agg221

That's interesting - I've always thought of silverleaf being the greatest risk when trees are dormant (hence plums & cherries only pruned when growth starts) and the least risk June to Sept as the fruiting bodies appear in about September and stop producing spores around June. My understanding was also that silverleaf particularly likes damp conditions, hence June-July being particularly good for avoiding it, if we actually get a summer. Alec

How long since it was last run, and how old is the petrol? Mine won't start on old petrol - it will run OK once it gets going though. Alec

3" and 4" are handy to have in small quantities, but not the usual thickness for most things in their own right. 24" x 24" is a big section to keep at only 8' long - do you have any particular plans for it? It would take about 20yrs to air dry through. As has been said, I would mill to finished size. You can re-saw, but you have more risk of warping and surface checking in the larger section which can seriously reduce yield. Alec

Entirely agree on the fact that a bandsaw would be the appropriate way to do this job, but one observation - I normally mill the first cut "+1 board" so that I can be sure not the hit the screws, then flip the section over and take the board off. That way, I don't risk hitting metal but get the maximum yield with no extra depth adjustment. Alec

I wasn't twisting your words - I quoted you in full in a previous post and I believe I took the essence of your meaning in my post. I think I fully understand your point of view, I just happen to disagree with it. From my perspective, as an authorised dealer, you are the public face of the brand. Alongside the privileges that brings come certain obligations. This is the whole supposed point of a dealer network rather than an open market. When a customer buys the brand's product, and it goes wrong, they feel aggrieved (understandably, who is going to be happy with a faulty product which is costing them time, money and inconvenience?) At that point, it is -your- fault because you are face they can talk to and it really doesn't matter where they bought it. You represent the brand and how you respond to them colours their opinion of the brand going forward. It's a close equivalent to the person who works in a call centre and has to deal with people who have been passed through endless options and kept on hold for 20mins - it's not the fault of the person you eventually get through to but understandably by that point the customer is frustrated and you are on the receiving end. If you are polite, non-committal about the cause until identified but listen to their opinion and don't presume it's their fault, ultimately react in a timely fashion then you reinforce their view of the brand as professional and offering good service. If you take a negative attitude then it harms the brand - 'their dealers are useless, they just can't be bothered'. Don't get the impression that I don't understand that it is frustrating, but in my view, delivering service with a smile is part of the deal which any authorised dealer (voluntarily) signed up to and it is wrong to accept the advantages without accepting the costs. No, it doesn't pay, but it's part of the price. Alternatively, would you too prefer the arrangement where there is no such thing as an authorised dealer so that you don't have to meet this obligation, but in exchange you would then be in free competition? I know I would. Alec

Barrie, it's not often that I disagree with you, but I do over this one. I honestly think it would be better if the whole concept of authorised dealerships for chainsaws was scrapped. It appears to be a mechanism of sale which is now obsolete but is being propped up by contorted efforts to preserve convention. Think about it, what does an authorised dealer actually do (across the board)? Understand the products - no, keep all necessary spares - no, offer convenience - no, provide a rapid and efficient repair service - absolutely not (see earlier comments about warranty repairs going to the back of the queue, an attitude which I find disgraceful in a customer facing business btw). The dealer does not, in reality, offer an advantage over a truly free market for chainsaws, brushcutters, hedge trimmers etc. As products, they are not exactly complicated. Think how many people buy them from B&Q each year and do not kill themselves or anyone else. There is a sensible way to operate them, and many home users may not follow this in full, but the accident statistics are surprisingly small. So how would the world look if every business which wanted to could buy from the main manufacturer, but with a minimum annual order value for simplicity for the manufacturer (who is not trying to become the customer facing end) and the price included a portion which covered operation of a central repair facility. Machine fails under warranty, customer takes it, or posts it, back to vendor, who forwards to the central facility. This is how Dyson, Hotpoint and many other consumer end manufacturers work, often with items which cost the same or more. I could then order at the lowest price I could find, online at my convenience, or go in person to a shop and do a deal, depending on what I felt like. In what way do I, the customer, lose by this? Continuing to offer a repair service then becomes a straight commercial decision. If you can charge enough to make it worthwhile, do it. Otherwise, no obligations. I think it is telling that, throughout this and every other related thread, the dealers defend protectionist policy but the customers don't like it. Ultimately, this suggests that the least protectionist supplier will be the one which is listening to its customers and is likely to be rewarded with market share. Alec

Selling is a customer facing activity. There are two ways to get repeat custom - a positive experience for the customer or a monopoly. The sentiment expressed above suggests that you may prefer the latter - it should perhaps not be much of a surprise that customers, on the whole, do not, and are therefore unlikely to believe that you intend to offer good customer service. As such, perhaps it is wise not to disclose which 'dealership' you represent. Alec

A lot of the speed comes down to the set-up, and also not underestimating the time spent moving big, heavy bits of timber. For contrast: Tree 1. In December Burrell and I milled a 4' x 20' oak in the most awkward position imaginable, involving wooden fencing, chainlink fencing, berberis and a collapsed deck it had landed on. Milling spec was through and through on the top 10', into a mix of 3" and 2.5" with a 4" thrown in (legs). The bottom 10' was quartered and milled into 2.5". We arrived on site late due to bad traffic and started at 10am. We finished at 5pm, having kept two other people fully occupied with stacking all day but the organisation and forward planning was spot-on, with a really helpful customer and other pair of hands (who is the member on here who arranged the job). Tree 2. Almost identical sized tree but clear, perfect access. Arrived on site at 9am and it should have been easy. It wasn't - the owner was disorganised. The other pair of hands suddenly wasn't available but we couldn't re-schedule so that left us doing the stacking as well (5 man-hours lost), the owner didn't have a clear spec. in mind so we were constantly fiddling around re-setting depths while he changed his mind. Also, for some reason he had only sent pictures of the tree from the 'nice' side and neglected to take any photos of the huge lightning strike down the other side, which the tree was laying on, leading to various rot damage through the structure of the tree which we had to try and cut around and he also neglected to mention the large amounts of nails and wire in the downward side (which would have been much easier to remove before he had the tree felled, so I had to jack the thing up in the air to get them out. The timber was also very stressed and 'grabby' so it kept pinching the bar, and the Ripsaw bandmill was unusable. He also wanted the very large offcuts removed to the edge of his lawn (another 2 man-hours) and was then somewhat put out when we didn't finish milling everything. We left it fully broken down into quarters, with about 60% of it milled, the widest cut remaining to be made being around 20". He carried on and milled it with a friend, taking another two days, but failed to grasp that this is -not- how long it would have taken with a bigger saw. Anyway, point is, things are very variable in milling and it can sometimes take forever, sometimes be really quick, but a lot of it depends on the organisation around the job. It's also important to have the right additional gear for the size of butt you want to tackle. If you're working alone, 2' is a good upper size. 2 people with the right kit can handle stuff up to around 4' but will really struggle to move full width boards. Bigger than that and you need lots of hands or access for loading gear. Alec

Yes, quite a lot of people on here have them. Try searching for the milling pics and vids thread for some idea of what they can do. The 076 will comfortably pull a 48" bar so it's worth looking at the 36" or 48" mill. Chainsawbars.co.uk is a good source (run by Rob D on here) and quoting arbtalk will get you a free gift when you order. Alec

I suggest dropping David Humphries a PM - having seen some of his posts of pictures where he's explaining what's going on to the local schoolchildren, he probably has a good idea what grabs their attention! If you can get a decently secure low barrier fence then taking along as many big shiny toys as possible and being prepared to explain what they are for would be good. If you can get a good lump on site (piece of scrap poplar/willow, say 6-8' long x 18" diameter, pinned to a 4' square piece of 0.5" plywood as a baseplate?), standing upright then demonstrating coronet cuts and bat-slots and explaining their wildlife potential could be good. At the end, as Felix says, you can then fell it! Alec

I recognised some of the pieces, but there were a lot of bits I'm sure weren't available 30yrs ago at the peak of my mechanism construction efforts! Alec

Good point - I presumed it was the 056. Alec

There are special stud extractors but the easiest way is to take the two bar nuts, a socket that fits and an open ended spanner that fits. You screw the first nut right down the stud, screw the second one on top of it and 'lock' the two together with the spanner and the socket. You then use the open ended spanner on the lower nut to unscrew the stud. Once removed, socket and spanner to 'undo' the nuts from one another and they can be screwed off the stud by hand. Alec

I would start at scrap price, plus pay him to deliver it. That way he's better off than having to cover his time and diesel to take it away, and it doesn't cost you more than it would anyway. Alec

Please can I echo the comment about length. An 8ft length is a lot more useful than two 4ft lengths. You may not be able to remove it from site but others can and quite often the log can be gone with cash in your hand before you have finished the clear-up. Alec

That elm burr bowl is particularly nice. Alec

Where roughly in Essex (and photos would help)? Alec

This I do see as a substantial issue. I think there are three separate scenarios here - urban/suburban, countryside and commercial timber. Taking urban/suburban first, we live in an increasingly risk-averse and litigious society. As has been posted many times before, it is always easier to avoid risk by -not- doing something than by learning enough about a subject to understand the risk thoroughly. From the perspective of the decision maker, this can't always be blamed on laziness. Sometimes it is down to the range of knowledge that an individual is expected to be competent in being excessive, or that they are obliged to rely on external advice which they may not be able to get the confidence in to trust implicitly. This leaves the simplest way of dealing with the question of what to plant being to stick to a very narrow range of 'safe' species. Smaller is safer, avoid things with invasive roots in case someone wants to build there in the future, people don't like trees where 'bits' fall off them (large fruit, large amounts of pollen/blossom etc). Sterile flowering cherries and the odd rowan and willow-leaved pear is about as far as this allows. Countryside - very few people planting so whatever grows stays. With luck, some native species will be successful in out-competing the ubiquitous sycamore. Commercial forestry implies virtual monoculture. Trying to get a return on land which is cost-competitive to harvest against lower labour costs overseas there really isn't a margin for concession to ecology. So overall, ash isn't going to get planted in an urban setting, and it would be a brave person who planted it commercially, so this leaves it dependent on self-sown trees in hedgerows and copses. If the experience with elm is anything to go by, the density of the surviving population will be critical. The problem with elm is that, although there are resistant trees, the very limited genetic diversity means they are a very small proportion and compared with 4000bc the density is much lower (far less tree cover). As such, a surviving tree every few miles means they are not able to pollinate, hence natural preservation of genetic lines becomes very difficult. I have seen large elms removed for reasons which have nothing to do with DED, as you would expect with any species, however the impact with elms is significant. By contrast, if we have the same effect on ash as in Denmark (10% survival) there is a reasonable prospect of retaining trees sufficiently close together to allow fairly rapid recovery relative to the lifespan of a tree, ie the current generation of resistant trees should produce resistant progeny in sufficient numbers to replace those which are killed. If this happens it will be rather bare for one human generation though, and sadly that will be ours. Alec

A photo would really help on this one, but one possibility, is your bar splayed? This would cause the chain to rock over as you file, having the same effect as filing 'upwards'. Alec

I wouldn't worry about the Magnum bit - American marketing hype, but the 046 and 064 are both good saws with good parts availability. Alec

Cheers Steve, some good toys there! Alec

If you are going to cut them back hard then I would go for summer pruning - around June but don't leave it until after August. I suggest going for a drop-crotch approach to minimise regrowth and then keep the water shoots under control. Try to go for a single layer structure if the shape is up to it - otherwise it may be worth looking for opportunities to form a new framework if it has gone too high and died out underneath. Alec

Dexta - I do like your mower, I remember using Dad's one of those on much rougher stuff than you should and it still coped! Alec

I always cut a bit of 3" and 4" for legs and frames. There is some demand for oak for exterior and structural use - prices are lower but the section is usually heavier so less milling, and they may take it green. Alec

Hi John, New toy arrived (you still haven't told me how much I owe you!) but I'm not sure whether it needs the 026 or 066? When I work out which, I'll drill the appropriate bar and I'll also need to sort out a toothless chain to fit. Has been flat out recently on collaborative submissions but I'm off next week so may get a chance to play. Alec Ps have you heard from Nadia re. resubmitting the proposal?