agg221

Your local Stihl dealer will still be able to obtain most of the parts for both the above saws. If they prove to be either unhelpful or incompetent, L & S Engineering. Alec

Out of interest, how does a landshare agreement work? The value here appears to be timber and deer. The obligations are replanting (inc. effort in getting the replanting scheme approved), quarrying stone to make up the trackways and potentially getting planning permission for some form of accommodation/storage facility, followed by building it. How would you go about organising such a thing in a way which satisfied the interests of a large number of interested parties? Particular challenge appears to be the stalking rights - 65 deer don't go very far between 1750 people (might just get a venison burger each?) This isn't supposed to sound confrontational - I'm genuinely interested in how such an arrangement could be set up. I once tried to do it for shared ownership of a boat between 10 and that was a nightmare due to opposing interests. I wondered if there was a recognised approach which might address it. Alec

Thanks Steve, just waiting to hear from Python to arrange pick-up. Alec

The set-up you suggest will work absolutely fine for what you propose. The saw is slightly smaller than would normally be recommended, but I would guess you would only want fairly short lengths too, so it won't stress the saw (just rest it for a bit after every couple of feet of cut). If the saw is older I would recommend that it has a thorough going over before being put to work - milling is the hardest thing you can do with a saw, so I would want to know that the rubber parts are still supple and not cracked, and there were no air leaks (pressure and vacuum test). These risk killing the saw by running lean - nothing to do with age or size. Since it will be occasional use, I would also run on Aspen as it will stay good in the tank and you won't throw loads away. The small log mill is slightly less accurate than the Alaskan, but not enough to worry about and you won't need precision. You won't need a different sprocket, just the ripping chain. You will need to keep this very sharp and all the teeth even in length and angle though - given the scale of what you are proposing I would go for an Oregon chain and a precision hand filing jig. Have you looked at the chainsawbars.co.uk website? Alec

I think I'm on for this - if so then I'll stick up some pictures when it's milled. Alec

Did you spot the tree being taken down in Leeds? Might have been disposed of by now but could fit the bill if you can get it moved? Alec

I know a man who knows the answer to that, but he has just gone on holiday to Egypt and won't be back until late October. I shall ask him on his return. Alec

Looks good. Might take a bit of marking out everyone's individual 3.4 acre plot though.... Alec

Could be, although I can see your 'three rows of holes' approach working. I would imagine that if you screwed it on to the top of the leg first, then turned it upside down onto the inverted top and clonked it one when lined up you should get good witness marks to drill counterbore holes to carry the heads of fixings. A cordless drill will take a 19mm flat bit, which will take an M12 coach screw head, so that should account for some pretty heavy duty furniture Alec

Only thing is that countersinks are more expensive to put in than a plain hole as you can't just laser/waterjet them out. You also get the on-cost of the thicker material, which matters more with SS than mild steel. SS is good as you can get it cut/drilled wherever you need and then just use it. Mild steel would need drilling before painting/galvanising which is more difficult, particularly as when you cut to length the ends would be bare and I can imagine that being difficult to get a neat finish on quickly on-site. Alec

Are you doing anything over my way? Alec

You might struggle a bit at this time of year. Take-up is slow into old growth and there is more chance of it breaking down or washing off before a lethal dose is absorbed. May be worth explaining this to the customer so they know to expect a repeat dose to be needed in spring. Alec

These are the threads I was looking for: http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/milling-forum/52259-advise-poplar.html http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/alaskan-mill/45517-black-poplar-plank.html If yours looks anything like this I would love some if you were closer - wonder if Nepia is heading your way at any point soon....! Alec

Try and split it right up the middle and photograph it with the surface wet - that will show it at its best. Rob D had a photo up at one point - I'll try and find it. Alec

If the end grain visible in the photo really does show growth rings then that is tremendously fast grown. If you stood a bit up on end and ran a saw down it, that would show how good the colour and appearance are. Not sure of anyone buying for decorative uses, but there may be someone who wants a log or two at that size and colour. Alec

I get what you mean with this - I would have them made in 2mm SS, holes every 3" or 4", depending on whether the minimum width to be fixed down is likely to be 8" or 10", either laser or water-jet cut, depending on whether you mind the darkening on the holes, and fix them down with SS coach screws. It's going to be a semi-visible fixing, so this would be in keeping with the style. It would also be easy to nip up later when the wood shrinks (shouldn't need to access the ones into the leg as they will be into end grain so negligible shrinkage). The only tricky bit, regardless of fixing, would be getting the counter-bore holes in the top to line up with the projecting heads of the fixing. If you take a battery-powered angle grinder with you it would be easy to cut off to length. Alec

Thanks

Is any of the oak brown? Alec

Sadly that doesn't apply to the vintage auctions: BUYERS' PREMIUM A buyers' premium at the following rates will be added to the hammer price. Class 1 - Tractors, Steam & Other Vehicles 5% plus VAT Class 2 - Motorcycles 8% plus VAT Class 3 - All Other Items 10% plus VAT Alec

It's the quarterly vintage auction on the 18th - I usually go, but mainly to the junk bit. The machinery auction is on a different day and much quieter. Alec

A good size, worth milling. The knots up the side suggest it will be more 'character' than perfect grain, or it would be suitable for structural/landscaping use rather than decorative. The risk of metal will put people off but if I was doing it I would cut around it - place the cuts to miss it and if necessary just shorten up the piece with the metal in once milled out. The trouble with selling single butts is that it is difficult to get big commercial mills to take them, unless they are something special or they have a need. It's more likely to go to someone with an Alaskan and a need. For example, I have someone who wants me to mill them a large area of rustic oak flooring so if you were near me I would be interested. You might get £4/Hoppus foot if you find someone with an immediate use, so about £400. If you want to move it on quickly then £2/Hoppus foot (£200) would be a bargain. You will get much more if you cut it up, split it and sell it as firewood, but you then need to take into account your fuel costs, chain/saw wear and time, so if you could spend the same time doing something more profitable then selling it whole would be worthwhile. Alec

We bought the 2 ha field next to our house last year. It's arable, contract farmed. This puts us in the category of small farm, so small in fact that we now fall off the bottom of the list (5ha minimum under CAP reform). Last year's figures are, I think, relevant. Because of delays in the purchase, we got access so late that there was no opportunity to do anything more than get a crop straight in, so no herbicides, pesticides or fungicides used early in the season. We got yellow rust - it took three sprays to get it back under control and if we hadn't, there would have been zero crop. We had a very bad flush of wild oats - eventually got so bad that we had to use a specific herbicide, and they still came back. I then spent over 100hrs hand pulling them (ie 50hrs/hectare) and still didn't get them all, so we had to delay harvest to let them ripen up, adding risk of total crop loss, but fortunately the harvest was early and the weather held. We had some black grass and a lot of broome (which I hand pulled as much of as I could). After all this, we got a total harvest of 9.5 tons. At current wheat prices this is £950 gross, minus haulage. I owe our contractor for seed, spray and labour at agricultural rates. We will be in the black, but it will be marginal - maybe £100 if we're lucky, due to the good grace of our contractors not charging us for storage and being our next door neighbours so not charging travel time. This year, we have killed off all the residual grass growing under the wheat, which took two applications of glyphosate despite letting as much as possible germinate and then giving it a tilling. We shouldn't need to repeat this now it's back under control. We have used a pre-emergent weedkiller, some slug bait (pasta-based to reduce the rate of dissolution) and will need to apply whatever our agronomist says we should next year. The consequence - assuming we have a similar year to this year (just for comparison) we should get about 20 tons yield and, being a high grade milling wheat, we should be able to sell it for the equivalent of £2,800 at today's prices. It is likely to net around £1,200. Relevance? Well, without using the full range of sprays, we would have had a total crop failure. Eliminating herbicides and using hand weeding would, if you apply minimum wage, have cost around £1,400 cf. spraying glyphosate at around £25 per application. Doing nothing would have dramatically reduced yield, but not had much impact on cost. We talked to the tenant at College Farm, Duxford at Open Farm Sunday this year. He has a small area of organic wheat which he grows for Waitrose. He reckons he gets 1/3 the yield and sells at double the price, compared with conventional agriculture. This stacks up with our findings. Does it make any global difference if we don't farm our field? Obviously no. However if you run the figures, removing the sprays would drop yield to a point where either prices would have to increase by an order of magnitude, or you would have to farm on an enormous scale to get the economies of scale necessary to make a living, which is somewhat at odds with the view of small farming. Do I like using sprays? No. Do I see a practical alternative? No. Alec

I have done it but my wife is the expert. Don't try to cut the veneer to size first - leave it oversize in panels, at least 1cm all round. Once stuck down it will be nice and stiff on its backing and much easier to trim. You will need a veneer hammer to smooth it down - this is easy to improvise with a bit of dowel and a piece of hardwood - look on ebay for pictures! Use proper pearl glue - it's worth it in the end. If you have a glue pot, great, but any small metal container can be used if you are careful. If you haven't used pearl glue before, read the instructions on how much water to add. I used the metal top of an aerosol and heated it very gently over a candle to melt it. Keep the glue pot covered to keep the mix right and if you overheat it, throw it away as it won't work. Soak the veneer in water overnight, before cutting the piece to size as then it won't splinter (so much!) and keep it damp until using. Clean every last scrap of old glue and finish off the box - washing with warm soapy water and a rinse with clean warm water will do it - raising the grain is not a problem. Once you've brushed on the melted glue, placed the veneer and smoothed it down with the hammer, you can either hold it in place with a weight, or if you've got the glue right it will 'tack' when it cools a bit - leave it to dry out fully overnight. If you have any bubbles, prick them while the glue is still warm and squeeze out the glue/air. Once dry, the veneer will shrink down and any prick holes won't be visible. If you get confident, you could do several pieces at a time, but caution says do one piece, let it dry, trim it, then do the next the following day. It will take longer but be more certain. Do consider whether you want to use modern thin veneer or old fashioned veneer which was sawn about 1/8" thick. Alec

One consideration might be what you are using the woodland for. If it's small diameter coppice (e.g. hazel) then you are likely to need to need to work on you knees anyway, and each individual branch will be small enough not to move out of the way when it's cut free. Alternatively, if it's amenity then you may not need to do much felling. Woodland grown trees also tend to be tall and straight with little or no crown, so less of an issue breaking them down as once felled and the top removed they are less likely to roll. If you are cutting up for firewood, you can probably break down into sections you can extract, but you will need to take into account the handling issues. If it's big stuff and you want to try chainsaw milling, I always end up doing this on my knees anyway! With a winch set-up, you would be at very little disadvantage, although a second pair of hands to help extract boards and beams would be very useful (which is no different to anyone else doing it). Working alone in the woods isn't advisable anyway (although quite a few people do it, myself included) so in practice if you work with someone else, either a friend, paid help or for a share in the extracted product, that should take care of the few jobs you can't do. Worth noting that, for your own site as a hobby, you don't formally need training. That's not to say it's not a very good idea to ensure that you know what you are doing, and training is often the best way to achieve this, both for using and maintaining a saw, but you don't need to get tickets. This means you could go down the route of either a formal course, or equally something less formal, either with a recognised trainer or with someone suitably experienced. Alec

If you are going to have to buy something anyway, I would buy a chain rather than a sprocket. 3/8" chain is going to be restrictive in the long run, as getting a sprocket-nosed large mount bar will be difficult. 36" bar on a mini-mill works OK (I use one) but it may not run dead straight. I sometimes get a little bit of wander in the nose end, and I'm using an 066 which is a bit more manageable, so be ready to true up the face on the racksaw. Also, bear in mind that a 36" bar will give you about 80cm of actual cutting depth on the mini-mill, so you will either need to complete the other 20cm of the cut. You could cut, roll a quarter, cut, roll a quarter, cut, then roll up the cut to horizontal and freehand from the other side or finish with steel wedges (if doing this, still roll it up and split from the end and inwards from the outside, rather than be tempted to just widen the saw cut, as this will just make it split randomly - always split from the outside inwards). Alec