rain in but lets vapour out, to reduce condensation and prevent trapped water between the membrane and the wood where it contacts, leading to rot. I am using Cromar Vent 3 - the Original is the heaviest duty one. You can get some decent deals on this on Ebay. Alec

064 is a good, bulletproof saw. Not much advantage to be gained by uprating to the 066, definitely not worth the price of genuine. It will pull a 36" bar but not quickly. It is at home on a 24 or 25" bar. Alec

The bigger the saw (.cc) and the higher the torque, the bigger the timber you can mill at a given speed. At the lower end of the timber size, there is negligible difference. So for example, a 60cc saw will mill up to about a foot or so comfortably, 18" slowly. A 70cc saw will mill around a foot quickly, 18" comfortably, 2ft slowly; a 90cc saw would be 18" quickly, 2ft comfortably, 30" slowly. The 110cc+ saws will mill more like 30" quickly, 48" comfortably, bigger than this slowly. Obviously this is a big generalisation, but it's an OK rule of thumb, so the 395 will be OK if you are milling up to 30" occasionally, but mostly 18" or less. This means you could stick a 36" bar on a mini-mill, quarter up a 3ft log and make quartersawn boards out of it with relative ease. The MS880 is generally reckoned to be better for milling than the 3120 if you were buying a dedicated saw - slightly more torque and a more convenient chain tensioning mechanism, but both work fine if it's what you have available. Alec

Really nice work, thanks for posting. Alec

Quartering will help. The year will not have made any significant difference to moisture content - allow 6 months per inch of thickness for air drying. Now is a very good time to be milling as the water will come out gently with very little risk of case hardening or surface checking. Alec

It will move too much for any practical way of fixing it to work. If you mill from right near the centre (one board out from the pith) you will have the best grain to keep it flat, but you would still need at least two bolts per end to keep it flat. The board will then try to shrink across its width, but can't because it is held by the two bolts (ie the wood between the bolts wants to pull the two bolts closer together) but it can't, so the wood will then split up the middle. Alec

I would be inclined to fully air-dry the timber for the top at least. The cells in wood give up their water gradually, but the water from the cell wall goes last. It is only when this starts to happen (below ~20%) that shrinkage really happens. I would find gaps in the benchtop annoying as bits would fall through. The alternative would be to bolt it down (coachbolts with the nuts underneath) into slots rather than holes, so it can be periodically loosened off and slid back tight as it dries. I dislike woodworm, so I would use an oil or spirit-based insecticide. I wouldn't be worried about rot indoors, assuming the floor it is standing on isn't too damp. Poplar takes this up very well, sycamore quite well, spruce very badly. I would use whichever one you can get hold of easily! Creosote and old engine oil are both very effective at killing woodworm - unfortunately they have a similar effect on you.... Alec

Cheers, think we are now sorted (so long as we don't collapse the back of Jon's pickup!) Alec

You may already know this, but in case you don't, the ms200 and ms201 referred to are the backhandle versions, rather than the far more common tophandle variant. You would want the backhandle version - far safer with better control. For carving bars/chains you could have a look at chainsawbars.co.uk. Alec

That is rather nice. Alec

The price is low. I would reckon on £15/cu.ft for most green timber, more like £20/cu.ft for oak, higher for some particularly unusual timbers such as walnut or burrs. It's not that it's harder to mill - just that there is more demand for decent oak as gateposts and other exterior use, which establishes a price, and the rarer material is more desirable. Some people, e.g. Big J, sell a bit cheaper and have increased turnover, but nonetheless there is a floor below which you are really not getting enough back to bother when you factor in raw timber, transport costs, fuel, chain and saw wear etc. At that point, you might as well limit yourself to milling things that you want to mill for your own purposes. Delivery included in the price too is unrealistic. I sometimes drop things off for people when I'm going that way but a 120 mile round trip is around 3hrs of your time by the time you factor in loading and unloading, and if you use HMRC guidelines (which are not known for being generous) you could allow 41p/mile, so another £50. Just the fuel alone will be around £18. I would not regard this as a decent offer. Alec

Hi Oaklay, Having trouble reaching you by PM - is anything happening with this? If the offer of a couple of lengths is still on please could you let me know. Thanks Alec

Looks like it may be useful, so I won't log it up. I'll stick it to one side and take a picture or two when I can see it in daylight. Just to be clear - I don't want anything for it. Simon - I suspect the postage may kill it, but if you're ever down my way (and fancy taking a look at that Green Man I need carved ) then I'll hang on to it for you. Otherwise Jon, I'll drop it off next time I see you (stunning chairs on that website btw - something I would really like to do if the right tree section turns up) unless someone has come up with a specific use for it. Alec

The colour and ripple in that walnut are really stunning. Alec

Spruce is what a most basic workbenches are made from, or you would end up with if you used lengths of joist to make one, as my Grandad did some 60yrs ago. That bench is sat in Mum's garage - the top is far from pristine but it is still perfectly serviceable. It was well dosed with something at some point, probably creosote, but now more like oil from the various engines etc that have been dismantled on it. It's fine - no woodworm, no rot, will do at least another 60yrs. Spruce and poplar are both pretty resilient - they take knocks and dent a bit but lumps don't fall off. Oak is far more vulnerable in this respect. Poplar and spruce are about equivalent in hardness on the Janka scale (approx. 400-500). Sycamore is a bit harder (770), ash and oak are around 1300. Note, I can't find a perfect match on species as I can only find American values, but they're not far wrong. In my view, hardness is important if you want a nice stable workbench to lay out fine woodwork, but for bashing lumps of engine around it will get dented anyway (no practical timber is as hard as a lump of cast iron!). I prefer poplar over spruce as it is more absorbent. It will take up a spirit-based insectide, followed by something oily to seal it. It will then be pretty resilient for a good few decades. I would avoid oak as the tannic acid is corrosive to steel parts. Alec

Of your list, poplar or sycamore. Poplar is a lot better than people give it credit for. It also soaks up oil really well which then means the woodworm don't like it. It is used for the beds of artics. Alec

Had an elm stump wash down the river, complete with major roots. I reckon it's about 18" across, stump length about 2'6". The base should be pretty gnarly grained. It's dry enough that the bark has gone, but seems completely sound. Any good to anyone before I log it up for firewood? Alec

Shouldn't need to spray them - just leave them and any which grow back suggest that he knocks the re-growth off around next June - that should finish them off. Drilling holes down the centre helps them rot fairly quickly - I've found around 5yrs although the oak will last longer. Interesting point on nitrogen - not really considered this. A heap of grass cuttings over the top would be one way to boost nitrogen levels. Alec

I absolutely concur with this, and it holds true in any field. It reminds me a bit of times tables. In my day you learned them by reciting 'once two is two, two twos are four' etc. They are now learned apparently as just 'two, four, six' etc. The former method meant that if someone asks 'what are six sevens?' it is so embedded that I can still quote 'six sevens are forty two' without even thinking about it. My daughter who is learning times tables at the moment can't do this because the method she has been taught doesn't get her there so quickly. However, neither method actually gives you mathematical understanding, so you can't translate the above into 6x70 unless you actually understand what you are doing. Education can lay solid grounding to allow you to do tasks better. The application of that knowledge can be communicated (more efficient, high success probability), or figured out (less efficient, lower success probability but often more easily remembered once done and sometimes the only way if nobody knows), but the knowledge is worthless until one or the other of these routes has been followed. Alec

Some detail pics would be good please! Cheers Alec

I agree with the theory... I reckon annular ring shank let you get away with a bit less where necessary - e.g. I am fitting 3/4"-1/4" feather edge cladding to 1" battens, so can only get a maximum of 2" in there. I'm using 50mm annular ring shank and I'm not worried about pull out. Alec

Elder daughter (5) is sat with me, has just seen this and now she wants one! Anyone taking down any larch round my way.....? Alec

In all honesty, I wouldn't bother with a nail gun. A nail gun is great if you are going to do an enormous amount, day in, day out, but for the odd shed/dog kennel the time saving from using a nail gun over a hammer is trivial - most of your time will be spent measuring/marking and cutting, rather than fixing. Length - I like at least as much nail length holding the thing in as its own thickness, ie for 25mm shiplap, use at least a 50mm nail, up to 60mm if the structure is deep enough to hold it, 19mm shiplap use a 40 or 50mm nail etc. For more structural stuff, holding 50mm to 50mm a 100mm nail is best. If you don't have much luck with timber things, I would go to the trouble of drilling pilot holes and use annular ring shank nails - use the thicker ones as they are less likely to bend on you. A cheap cordless drill will make pilot holes all day long on a single charge. If you use 3.35mm nails and a 2.5mm or 3mm pilot drill it will work fine, bend less, give you heads to pull out on the ones that do inevitably bend, not split the timber even when you're a bit close to an end and prove far less annoying overall. Obviously scale this up for the structural ones. I buy nails from Tradefix direct - fairly cheap and I buy the stainless ones as then I can use them with oak/sweet chestnut/cedar without it staining black, or having to keep two bags. Alec

It should, although there is a risk that it pulls through if the board is a long way from quartersawn and trying to cup heavily. Coach bolts would be more certain. You could try a pair of your screws, fairly close together near the centre of the board, say 2" apart so the relative shrinkage of the board in between them is minimised. Don't forget that the board will also shrink in thickness, so you will want to be able to nip them up a bit, probably next summer. It's easy to do this with bolts, rather more tricky with screws as you will have to clean all the heads out by then to get the driver back in. Oh and last night, I should have said 'smiling' rather than 'frowning' ie the bit from nearest the centre of the tree upwards. Alec