agg221

Brilliant piece of work that isn't it The wife of one of my colleagues works there and 'does a bit of gardening'. There used to be something comparable at East Malling about 25yrs ago - not sure if it's still there though. Alec

I like the 066 for milling up to a point - probably up to 18". Above that I would rather have something bigger. The "black contraption" is a Ripsaw chainsaw-driven bandmill. Alec

I suggest you buy either a 36" or 48" Alaskan. You don't have to run them at full capacity, but if you are considering saws like an 070 then it will comfortably run a 46" Sugihara bar which will give you about 40" capacity if you take the dogs off the saw. You can then shorten it up to run a 25" bar for smaller stuff. Alec

If it was mine, I would be buying a 46" Sugihara bar and a 48" mill. You can't run the mill at full capacity but it will give you the capacity to manage most things and you won't lose much by freehanding bigger stuff. Alec

It's an interesting question this one. I think setting and function have big roles to play. If you just want a decorative woodland, planting a wide mixture makes sense, however if you want it to be more productive it will tend towards monoculture, or perhaps an understorey coppice with standards. A productive woodland of hazel coppice with oak standards has a lot of promise, although of course it will take a long time before it works like this and you need a lot of vision to do this. The risk is that, being a monoculture, if some other disease strikes it will wipe it out. If the woodland is mixed though, it's likely to end up with one species out-competing the others anyway. The majority of trees in the landscape though are not in woodlands - they are in hedgerows and by the roadside. There is a lot more potential for variation here. Walnut, field maple, lime, black poplar, white poplar, rowan, hawthorn, wild plum, wild pear and crab apple all make good standards in the right location and I'm sure there are many more. When you add the secondary production crop though it gets even more interesting - I've planted selected varieties of cobnut, walnut and sweet chestnut to get the nut crop. Some of these were not bred in the UK. I'm not growing any of these as a commercial crop, but I see no reason not to benefit from anything they do produce. I will probably put in a wild service 'Rosie' if I can find one too. Of course as Peasgood mentions, there are also the trees grown specifically for fruit, which is my main interest. The area I think could get interesting is when you start adding secondary production in to linear spaces. This isn't new at all of course - pollards in hedgerows are highly traditional although almost all now lapsed. There is however a lot of space available on roadside verges and field boundaries and I wonder at what point it would become viable to use this for firewood production, maybe by coppicing. It can't be that far away - we have willow grown commercially for cricket bats in a line down the edge of our field by the river and the manufacturers regard it as quite worthwhile to send the gang down once a year when they are passing to trim them up. A higher value crop I know, but quite labour intensive compared with simply coppicing over a hedgerow every 10yrs or so. Alec

Yes, you would run a swipe each time you've removed a few inches and it would tell you if there is something coming up. This works completely when through and through sawing, but when you're quartersawing, the first two cuts are going so deep that you won't get a detector to tell you what's there. Re. the technique of milling close from each end and splitting the board off - that's quite cunning - if I ever get a detector I'll have to remember it. Alec

The problem with metal detecting when milling is what do you do if you identify that there's something there? Obviously if you can see a piece of metal you can dig it out, but if you can't see it, how far down is it? If you are happy to write off any log that shows metal then it's easy, or you can just shorten it and only mill above the metal. However, if you try to just dig it out you can spend a lot of time digging for a fencing staple that you would never have hit because of where your cut falls, and of course any tool you use for this you risk damaging the edge of anyway. In the end, I took the view that most metal in trees was soft iron or lead, the former might dull the cutters but that's it, the latter does nothing. I also tend to quarter things so no chance of detecting it. Consequently, I stopped worrying about detecting at all and just keep an eye out for the telltale blue streak in higher tannin timbers. Alec

I don't know of anyone else with one of these in the UK. Having run one for a few years I would say they can pay for themselves pretty quickly at that price and would stand a bit more. The downsides. No CE mark, although they are well guarded and may just be acceptable for marking as they stand. The company owner doesn't seem too bothered about increasing sales so won't do anything tricky like ship to the UK. Otherwise, on a good day it's an excellent bit of kit. Mine should be coming out for a play next Sat and I'll see if Burrell can video it. Alec

I'm a bit further away (just under an hour) but I mostly mill at weekends. I won't be doing any of my own next weekend, but will be doing so the weekend after next if it's any good to you. Alec

There is one - the Ripsaw. Portable means relatively small, but it has a 14" width x 9" depth so will cope with most things. It can be temperamental but when it's in a good mood it flies. I have one bolted to an 044 and it will rip oak boards out at speed. The last big oak that Burrell and I did I was taking quartersawn boards about 10" average width x 10' length off faster than the two people could carry them off and stack them 30ft away! Good luck trying to persuade the makers to ship you one though. Alec

I would be very interested. I am trying to collect up enough plum species to make wardrobes out of and that would be ideal. Not quite sure how I'd get it here but I'm sure I could sort something out. Alec

The edge on my Kent pattern Nash one was better this morning, before I hit a buried staple. Alec

It will be weakened in the adjacent area (HAZ) and being an aluminium alloy rather than steel you can't heat treat this out, but because this is a tube you can 'stagger' the HAZ at different points top and bottom. The weld overlay, if run correctly, will not create a full thickness HAZ and the reinforcement provided will transfer more of the stress through the bottom of the tube than the top. The design imposed greater tensile stress on the bottom than on the top, so it should carry the load through the thickened section (note it has failed at the change in section). I would also use an a-tig flux to cut the power input needed, reducing the HAZ. Alec

Yes you can do it, but I would only try it if you are running a very short bar and cutting very small diameter material with it. The bigger the chain, the bigger the 'bite' it takes. If the chain is too long with too big a bite per tooth then it bogs down. Alec edit: new post has appeared indicating lo-pro. Yes, this will work nicely but it's tricky to find the right bar. Rob D knows which one it is but I don't!

OK, for what it's worth, the process I would follow would be: Take the bits off, strip any plastic/paint/grips and clean by washing down with acetone, followed by Decon 90 in an ultrasonic bath. I would then wire brush over the areas to be welded, which includes the area where cracks can be seen. The cracks are related to the forming of the shape by compressing the tube, followed by wear at that point so will need some attention. I would then clamp the parts up in a vice to hold them correctly orientated. I would put copper blocks in the jaws to heat-sink it and make sure the part to be welded was held as close as possible to the blocks. I would then use a thoriated tungsten electrode ground with a coarse taper and balled on the end, spot-tack it autogenously, on both sides and the bottom face, then flip it over and put a couple more spot tacks in on the upper face. I would run the main weld with the power set for full penetration, running a 1/2" length of bead around the two sides, mostly as an autogenous weld but adding a bit of high silicon filler to the pool to build it up about 1/8" in the centre. I would then complete the weld on the top in two more runs. I would then grind back the surface. If I found porosity (which is likely in lower grade alloys such as die castings, but less likely here in a drawn tube) I would grind off the built-up layer flush and repeat the weld cycle as above, grind off to check that I had cleared the issues with porosity by 'floating' it all out, and if not, repeat (this is highly unlikely to be needed). Once I found no porosity, I would leave the surface raised by about 1/16" at the weld bead. I would then turn to the underside. I would repeat the above, but also run welds down the crease where the tube has been formed concave and worn away on the edges of the folds. These would be autogenous welds if possible (ie no porosity having been observed) with minimum filler to rebuild any wear. If not I would repeat the above to get clean welds. Finally, I would add some extra thickness by filling in the depression across the broken region. I would probably run about half an inch either side, building up with a series of weld overlays, looking to leave a neat lateral profile tapering from the full tube diameter to zero, ie ending up with a wedge-shaped overlay, which will take a lot of the stress concentrating features out. I would grind this off to a smooth profile for the above reason. I would not expect the above to fail at the same point in the future. Alec

Yes, I have tried welding one (from an 090 rather than a Husky 181 but similar alloy), with successful results, but then I'm reasonably good at TIG welding nasty stuff (e.g. rebuilding missing lugs on die cast parts such as nla carbs and starter cups on old Stihl models and also doing sub-mm SS corners). It is nothing like farmer-style stick welding and it does want to drop out as a soggy pool, but if you know how to grind up the electrode properly and use the right filler rod it's not too bad. You just have to allow for the differences. I agree that in order to avoid melting things you need to take it right off to do it and strip off the remains of the grip if still present, but then if you buy a replacement it will be off the saw anyway. I would expect to pay around £20 cash for someone to do it in their lunchbreak. With a bit of luck, it might get done tomorrow. Buy a new part from the US and expect to pay £40 for the part, £15 for the shipping and another £15 for duty and 'handling' and receive it in about 2-3weeks. Hence I would get it done, even if I couldn't do it myself. Alec

It's very much weldable - try your local fabricators or alloy wheels place. The area adjacent to the weld melt pool, known as the heat affected zone (HAZ) will have an altered microstructure from the heat input which weakens it. This means you want to get them to build it up thicker and don't grind the weld off to the original profile to make it look pretty. Alec

Assuming the site allows, if you've got access to a cant hook, or some other way of rolling sections, I would section it up into the longest bit you can roll fairly easily which will probably be around 2m. You can then disc up a length with a whole series of top cuts, roll it and cut again from the other side, which stops you having to cut near the ground. Alec

A lot depends on what you want to cut. A full chisel chain such as Stihl lo pro full chisel will cut faster in clean timber but if you have dropped it on the ground and it has got at all dusty/gritty then it will dull quickly. A semi chisel chain such as Oregon lo pro rapid would be a reasonable compromise - not so fast but will hold its edge better. Oregon multicut will hold up better if your wood is really dirty but won't cut as fast to start with. You can find various options on Chains - just enter your saw/bar combination Alec

Do you want to buy it in the round or milled to the above dimensions? Alec

There's a good range of bars available for the big Husqvarna mount, including Oregon and Sugihara across a range of lengths. Have a look at http://www.chainsawbars.co.uk/guide-bars/ and enter your saw to get an idea of the options. Alec

It depends - at that size it could well have slowed down a bit and the sapwood would then be significantly reduced. The bigger issue is that the market is for interior joinery, not for exterior use. Alec

It's not durable in fresh water, so no good for ordinary outdoor use. It's fine indoors, with good grain, and good in salt water for groynes or similar. Alec

Yep, that's the normal pattern. It's supply and demand - there isn't much of it but does anyone want it? Sometimes it's in fashion, when it costs more, sometimes out of fashion and costs less. As it happens, I am on the lookout for a nice bit of brown oak as I want to lay my living-room floor in it like I did at our old place. Alec

You should pay import duty, which is the equivalent to VAT, but not VAT on top. The price looks about right for 20% on top of the total (cost + shipping). Alec