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I have a Philips Dry Shaver Power Touch PT720/17. I have relatively soft skin and it hasn't carved lumps out of me in the year I've had it. There have been a lot of advances in the shaving foils over the past few years (we did some work on them). Alec

I am really glad you qualified this with the second part - I had some really unpleasant images of Felix starting just starting for a minute there.... Alec

Very useful link - I am now going to see him at the end of June On that subject, Billhook (and anyone else around East Anglia who knows of decent sized surviving elms), if you are able to send me a short length of this year's growth of typical form then that would be excellent as the plan is to see whether those which are surviving have significant Plot elm character, or any other distinct characteristics. Alec

Bad luck - sadly it seems to happen to most of us at some point. You could stick a 'wanted' ad on Arbtrader. I also tend to use Ebay and Gumtree - your protection rights with the former are pretty solid but not with the latter so caveat emptor. Preloved is also OK. Keep an eye out for local car boot sales too as they are a good source of cheap hand tools. I suggest buying a mulching brushcutting blade for the strimmer - fairly cheap and will let you keep rides down when they are more heavily overgrown.

I think this one is OK - there are whole machines for sale and those are pick-up only. I suspect he is clearing trade-ins and stripping down scrap machines from a dealer somewhere. Alec

I can find the wrought ironwork one, but not The Blacksmith's Craft. Wrought Ironwork: A Manual of Instruction for Craftsmen by Zanni, A & Tucker, C.: Rural Industries Bureau, London Hardcover, Fourth Impression - Camilla's Bookshop Alec

Products for the category: Granberg mill accessories Alec

Bad luck Geoff, your turn it would seem. I think there comes a point where it doesn't matter how good your security is anyway - reinforce the doors and they come through the roof etc. however you do what you can and hope it puts off a percentage of them. I would imagine if you're waiting for a shoulder op then you aren't in need of big saws at the moment, but if I'm wrong and you need something on medium-term loan I have one sitting here which won't be used again until the autumn. Alec

I suspect your 'oak' is in fact jarrah, which is nice stuff and extremely durable. However it could just be Karri - I quote from wikipedia: Jarrah wood is very similar to that of Karri. Both trees are found in the southwest of Australia, and the two woods are frequently confused. They can be distinguished by cutting an unweathered splinter and burning it: karri burns completely to a white ash, whereas jarrah forms charcoal. Alec

You can physically fit a long bar to it (up to 42" is available) but the longer the bar, the more of the saw's power is going in to pulling the chain round rather than being available for cutting. It will also bog down easily as it won't have the torque to pull it. If you do want to to go this way I would convert to .325" pitch on the sprocket and get the bar nose sprocket changed over to match. I know Rob D is exploring the options for long 3/8" lo pro bars, which would allow you to run an even longer bar on a small saw. Ultimately though, be aware that you only have so much power available so whilst it will get there eventually it will not be very time-efficient. Alec

Hi Graham, what are the length and width? Alec

There are several sources. I would say be wary and do it if you are prepared to take a chance. There are three options: find someone on Arbtalk who knows where there are big elms and give it a go with cuttings, google 'disease resistant elm' and it will throw up some results where nurseries have propagated surviving trees from cuttings (there is at least one inEssex doing this) or find the cultivar Morpheo on google, which is one of the most widely tested. I would avoid the Princeton elm though as it has not proved resistant to the European strain of the disease. Alec

Did you click the 'choose file' boxes and select them so that they showed on the window, the click the 'upload' button? What size were the files (were they within the allowed pixel size for the image type)? Alec

I would reckon that the fluting and the rot streak in the lower length would write off half of it. The other lengths - small one on the left and big one on the right have significant bends so I would measure to those (I would guess it's about 2/3 of the total) as the rest will be waste, or sold for chopping boards. Middle one has a significant step down in size 1/3 of the way up but using a true Hoppus measure would be slightly to your favour. With that in mind, I would calculate the good stuff as being around 43HF, at £4/HF so £130. If I had an immediate outlet for 10' long boards, or wide boards, I would go a bit higher but be aware you may get significant losses due to locked in stresses in the branches. Alec

Hi Billhook, I don't think it makes much odds where you take the twig from, but woodland grown you get better growth towards the top - open grown it doesn't seem to make much difference. You want a 4-6" length of this year's growth ideally, although I have had 1" growth take root! No particular location of cut seems to make it more likely to succeed, although cutting the base at a leaf joint does give more opportunity for cell formation. No need to split or slit the bark, just dip in the compound, dib a hole in the rooting media with a pencil, drop the twig in and water in. Cutting the leaves in half is to reduce the area for water loss. They don't need to photosynthesize that much as they aren't trying to make more growth, just sustain life until they root. Also, take any leaves off which would touch the soil as they tend to just rot. Layering would be great if you can get them in contact with the soil, or water reliably enough to achieve air layering. ELG - hope my response didn't come across as argumentative, I was typing in a bit of a rush to make sure my dinner didn't burn (just had a very nice Thai green curry) Perkins - there have been various bigger 'official' projects, including one in Warwickshire and my local tree officer (Braintree) had a serious interest which is where I learned from. He propagated a few trees through a local nursery, which are now available for sale but at a very high cost. I think the future is likely to be interested individuals just doing enough to keep the surviving strains going. Propagation from bark shavings is the micro-propagation technique which is amazing if you ever see it. The shavings are kept alive through nutrients in agar gel, then hormones are introduced to promote transition to root mass, then further hormones to promote bud growth. It produces really strange, almost alien looking masses of root, followed by perfect, beautiful miniature plants which are cut off and grown on. You can keep it going indefinitely. I did my work experience at East Malling Horticultural Research Establishment in the propagation department in the 1980s when it was just being developed and it was fascinating to watch. Alec

Yes, that's also my interpretation of the OP's intention, which is cloning the tree in question through cuttings. The hope is that any trees of good size which still survive in areas where DED has not been actively managed have a high probability of being resistant, either because the beetles are not attracted to them or they show resistance to the disease itself. Either would have the net effect of the tree surviving. 'Cloning' is that simple, however its simplicity does not result in easy resolution of the DED problem. This is because there is no straightforward way to screen for resistance to the disease (there are lab based culture tests but they aren't very practical) and no way at all to screen for resistance to beetle attack. As such, the only practical option is to wait until the disease has run through and see what's left. Many elms lack fertility and hence are genetically identical clones, grown from suckers. This results in very high loss of population (cf. the outbreak of Chalara fraxinea in Denmark for contrast). The consequence is that to resolve the problem you need: a) Someone to notice that not all the elms have died and identify surviving trees. b) Someone to work out how to propagate elm from cuttings. c) Someone who is prepared to take cuttings from the surviving elms. d) A way of putting a), b) and c) together. Pre-internet, the above was very difficult to achieve. The surviving elms being very scarce and often not visible from a point of public access made them hard to find. If you found one, would you notice, and if so, what would you do about it? Even if you wanted to do something about it, pre-internet where would you go to communicate the information (your local public library was not likely to be much help on this). Given the above, I don't think it is surprising that realisation of the number of surviving trees is pretty recent, and efforts to propagate them even more so. Hopefully it will work, just as previous natural regenerations post-DED have been successful. The reason some human intervention is justified in my view is that human intervention has reduced the likelihood of natural regeneration by reducing the opportunities for large elms to develop. Alec

Yes, it is cloning, just not normally termed as such. Plants are easy to clone, from simple cuttings to layers to complex micro propagation techniques using complex hormonal environments as ELG describes. Cloning animals is much harder because the cell types needed and their interrelationship is much more complex. Genetic modification for disease resistance is another thing altogether. Alec

Cuttings can either be taken in late June or in autumn after the leaves fall. You want this year's growth. If you take them in June you need to cut the leaves to half their length and pot in a 50:50 sharp sand:potting compost mix, burying a couple of inches. It is best if you use hormone rooting compound. You also ideally put them in a propagator with bottom heat, but putting the lot in a clear plastic bag on a North or East facing windowsill is also OK. If you take them in autumn, just use hormone rooting compound and compost as above but put them outside somewhere sheltered. You should get a slightly higher success rate with the former than the latter, but don't expect either to be good. Once rooted, pot up for a year and then plant out to grow on, either lined out about a foot apart until they are about 3' high, or in their final planting place if it is well protected from rabbits and weed growth. Alec

Having looked at the picture - that comes from about 5 miles from where I grew up, and where Mum still lives. Vigo is a funny place though. Alec

His Grandad could deal with it by spraying using soft soap and water - just to keep the tree nice and clean you understand, any effect on the aphids being coincidental (what with soft soap not being a licenced insecticide). He could also do the tree a favour by killing the grass out to the drop line (herbicide or smother with carpet or cardboard) and applying a good mulch of compost. Plums are heavy feeders and don't like competition from grass. Alec

The problem with it is that it's oak, but it's not durable. A lot of oak is used for its external durability, hence Turkey oak being relatively unused. That said, it is very durable in salt water so is used for groynes and other marine structures. It is also no less durable than, say, ash or sycamore, and it is very hard with decorative grain, so is good for furniture, flooring etc. Alec

Depends a bit on where you are. Also what sort of tree were they, and what size? Some people (myself included) are happy to take shredded material which ends up as soil conditioner. Some people are always looking for reasonable sized arisings from tree work for firewood. Alec

Have you explored the option of milling on site? Cedar is a good timber for outdoor use as it's very durable, so if they have a need for timber to build sheds, decking, summerhouse etc then if the timber is clean it will work out better overall to pay for the milling rather than for the extraction and disposal, plus buying in timber. Cedar timber is, ultimately, saleable, but it is hard work - I certainly wouldn't lead a home owner to believe they can simply convert their tree to cash! Overall though, if they can see a use for it, it may be an easier option all round. Alec

Only use it for what you have to. The weight of the saw and bar means it is harder to swing around and you tire faster. It is also harder to be precise in placing to start cuts. This means you really don't want to use it except for the big cuts, so prep everything with something normal - a 460 or 660 on a 25" bar is likely to be a good size. That will give you a clean length where you are ringing up from an end. Chocks, blocks, leaving low down stubs etc all give some protection against the butt rolling, as does working on the uphill side if it's lying sideways of course. It does help if the bar is long enough to go straight through as you can pretty much rest it in place and let it cut under its own weight, which takes a lot of the effort out. You need to be careful about considering how stresses will change when a ring comes off as if you pinch the bar you will be short of options for cutting it back out again - you really do need wedges in to guard against pinching. Make sure you go for a sprocket nose bar rather than a hard nose as it will take a lot less power out of the saw. Big saws are all about torque rather than speed so things happen in what feels like slow motion. Cuts take a long time with not much happening so you have to guard against losing concentration or becoming complacent. You will really want a grinder for sharpening, and you will really curse if you cut too deep and dull the chain in the dirt below. Alec

When you look at the rows upon rows of dead hedgerow elms, with the occasional surviving good sized specimen right next to them, I don't believe it is luck. They can't possibly be missed if every other tree in the area has been affected. That means either the beetles don't like them or the disease doesn't kill them. In our area there are quite a few surviving good-sized trees. We have Plot elm, which is fertile and hybridizes easily with procera, so there is more genetic diversity. There are other species/sub-species/varieties such as the Huntingdon elm and Wheatley elm which show some resistance but are usually killed in the end, although often at well over the 30' - more like when they reach full size and start to slow down a bit in growth, so around 2' dbh. The odds are therefore that it was a planted tree, although which type I couldn't say as the tree form is not typical, of one of the types which happens to show more resistance. Alec