agg221

We bought our current place with it already there and the surveyor didn't pick up on it. Patch is about 20' square. I am hand pulling it once a fortnight - I started last year and will continue this year, hopefully having wiped it out by then. I pull all visible leaves, then let the pulled bits wilt off and dry out until they are crisp (ie very dead) and then don't worry too much about what I do with them - the pulled bits are not re-growing. What does seem to be helping is that the area contains various fairly dense shrubs. Nothing special, and I will be removing the lot once I have wiped out the knotweed, but it is shading it out successfully. If only I had as straightforward a solution to horsetail.... Alec

If you are planning on taking out huge elm without disease, can I suggest contacting one of the elm research projects before you do. East Anglia has a much more genetically diverse population of elms than the rest of the country, mainly because of the prevalence of hybridized trees with fertile seed. There are various efforts to propagate surviving trees to retain the gene pool - ultimately it may be possible to re-establish disease resistant elm so that it becomes a familiar feature in the countryside again and propagating the currently surviving big trees is critical to this. Alec

Can't see a holly? Since this hasn't gone by lifting the root plate, but rather by dragging particular roots out, I would dig out the ground where you need the roots to go back in, slightly deeper than they are going, then lift it upright and fill in the holes - don't stamp the earth down as you want it aerated (and the tree will be held up while the ground settles anyway. It's a fair sized tree so I would probably prop it rather than stake it. Straight up (or currently down!) from the blue fencing stake there is an obvious point to put a prop under once it's upright. I would use an old railway sleeper or length of telegraph pole, resting on its base on a concrete block (standard concrete construction block) and with the top sculpted to lie neatly against the branch, on a bit of old inner tube. Once it's upright you can see what to prune (I agree entirely with Peasgood's comment on taking a third off). You are looking to retain a balanced structure, probably shorter, maybe with a single 'layer', thinning out some of the spur structure where the branches are straggling to reduce wind resistance. It's hard to describe how to do this but if you can put up more pictures I'll try to mark it up. Alec

I have felled and milled oak in full leaf before with good results. If you can, I would ideally do this - wait until it leaf out and then fell it but leave the branches on until they wilt as it pulls a lot of the sap out, or ring them standing to do the same thing. I would also split them in half lengthways ASAP to minimise end cracking. That said, if I had no other options I would still regard it as worthwhile to fell now and mill late September onwards Alec

Here it's been deer (wild). Every time I got decent growth going on the fruit trees they got taken out. I thought it was muntjack so put 4' wire mesh tubes over them, only to find it was roe or fallow, cue re-think on bush form trees and a installing rings over the top of the tubes. Alec

I'd say that was a fair price on the 070AV. The 08 is a bomb-proof saw, much used by hire shops for that reason. Heavy but fun from time to time. Is the 2-man Danarm complete and running? I have a Teles but it is missing a couple of bits - not much to get it useable but it's finding the time. Not sure I want to use it for milling though! Alec

Pictures are clear - it's an early-ish 070AV. 070 can be identified from the clutch (3-shoe with cover washer), the concave starter and the fact that the decomp lever runs across rather than front to back. Early can be identified from the fact that the AV handle is painted white rather than black. I can't give a definite date for the changeover but I have a c.1978 model with a black handle. The clutch cover is a replacement, as is the top cover, but the rest looks to be original. Both these parts are notoriously easy to break. The top cover should be red rather than orange and should have STIHL cast into the front half with a recess in the back half with the number in on a transfer, although finding this still present is very unusual. Notably, I can't see any cracked fins in the starter, which makes it quite unusual. Value - have a look on ebay at the 070 currently running. It's very variable at the moment - £300 on a normal day, £500+ if things get silly, although you can sometimes find them for £200 or so still. The 08 (or 08S) is beyond me to distinguish I'm afraid - only difference I know to look for is the bore (44mm cf. 47mm). Alec

First one: It's an 070AV rather than an 076AV. It has had the top cover replaced at some point - the frame is early 1970s, the top cover is 1980s/very early 1990s. Given that the top cover has been replaced, please could you take another picture with the clutch cover off, showing the clutch, one showing the recoil starter and, ideally, a third picture with the top cover (orange bit) removed completely, both parts. If you can do the above, I can tell you what you've got. Second one: Late model 08. Could be an 08S (super) but I would need more to go on to tell you which. Alec

The saw shouldn't stop by itself - it should sit idling happily. Turning the switch to the 'stop' position should kill the spark so it stops immediately. If it isn't stopping on the switch, this indicates that the wire is disconnected, either at the switch end or the other end, or has broken somewhere along its length. The fact that it stops when damp but not when hot suggests a poor connection rather than a total break - the water is bridging it. Alec

I wouldn't write the tree off unless you really don't want it anymore. Either stand it back up, stake/guy well (depending on size) and possibly head it back quite hard to let it form a new head, or leave it lying, cut off the branches which will just be in the way and let it re-grow a new head lying on its side, using one of the branches as a new 'trunk'. Wisley had a lot blow over in '87 and they just stood them up and on they went. I did the same to some which blew over in '87, only I didn't get at them until '88/'89. These were big trees (about 70yrs old at the time) and we pushed them up with a car jack and an Acrow for want of anything else, then propped them. Only lost one which had virtually come out of the ground and had no roots left. They are surprisingly resilient. Alec

Bad luck, bit close to me for comfort. Think I might be making a few arrangements. Alec

That looks to be an illustration from 'The Grafter's Handbook' by A.Garner.... I chose that as a school prize (how long ago I don't wish to think about!) and still find it useful. Alec

A dead hedgerow elm, about 6" across. Dig out the rootball with a mattock and trim up to as neat as you want it. You can then either drill it for a handle, or sculpt down the first bit of the trunk. Mine is not pretty but it is very hard and works for anything rough, from driving a froe to banging in posts. Alec

Yes, most people don't have any aluminium lying around Whether you need a thick rail or a thin rail depends a lot on how you use the mini-mill. If you are using it for quartering then you can start by skimming the top off the log, giving you a flat face to work from. This means you can use a very thin guide plank (mine is 6" x 3/4") as it is held flat against the 'true' surface of the butt. You can then do the leap-frogging trick, but some care is needed to keep it straight as you move it whereas if it's full length you don't have to worry about it. If you are using the mini-mill to take the sides off over-width butts or to make square beams with slightly waney corners then you have some or all of the guide rail in free space, so it needs to be stiff enough to support itself between supports. Alec

I'm very near Haverhill, we'll keep an eye out. Alec

You are just coming in to about the worst possible time to move them unfortunately. Can they wait until Autumn? If so, they will do much better. Otherwise, at least the root system won't have spread too much. Take as much of a rootball as you can (wrap it in a sack), stake well once moved, not high but securely so the roots don't rock, mulch heavily for water retention and water well. Should be OK. Alec

These are too far for me, but I suggest putting some dimensions up (diameter across the bottom end, and across the heartwood), plus length. It's not dead straight, so I suggest giving a length to the bend (ie the longest section you could mill straight) and then an overall length. Alec

This is about blue stain. Sycamore stains really easily at any damp spots on the surface. Removing the sawdust prevents trapped damp and if you stack it conventionally it stains where the stickers touch. Seasoning it vertically (aka 'reared') means only the very top corner and bottom corner touch anything. Once the surface is decently dry you can move it to a conventional stack. There is a sawmill in Yorkshire I think which has developed some special plastic stickers with a series of fingers that stop the contact area being large enough for stain to result, so they can now stack conventionally. The problem is that sycamore is not that high value a timber, so given that it takes a lot more effort than other woods it is very rarely worth the effort to mill, unless there is a specific use for it, or you are short of something else to do! There is a demand for it for kitchens etc, but they want it white, which means felling in winter. Felled now it will go darker, which personally I think is really attractive but isn't in fashion. I milled a tree felled last Easter, so pretty much exactly this time of year, and coincidentally almost exactly the same diameter as the one pictured. I suggest getting it done pretty quickly to get the stress out of it - it seems to develop end shakes far more easily than surface checks, so milled and reared in the shade it would be fine, although it will be a bit darker than is standard. Alec

Cord here too, but don't use anything frayed, as I found out to my cost. The frayed bit happened to end up near the edge and jammed between piston and bore - fortunately it was a big, heavy cast iron lump (Villiers engine on a Teles) and due force was applied, but it could have been terminal on a modern saw. Alec

I am now most of the way through an extension to my house, which is listed and the spec. was lime on the visible brickwork plinth at the base - I had to do a test panel to the Listed Building Officer's satisfaction. It got quite entertaining as originally she specified that non-hydraulic lime be used while Building Control required cement. We let them fight it out for a bit and in the end my architect suggested NHL5 which they both agreed to be a suitable compromise (it's what we had planned all along but much easier to get them to accept when it seemed like a compromise for both of them. The Listed Buildings Officer also kept telling me my joints were too wide - I am using brickworks seconds which are very close to the original 15th century bricks and anything but straight. In the end I put some bricks together dry, touching one another and pointed up the outside. She conceded that I couldn't make the joints any narrower as my minimum gap was around 2mm - she had got a vision that old brickwork looked like Georgian style work with tuck pointing. I enjoy using lime - I went on and used it for all the blockwork too. The roof ridge and eaves are done in Snow Cem though, on the recommendation of my architect, but still with sharp sand and brushed over. I use a stiff bristle brush just after the mortar is solid but before it has set hard. I must admit I prefer the carpentry though, particularly since I have milled or cleaved or hewn every piece of timber in the thing, right down to the tile batten! Alec

It helps if it confirms an owner, but if not it just tells you that the land is not registered. Alec

This is very true, but from experience it is no better if they are already providing their best service and you incentivise exceeding it. This is how my second example ends up. To extrapolate from your example - imagine they were achieving a clutch change in a day, but you give them an incentive to achieve two clutch changes in a day. They get themselves organised and really efficient, and by parallel working etc they can cut the time to 12hrs for two - looks good, you are in profit, they are paid more. But, actually they are working 12hr days, you are paying them for 10. Anyone who needs to get away (maybe to pick up the kids etc) is seen as not being prepared to pull their weight, so you let them go. That encourages the others to up their game - maybe 14hrs a day will be better. After a while, you have a really shattered workforce who are run-down and drained, on the treadmill. Any sense of work-life balance has gone. They are getting their 'bonus' but they don't really care anymore as they are too tired to use it. Then they don't need a decent pay rise as the 'bonus' covers it. I don't know how the above ends, as we haven't quite got there yet, but I don't see how it ends well. I do know that most of my team will respond if I drop them an email now, with a fair number still responding up to midnight and a couple at one or two in the morning, and they will all be in by 8 tomorrow, and this goes on 5 or 6 days a week, with probably some work on the 7th day too. Not suggesting that all bonus schemes end up this way, but it's certainly food for thought. Alec

Bear in mind this experience isn't in arb, but I've worked for two companies which had incentive schemes, one very small (5 people) the other very large (900 people). A few comments from my experience. The two schemes were very different in their reason for existence. The first one was a non-performance related bonus. Jobs had contingency on. At the end of the year, the un-used contingency went in the pot and was shared out between everyone, based on days worked, regardless of salary or anything else. The second one is a very complex performance-based structure which defines objectives which every function in the company can contribute to, with a threshold value above which performance is high enough that the function is making a contribution to the total. This includes things like profit targets for the income generating functions, safety (measured against accidents), appropriate investment in new equipment (purchasing function) etc. If enough functions exceed threshold, and there is enough profit, a pay-out is made. Having worked with both, I liked the former, I don't like the latter, even though it pays out a lot more. The former had no real bearing on the job, other than making people happy and being a good reason not to do something stupid and raise costs. The latter, which in theory looks like a better way to incentivise, by allowing everyone to make a defined contribution, actually drives a whole load of short-term and conflicting behaviours - burn the orderbook now, don't worry about long-term investment as you will get a pay-out today and who knows what tomorrow will bring. There is also an unofficial, discretionary bonus scheme for senior staff based on local profit, which makes things even worse (if I have won a job, I am better off getting my team to do it badly than to let another team do it better as the former will get me a bonus, the latter will get me a slapping and the other manager a bonus as his figures will look better). Large, complex bonus schemes also become used as an excuse not to make reasonable pay rises, which then leaves people dependent on the bonus, which puts them at financial risk. It's also worth thinking about the scale, the impact and the timing. An extra hundred quid is very welcome in the November pay-packet as it pays for Christmas, whereas a well-meaning extra two-hundred to the wrong person in February/March could see them just pushed over a tax/benefit threshold and see them filling in a tax form, or failing to do so and getting fined most of the bonus back (or having to pay an accountant more to straighten it out for them than the bonus was worth in the first place). FWIW, I once had a bonus paid out at the wrong time, which I resolved by deferring it to the next tax year, but you look really ungrateful when you do it. Overall, something token and simple (like the first one was) worked much better - the latter is better replaced with a modest pay rise in my opinion. Alec

Hydraulic lime is fine in damp conditions due to the chemical set. There are different grades which determine both set and ultimate hardness - as with a cement mortar you don't want it harder than the stones. Unlike a cement mortar, you should use sharp sand so you need enough lime in the mix to fill up the gaps between the particles. This means you can't deviate much from 3:1 - 2.5:1 so you control hardness by selecting the correct grade. This is likely to be NHL5 but could be NHL3.5 if the stone is soft. If you want the right look, use well washed sharp sand, keep the mix stff and ram it down the joints hard with a blunt ended stick (I use an old bit of ceiling lath). Overfill the joints slightly above flush. Once the mortar has gone crumbly, scrape off flush and level with a stick, allow to dry a bit more until part-set and brush off with a stiff brush to remove the lime from the surface and expose the aggregate - this makes it weather much better. If you want the look with less effort, use snowcem instead of lime as it doesn't need to be kept so stiff or rammed in. You do need to be very aware of timing for brushing off though - lime is next day or later, snowcem is a couple of hours or you're too late. Alec

Big old Stihls are good as they keep going, parts availability is excellent (OEM and pattern) and the fact that they are heavy is less of an issue when milling. They also tend to have manual oilers which helps for long bars. I would suggest keeping an eye out for an 075 or 076 (see current thread) or an 070. An 090 would be great, but they tend to make a lot more. Alec