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If I was buying, I would want to work it out in Hoppus feet as it's easier for my head to cope with! Buying standing (so I would be taking the risk as to whether there is a problem in the middle) with no obvious defects, I would be looking at £4/Hoppus ft as it's a bit on the small side as timber goes and oak often has quite a wide sapwood band when relatively young. Assuming that the dbh is very similar to the mid-diameter, which is only about another 50cm further up, and assuming that you lose about 20cm off the length when felling, I reckon you have about 17 Hoppus feet, which would be about £70, but have a good measure up once it's felled. Coincidentally, if it's just under 1m3 once felled, it would be just under a ton in weight, so a bit less than £60 based on Aspenarb's standing timber figures. Alec

Yes, 50J is a Windsor code - .325" pitch, .050" gauge. The equivalent Oregon should have 20 stamped on the drive links where the 50J is. Alec

Have you done anything with the fuel line from the tank to the carb? If not, I would look at changing the line and filter as the symptoms suggest it may not be pulling fuel through evenly and can't meet full demand. Alec

Well there is the Trekkasaw - not quite the same, but similar. Alec

Wouldn't disagree - win/win I think. Alec

Well, whoever got it for £1.20 got a good deal in my view! Alec

I agree. It's not like you're being asked to deal with anything difficult - it's not a dismantle, or hung or leaning, so two cross cuts and you have your butt, or a little snedding if you want more. Half an hour's work could make that well worthwhile and no clear-up either. Alec

On the bandsaw, buy the one with the biggest wheels you can find - bigger bend radius means less stress on the band and you can usually tension it harder. Reckon on the bands supplied by the manufacturer being useless and talk to Tuffsaws - tuffsaws.co.uk which will give you a big range of high quality bands to choose from. Alec

To be fair, you commented that the lot you sold had a mix of good and bad in it. No idea on the ratio of good to bad, or the size of the good, but that certainly has an influence. A lot of milling time is set-up, which takes about the same per stick, whether it's going to yield a good load of top quality timber, or far less. If there are defects to cut around that slows it even further. I know it's an unanswerable question but I wonder how much you would have been offered per Hoppus ft if you had separated out the top grade stuff from the dross? When the site where I work was cleared earlier this year the oak went out at £6/Hoppus ft, alongside a load of other species at their respective prices. One oak butt got left behind - I had a look and I reckon you could get something decent out of just over half of it but they were cutting beams and it had a rot streak up the centre (not sure how far up) and that was enough for them to simply reject it entirely - wasn't worth their while to cut it around. Alec

Severe root restriction and pruning will keep any tree small, however the leaves don't scale in proportion to the tree (although they are reduced) so species with smaller leaves usually look more in proportion, hence horse chestnut, pawlonia etc are less successful and conifers are particularly popular. Alec

What size are the smaller ones, and what proportion of small to large? That will determine how much to come down from £6. Alec

Depends a bit on diameter and length. Assume they are clean with a nice 20' length, 2'6" dbh then around £6/Hoppus ft, if they are smaller (say 18" dbh) or shorter lengths that won't make a couple of nice 8'-10' sections then down to around £4/Hoppus ft. Shouldn't be below that if woodland grown as there shouldn't be excessive sapwood or knots. Alec

Would help to keep the garage nice and warm though ...on second thoughts, probably better to follow the above advice.... Alec

I'd agree with that, and use an outdoor rated power cable rather than a bit of mains wire with a plug and socket bodged on! Should be fine with a standard 13A exterior cable reel, which will roll up neatly when not in use. The two things to watch out for are finding a way to get the cable out of the house and in to the garage which doesn't freeze the house at this time of year, and to make sure that the cable can be routed in a way that doesn't form a trip hazard. Otherwise, pretty low power rating so should be fine. You'll probably need the power anyway to run a decent light - until you have power out there I would be inclined to get a floor standing 500W or 1kW halogen light, which with the door closed will also give enough heat to keep the chill off while you're working. I rebuilt a lot of my boat outside in the dark evenings like this and it was OK to work by. Alec

Since Gary doesn't mind his thread being slightly diverted David - one related question that interests me here is whether you factor in formative pruning? I'm particularly thinking about work to reduce the likelihood of storing up future problems, eg removing co-dominant leaders to prevent subsequent formation of weak unions. The reason for the question here is that this type of work would typically be best undertaken on the smaller trees, which are the ones that would fall outside your standard inspection criteria stated above. Alec

Hi Al, In answer to your questions: The 066 will run a 36" bar, which will allow you to mill 30" width if you take the dogs off, 28" if you leave them on. With a suitable milling pattern involving a bit of log rolling or the use of the 30" or 36" bar on the mini-mill to edge up, you can convert 3' logs with it. It won't be particularly quick, but will work OK. The key is to keep the chain absolutely sharp and even in tooth-length. Personally, I use the Granberg Precision Grinder for this and it does it very well. It is also very quick for sharpening long chains. The improvement in performance using a saw such as an 880 will be very significant for anything much over 18" diameter. In your position, I would be inclined to buy a 48" mill, a 36" bar + ripping chain, the precision grinder and a ripping chain for the 30" bar, and either a ripping chain for the 20" bar, or ideally a 25" bar with ripping chain. I would normally have the 36" bar mounted in the Alaskan and reckon on using the 30" bar in the mini-mill when needing to edge up 3' butts to get the mill through. A 25" bar will allow 18" through the mill and is significantly quicker and gives a cleaner finish as there is less vibration; you could do the same with the 20" bar but would be limited to about 13-14". It is also handy on the mini-mill for quartering up 3' butts to yield higher quality timber. The 48" mill is because if you get addicted to milling then you will inevitably end up with a big saw and it is cheaper to buy it first off. Hope this helps:001_smile: Alec

The fuel tank is the earlier style, as used on the 075, but for some reason I have never understood there was a period of overlap between the 075 and 076, in which they had the same crankcase but different fuel tanks. Not actually sure there is any difference in capacity, just in the design of the flywheel cover (and the starter). However, this part has a tendency to get cracked on the front face so I could explain a swap. The hand guard/muffler cover is correct for an 076, but again they get swapped around. My 051 was originally supplied with a decomp valve; none of the three 076s I have owned were. However, the lack of manual oiler is highly suggestive and it would want a good look over at the holes in the top of the pot to check. Not sure on the compression I'm afraid - fairly high but then I'm used to starting it with no decomp (same for all the big saws) so I'm probably not a good judge Only thing I can say is that it's significantly less than the Teles Alec

Sounds promising on the stock you have - what length do you need the cladding and what is the diameter at that length (this has a bearing on the yield per log). Are they clean enough to get a second length? Slower grown timber is usually higher quality, but I wouldn't worry about it too much, particularly if it's being painted. You should see the growth rate of some construction grade softwood! Some larch springs as it is milled, as there is quite a lot of stress in it, but it is hard to predict this and if it's straight grown in a wood that's the best you can hope for - just be prepared to possibly lose a few. What size (width and thickness) do you need the cladding, and does it all need to be the same? This determines how long it needs to be dried, and how much yield you will get. Alec

What size are the trees that you have obtained? Japanese larch as a species is fine for cladding - what you don't want are too many knots, so if they are clear to a good length and a good diameter it should be worthwhile, although before committing I would work out how much timber you need, how much you will get out of the trees you have (ie do you need to mill all of them, or do you not have enough) and how much it would cost just to buy it in. It is likely to work out quite well though. Getting a planed face makes it more tricky. Is it plain sawn or featheredge? Plain sawn is pretty easy (just plane after seasoning) but for featheredge this is normally done by taking a board of the correct width, seasoning it, planing it to thickness (both faces) and then splitting it on the diagonal, which requires particular jigging. If you have a planer/thicknesser it can be rigged up to plane one face of a pre-cut featheredge board (I have just done this for mine). This makes life a lot easier if you hire a miller with the featheredge attachment, or use tommer9's cunning trick, which I will dig out of the appropriate thread if required:001_smile: Also worth checking on the current local situation re. Phytophthora ramorum and whether there are any restrictions on movement. Alec

Probably yes, although it could be uprated with the larger pot and piston, or a rebuilt 075 on a TS crankcase. I would certainly have wanted a better set of pictures of inside the backhandle before considering buying it. Alec

Seconded and hope it gives you years of pleasure to use. Alec p.s. - you might also have noticed the status of the person making the pointless comments - part of a general improvement over the last couple of months....

The text in bold is the issue - what is 'totally secure'? The same applies be it a firework display or tree works, basically anything which happens on an occasional basis, rather than being the dedicated purpose of the site. It's quite possible that the company your wife worked for has used the company that I work for. A theme park with a dedicated site for displays can take steps which, for example, the local authority organising a display in a park cannot, however nothing is ever completely secure - if someone has the objective of going through/breaking in then they can usually manage it (see all the theft threads on here). I would imagine that, if you asked your wife whether someone who was determined to get into the firework firing area during the display could do so, there would be a way. As you state, you need a physical barrier such that it is clear to anyone passing that they are crossing a line. You then need this to be challenging enough to act as a deterrent to those who are reasonable. However, manning the barrier at all points is not always practical (and becomes less so, the longer it gets) and, if you are not going to use physical contact, to a point becomes irrelevant once the density of people is sufficient to see what is happening. Perhaps the wrong impression has been given. This is not a case of 'fire regardless'. Displays are delayed until the site is clear. The challenge is maintaining the site clear during the firing window, against people who are determined to breach it (why I have no idea). During the time I have been doing this (20+ yrs) we have not had anyone get more than 10ft within the boundary, which lies outside the minimum drop zone, so the method works. Coincidentally we have had no injuries to the public or to personnel. Fortunately this has been achieved by verbal means and running in their general direction The original point I was making is that, if someone is determined to head towards the fireworks, you are faced with the choice of stopping the display or using physical contact methods. The impact of stopping is significant, as outlined in my first post, hence I'm not sure what would happen in the hypothetical event of someone seeking to access the fireworks. Alec

I didn't say safety, I said security, ie the display organisers provide security personnel but we frequently end up covering the back of the site. Whilst you suggestion of a line of personnel would, in theory, be a solution, we are talking about a drop zone about the size of five football pitches so you would need hundreds, if not thousands of people to achieve this. We are reliant on a physical boundary which is a significant obstacle (7ft park railings, which do not have breaches). In a R/A you are required to take reasonable steps to address foreseeable issues - this is a reasonable step. Otherwise it escalates indefinitely (it would clearly be absurd to have additional measures to deal with people scaling 20' walls with a grappling hook and a rope ). In addition, we will have sufficient people out there, stationed inside the boundary, to see what is happening, hence to head people off if they come towards the fireworks, or to stop the show before they reach them, but you are reliant on your presence to stop them, or the choice of making physical contact. We delayed firing by 20mins on one show last November to clear a group out who had slipped in during the evening and were skulking in the bushes, so 'we shouldn't push the button' is definitely covered, as (unsurprisingly) is just about everything else in the R/A, since as you can imagine it is pretty comprehensive. The key point though is that when you are trying to do a job and alongside that you are trying to address the issue of people doing things which they know full well they should not do then the impact is significant. Alec

I do big firework displays every November. The displays are rigged to fire automatically to music, ie hit the start button, sit back and watch for the next 20mins. A couple of the sites I do have problems with teenagers climbing in over a 7ft steel fence and wandering around in the drop zone, note this isn't land with a public right of access and we are not responsible for security. This causes enormous problems as outright safety would dictate the show is stopped, but that means it is then ruined for the audience of up to 20,000 people, who have often paid £5 or so each, so they are unhappy, the organisers are unhappy, we would end up not being paid, despite having let off £10k worth of fireworks and the company would have the choice of paying the 10 or so people a day's wages from their own pocket, or not and losing the labour for next time. So, we don't stop, unless they reach the fireworks themselves. To stop this, I, along with a couple of others, stand in the drop zone ourselves to drive them out. Voice alone normally does it, or charging straight at them (I probably hold some form of record for the 100m in steel toe capped wellies!) but the hi-viz mentality definitely comes into play in controlling them to leave the site, usually escorting them to the police who give them a good talking to, which at least stops them coming back for the remainder of the show. Alec

Be very careful when considering having a set altered. Without going into detail of the changes in microstructure which happen through heating, some are reversible, others are not. This depends on the composition of the alloy and its thermal history. Most steels (including stainless steels), except the extremely exotic ones, can safely be forged and, with appropriate heat treatment, returned to essentially their original properties of strength/hardness/toughness. Titanium alloys can be forged, but are more difficult as the higher strength ones are sensitive to a transition in structure, which happens if they get too hot and is very difficult to recover, so very good process control is required. Aluminium alloys are the most difficult - there are some grades which are impossible to recover the structure and will be severely compromised in mechanical properties if heated. If you know exactly what grade of material they are made from and post it up here it should be possible to establish whether they can be altered, but otherwise unless they are steel I would very much exercise caution. Alec p.s. just read Geoff's post below - above comments also apply to welding (I have no idea how the things are constructed and whether this is relevant, but specifying joining procedures happens to be what I do for a living so I can comment on that too if it helps:001_smile:)