agg221

Age is one thing, condition is another. Someone who never services anything and runs it hard will have a wreck, someone who mostly does gardening and lovingly polishes their kit will have something barely run in and perfect. Going to see it will let you see both how worn it is and how he treats his kit to work out where on the scale it lies. Reasonable price IMO if it's sound but used. Alec

Do you periodically split a table leg to check..... Alec

Very good effort. For reference if anyone is looking at these, this is the small log mill. The Alaskan cuts horizontally with a clamp at both the power head end and the nose end. This keeps things level. The small log mill only has a clamp at the power head end. This means you can use more of the bar but the nose tends to drop. This means it is better suited to smaller saws with a maximum bar length of 20" and is always a bit less accurate on getting even thickness boards than the Alaskan. The mini-mill works vertically and is good for edging up or quartering big trees, or for making square beams quickly with no rolling. Alec

Measure the width at the narrowest point and do width x thickness (in inches), divide by 144 to get feet and multiply by length in feet to get cubic feet. I would sell green oak at £20-£25/cu.ft depending on quality of board (and quality of milling). Alec

Depends on dbh, clean length/knots, straightness, rot spots or other damage and whether you are buying standing or roadside but I would reckoning in the range £3 to £6 depending on the above and would normally reckon that if it looks good or suits a need £4 is fair to both parties. I would try to avoid buying the sc standing as it has a tendency to ring shake which makes it useless. Alec

Timber strength calculations for hardwood are usually done by 'book values' based on species and visual grading. TRADA have a publication on this but a little google research will find you the grading specs. The timber will almost certainly still be green (above 20% mc) which means there is no official grading scheme. This means that technically you just need to do dimensional calculations to meet building regulations. It would still be a good idea to visually grade though, just means you don't need to be in any sense official or certified when you do it. The brown ones won't be advisable for this as it is usually a sign of beefsteak fungus infection and although the timber is hard it becomes brittle, but if you are interesting in selling I may be interested in one as I have a use for some brown oak. Alec

I agree. The trouble is that you don't know how far down the metal is. You can ruin a lot of good timber digging for metal which you might have missed anyway with the mill. Most stuff is soft iron anyway so it dulls the chain but not much more, although it does make a mess of a bandsaw blade. You also don't find stones or grit by detecting. I have found barbed wire in trees growing in the middle of a wood, and garden trees without a scrap of metal in them. If something is obviously in a hedge and there is barbed wire going in and out so I know where the line is and cut it out, or cut the tree the other way, but otherwise I just carry on regardless. Alec

Our house now has a fairly conventional name, but on the deeds from when it changed hands in 1986 its correct name for the postal address was still 'The thatched cottage on the lane leading to the mere' Alec

Yes they do. The Oregon reference is K095 Guide bars Alec

There are many threads on this, but from my point of view there are three main advantages in no particular order. Firstly, it is consistent. Each batch is labelled and identified. I had two pots and pistons taken out by a bad batch of petrol (not supermarket) and Stihl confirmed it was the fuel but there is no way to prove that the fuel in your can comes from a particular garage some time later. This caused over £650 of parts damage, plus repair costs. That's a lot of Aspen. Secondly, Aspen doesn't go off in the can or in the saw. If you have saws you don't use frequently then this is really useful as you don't have to drain the tanks. Pump fuel also contains solvents which penetrate the rubber, causing it to harden when it dries out. This means that the saws which are used infrequently with pump fuel have a tendency to need replacement rubber components more often, and if you get an air leak you risk damage to the pot and piston too through seizure. Aspen doesn't have the same solvents and therefore doesn't cause the same problems. Thirdly, pump fuel contains 2% benzene. This is a significant carcinogen. 2-stroke engines typically only burn about 2/3 of the fuel, so the remainder comes out in the exhaust as vapour. That's 0.6% benzene. I would rather avoid this. There are also other nasty things in pump fuel which cause me to get headaches after prolonged exposure to the exhaust, eg milling or using a hedge trimmer. Aspen doesn't do this. That's why I use Aspen Alec

I'm very disappointed that you put them in the truck rather than taking them down the river Look really good. Alec

We had shaws where I grew up in North Kent. Alec

I've never really been too worried about the manual oiler. Running up to 4ft bars I haven't found I needed it, except on a 47" hard nosed bar and if I needed to mill bigger than that I would fit an aux oiler anyway. Handy for when your oil pump packs up though. Alec

084 is lower revving, higher torque so slightly better for milling. Alec

Some comes through Cheffins near Ely, Cambs. Worth keeping an eye on. Alec

Hi Eddie, A couple of your recent posts have suggested that there may be a change of policy in the supply of Aspen, with respect to supply direct from your website vs. supplying through your dealer network. Please could you clarify whether this is the case, and if so what the changes are/will be? Thanks Alec

Just on the subject of hurdles - there were two types. There's the woven type which most people are familiar with, designed for shelter, and the other type designed as a barrier, which is now far less well known. I think it's this second sort you may want to fence off small areas and enable regeneration. Overstood hazel should do the latter rather nicely. I think they were traditionally made from ash but it shouldn't make any difference. There's a good bit on making them about 3/4 of the way through this: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bl1HQg7aCo]Jack Hargreaves - ratting sticks, coppicing, wattle hurdles - YouTube[/ame] Alec

I would have thought they would be fine for that. Alec

I advise giving up counting - life is better that way, particularly when your other half is asking. Alec

Yes, exactly that. Alec

If you use stuff about 3" then I find it lasts about 3-4yrs so long as there isn't too much stress on it. Alec

The 461 and 064 are very different things. The 064 will give you torque and chew through big stuff but it's pretty unrefined. The 461 gives you speed and reduced weight but will top out on max diameter faster. You could always buy the 461 and keep the 064.... Alec

It's best to take a centre-cut first, but not because it will reduce splitting. Cutting up the middle takes all the stresses out of the log, so if it's going to move, it does it then and you can true up the face and then start cutting posts, rather than ending up with your cutting face becoming increasingly more banana-like as the log bends around under the mill. However, I wouldn't go dead up the centre as this will leave the centreline of the tree on the corner of four posts (don't forget it won't be dead straight). Instead, I would go 1.5" off centre, then cut a 3" board off the 'fat' half. This deals with your 3" posts. I would cut them straight out of the slab rather than waiting, as it makes them less likely to split or cup/bow. When you slice the board up, leave out the middle inch or so that contains the centre of the tree. With regard to cutting, not sure what kit you have but the Alaskan/mini-mill combination is very good for this job. On the 3" board, I would use a big circular saw because I have one and it wastes less in kerf than the chainsaw mill. You can do the lot with an Alaskan, but getting it square is tricky, and keeping it square balancing down the edge of a 3" board is extremely tricky. Alec

You can't actually quarter-saw posts (square ones anyway) as they will pretty much automatically be quartersawn one way, perpendicular the other..... Alec

Nothing specific to the milling except that the one which includes the centre of the tree will probably split so cut this bit out if you are trying to avoid splits. Then air-dry with good air circulation but out of direct sun. Alec