agg221

Elm was traditionally used, before the days of plastic, as it doesn't split. There was one in my grandfather's house - always nice and warm to sit on even though the room was unheated and there was often ice in the sink! Dad did think about keeping it when the house was being demolished but the woodworm was too bad. Alec

I have had this problem, and fixed it by judicious use of a hammer and screwdriver as described by Spud. I now have a fancy gizmo for truing up the rails when they splay, which is very handy as I tend to run long, old bars right down to the limits. Alec

Thanks - a bit too narrow for me. Alec

How wide is the heartwood (coloured) relative to the sapwood? Alec

Concorde is excellent and reliable, just takes a bit longer to come into bearing. If you want them for cooking rather than just eating fresh, Catillac is worth a go. It keeps forever. What type of location are you growing in - are they freestanding or close to other trees? If they have competition from other trees which will grow tall, I would go for pear rootstocks and accept that they will take a long time to crop. If not competing, I would go for Quince A to get stable, reasonable sized trees cropping in about 4yrs. Alec

Excellent chance of survival. Will probably benefit from staking to hold it upright again until the roots re-establish, and keeping the weeds/grass away from the rootball so it doesn't have to compete. A good mulch with 2-layers thick of cardboard and some rotted bark or wood chippings over the top would work well. Alec

I'm aware of the requirement to keep it contained, and the minimum distance from watercourses. Is there anything else I should be aware of? Alec

Re. the walls. As Graham W has said, you want the air gap between the feather edge and the membrane, rather than between the membrane and the insulation. If you use loose fill type insulation such as glass fibre or sheep's wool, you will need something rigid to stop it falling forward against the cladding. If you use an insulating board then you won't need this. Try looking at the Lime putty, mortars, plasters and limewash at unbeatable prices supplied by Mike Wye & Associates. - they have quite a range of breathable sheet insulation ranging from cork board to their diffutherm boards. I have found them very helpful and places like Buildbase and Jewsons can order their products in. Sterling board or WBP ply (which is exterior rather than marine) would be interchangeable. Both of them are there to form a rigid base, rather than provide the insulation. I would put one of these over the top of a layer of insulation such as Kingspan or Celotex. From personal experience, it is a lot quicker to install sheet materials as a continuous layer than to infill between panels. You also then don't need the ply layer on the outside to keep it in place (although you will on the roof unless you go for the suggested box profile roofing). Sheet insulation over the outside of the structure, with battens over, nailed straight through both into the frame creates the airgap. I'll see if I have pictures of this from when I did my extension roof. The point about Kingspan type sheets being much higher performance and that you will lose the heat faster through the doors and windows is well made, however the relevant number is its lambda value, which is thermal conductivity. The less conductive the material, the thinner you can go for the same performance. Roughly, fibreglass is .045, sheep's wool is .042, Kingspan or similar is .02. This means that 50mm of fibreglass would be equivalent to 30mm of Kingspan for the same performance (for comparison, I used aerogel insulation which gives the same value with only 15mm). These figures are simplified, but you can see that for small quantities at lower thicknesses it can work out cost effective to use higher performance material to simplify the installation. If you do go for Kingspan or Celotex (different manufacturers of the same thing) you can buy seconds at about half the price of new, which works out reasonably cost effective. I reckon, depending on the roof pitch, you could get away with three sheets for the roof which would be about £25 all in for 30mm boards. Breathable insulating boards will be more as you won't find them so easily as seconds. Hope this helps! Alec

If you are handling relatively small quantities (tens of tons in most cases, for some purposes that's per month, for others per year) then you fall under the exemption threshold, which you register and is free. If you need to handle larger quantities, you will need a permit which you pay for: https://www.gov.uk/environmental-permit-how-to-apply Alec

I can take chip near Haverhill on the Suffolk/Essex/South Cambs border. I have T23 and U12 exemptions. Alec

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