agg221

Large tree which fell over in one of the recent storms. The remaining butt is about 4' across, 15' to the first spring, 25' overall. The owner thinks it's Q. cerris, but the leaves don't look like the cerris I'm familiar with. No acorns around and the leaves are a bit dessicated now, but below is the best photo I can get of it. Trying to work out which species to determine whether it's worth milling or not so any thoughts welcome. Cheers Alec

I use it for everything, including milling with big old Stihls. They have all worked fine from the off - smoke a bit on changeover as everything burns off but after a tank or so they run clean with no exhaust smoke. Alec

Earlier this year: Daughter (from her bedroom window): Mummy, Daddy, there's a duck on the lawn. (I go and have a look) Me: No, that's not a duck, it's a pheasant. Wife: A pheasant? We could have it for dinner. Daughter: No! Silly Mummy! You have to shoot it first! (mole is now another ex-mole)

Well we (nearly 5yr old daughter and I) went to check the traps - no luck yet. Will try again in the morning. I have never found anything so effective at getting No1 daughter ready for school and out of the house on time, sometimes even early, as the promise of going and checking the mole traps. I have no idea why but long may it last! Alec edit: 3yr old daughter in the avatar just likes jumping on the molehills in her wellies.

We are by a river and they are semi-aquatic so have a lot of them. We also have shallow soil so they do what's called 'spooking' where they dig a spine run along a hedgerow and side tunnels off just below the surface which can break your ankle. I trap them - use some really good stainless steel traps from the US which are very efficient. I noticed they were back at the weekend, got one last night and am just off out to see if I've got the next. I reckon I've got 4 and should have the lot by the end of the week. Alec

Tirfor cable has its own lay - standard wire rope doesn't grip properly in the jaws. Tractel can still supply all the parts for any model (I have a late 1960s 5 ton model which needed various new bits). They can be idiosyncratic to deal with, phone works best, but Speedy hire shops are agents and can get the parts in, although there is a fairly significant minimum order charge. Alec

Hi John, no I don't use a kiln - just air dry for extended periods including finishing off indoors if it's for interior use. If you've got an open building available I would stack the ash, birch and beech in there, and possibly the yew too if you want to keep the sapwood/heartwood contrast, although it will be more resilient. Everything else I would stack outside. with roofing sheets over the top, with a good overhang - probably stack build the stacks side by side with the sheets running across between them? At this time of year you'll get less problem with fungal deterioration as it should soon get cold enough to slow growth, but it will keep drying. Fungicide (borax type) will help a lot and I would use thick sticks (maybe inch) to get good air circulation. I'll PM you my email address. Alec

I would get the spalted beech as dry as possible as fast as possible, as spalting means rot is already initiated so it will be more vulnerable. I would also be inclined to treat it with Wykabor (borax) solution. I would also keep the ash and silver birch covered over the top once milled as they will be more vulnerable to rotting. The others would be fine stacked as they are - you might lose the sapwood, but that's not the end of the world (barely any there on the SC anyway). Alec

Yes - you are :lol: It's a 72cc saw, so very similar to an 044. It will pull a 28" bar and mill around 22" width if you take the dogs off, although it will be slow. It will be comfortable milling with a 25" bar, up to about 18" or a bit more if you take the dogs off. You will definitely need a precision grinder, and to keep the chain razor sharp as performance will drop off quickly without the power to drive a dull chain. I would also be inclined to buy Granberg chain from the off if you are milling near capacity, as I would want every ounce of power. If you're planning to stick with it as your primary milling saw, I might also be inclined to play around a bit and change the sprocket and bar nose (or order the bar with the right sprocket) and run the narrowest kerf chain you can. It will be slightly more prone to breaking, but not enough to worry about. Agrimog might have some good ideas on this as I believe he uses narrow kerf chain. Alec

Quite a bit. Forget the bar (for milling) unless it's 36" sprocket-nosed. If they sold it on the open market they could expect £650-700 if it's in decent condition. It's a good option for milling stuff up to about 2' though, and will cope with wider, albeit slowly. Alec

All cut

I suggest going big enough to start with that you can run an Alaskan Mark III. Otherwise you will just end up upgrading to one anyway:001_smile: A lot depends on the size of timber you want to mill - if it's under 2' then an old 044 will do OK, bigger and I would look at the 051 as a relatively cheap option for up to a 30" cut on a 36" bar. I would buy a 36" mill as it will be big enough for most things and can be shortened up for smaller logs. If you enjoy it, you will ultimately need a >100cc saw, at which point the 36" mill can be used at full capacity, or even upgraded with longer rails if required. Note, if you buy an old powerhead such as an 051/075/076 you will pretty much be able to get your money back if you decide you don't like it and want to sell it on. Alec

Elm has become somewhat rarer - the sawmill near me is paying £8/Hoppus ft for decent sawlogs which is double that on oak. This won't translate into double the price on the dry timber, but it is definitely going up. Alec edit: coincidentally my new avatar is some elm boards I milled yesterday but the picture really doesn't do the colour justice - I'll stick some proper pictures up later.

I would look at hiring a rotovator - a BCS or similar. You say it's mixed, but what is the mix, and how well do the relevant species do in the area? If they are native (hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel etc) then they will be fine in heavy clay and I would just mulch and leave. If it is something a bit less tolerant then I would look to rotovate in something to improve the soil structure/drainage as required. I'm never sure on weed suppressant sheets - they work well but the plastic type either needs clearing up afterwards, which never gets done, or it stops the base of the hedge from ever looking decent once the inevitable happens and it starts to get exposed as the hedge thickens. On balance, I think I prefer 4in of bark as a mulch, particularly if what you are planting is tall enough (e.g. 90cm) to get away and allow spraying off of weeds without touching the foliage if required. Alec

I buy a lot on ebay (very rarely sell) and have been doing so for over 13yrs. I have only opened one dispute, when I bought a no-reserve item at a very low price and the seller didn't ship and ignored all contact. I thought he might (check feedback first) so didn't pay and just needed the dispute to clear the sale off. The system isn't perfect, but in my experience it mostly works. It is certainly better than the 'old days' where a seller could advertise an item, payment was required in advance of shipping (pre-Paypal) and then if they didn't ship there was absolutely nothing you could do about it. I had this happen on an 066 I bought and it was an expensive lesson. I buy things with my eyes open - I pay a price based on what may be wrong so am pleasantly surprised if it isn't. I will arrange courier pick-up, but always check that this is acceptable before buying (I shipped in my 88" bar from the US, which was interesting but fairly straightforward). I think pick-up only and signing an acceptance of the goods being as required is fine. I have bought quite a few saws, in various states of repair, and I am happy to sign a disclaimer that if they are as described on receipt then they are accepted, be that collection in person or by courier. It isn't though, for example, reasonable on the seller's part to describe a saw as 'needing a new top end' when it is also missing the clutch. Whilst you would find this out if you collected, you would still incur travel costs and time, so it's just wasting everybody's time. I am completing our extension at the moment (12'x12', 2-storey + porch, including a kitchen a bathroom). I have saved an enormous amount by buying almost all of it on ebay, everything from bricks, hydraulic lime and even some of the sand, through to the cooker and the bath. No problems at all, other than that when I drove over to Great Yarmouth to pick up the bricks, the bloke had forgotten I was coming and gone out for a long distance bike ride. His dad was in, so I left the trailer and he made his son do all the loading up and bring it over to me, plus he chucked in an extra 100 bricks by way of apology! We have just started selling off some of the old baby things, plus some general junk. It can either keep cluttering up the house, go to the tip which is wasteful, or maybe someone else can get some use out of it. Selling it all on free listing days, 99p starts with no reserve. We will end up with a bit of extra cash for Christmas and a much tidier house. Keeping clothes etc in bundles which keep the weight below thresholds for postage so it's cheaper, and so far no returns have been requested. Bigger items are collection only. All working well so far. It is weighted a bit in favour of the buyer at the moment, but then previously it favoured the seller, so probably the pendulum will gradually swing back to the middle ground. Alec

Ring up Rowena carbs - they will supply an OEM kit (ie not Stihl, but the OEM of the carb) at a fraction of the price you would otherwise pay. Great service too, just a really bad website. It should be around £10, but different kits seem to range from £4 to £18, so you could hit lucky or unlucky (I can't remember how much my one was). Alec

I make that 3.3cu.ft total The differences between green and seasoned are price (seasoned is more) and whether it shrinks or moves (green will shrink, but in the width and thickness rather than the length where shrinkage on this length wil be negligible). Whether this is a problem or not depends a lot on your design. Are these for indoor or outdoor use? If outdoor, I suggest either using a naturally durable timber such as oak, sweet chestnut, robinia or larch, or applying a series of coats of something. Alec

Hi Richard, where in Surrey and how many of each size? Do you mind if it's green or seasoned? I'll be milling some suitably sized semi-dry oak this weekend. Alec

You could try with a soldering iron but you would need a pretty high temperature one - check the underside of the handle and you will probably find a code which runs PA6-GF8 which is nylon 6 with 8% glassfibre filling. It is weldable but best done with a hot air gun with a fine nozzle, and it takes 360degC to do it. If you do decide to try to weld it, dry the inside of the tank, then get a hot air gun pointing at it, far enough away that it gets warm but not hot, and leave it running for about 4hrs (really). Nylon takes on water and it spits and won't weld unless you dry it out first. The other option is putting it in the oven on ultra-low but unless you have a big oven you will need to take it to bits first and you also need a rather tolerant wife/partner, or one who is going out for the evening..... Alec

Can you post a picture of the crack? It may be weldable. Alec

Sadly not at the moment in my case - struggling to find some 3/4" x 0.080" chain..... Mind you, it is for a 1940s 2-man Teles so I suppose I could be looking a little late

Yes - it was in a good mood that day

I've generally reckoned that a chainsaw produced a more even thickness board as milled than a bandsaw - less tendency for the bar to wander up and down than the band. This includes some reasonable size mills - bands up to about 3". It's the speed/kerf where they really win. I reckon there are three factors which influence the preference for bandsaw/chainsaw (aside from the logistics of access, transport and handling), namely diameter, product thickness and value add. Diameter is the most dependent on mill, but I think there is a transition point somewhere around 2' above which the kit for moving and rolling logs gets more heavy duty and the wider boards mean the total loss in sawdust is less significant. Ultimately there comes a point where there are no options other than a chainsaw mill. Product thickness is a ratio of sawdust to wood. Whilst a bandsaw is always going to be more efficient, I reckon I can live with the chainsaw kerf on 2" and above. Value add is about onward processing, and hence ratio of time spent producing timber to time spent using it. If you are selling timber as boards, you need to be very efficient in processing. If you are adding a lot of value (ie creating things out of it) then your overall profit on time is less impacted by slower milling. So, if you are mostly milling 1' dia softwood into floorboards then you need to whip it through at tremendous speed, whereas if you mostly sell thick slab type furniture with a lot of design detail/carving then the impact of milling by chainsaw will be negligible. Alec

Realistically, if you need to get in to tight spots or up foot (or barrow) only tracks then you want everything as small and light as possible. The trailed bandsaws are only really applicable if you can drive them up to the log, or move the log to them. Have you seen the milling pictures/videos thread in the past couple of days? Burrell has posted some pictures of the tree we milled on Saturday - 4ft across and at times one of us had to stand on the collapsed fence to squash it down enough for clearance on the mill - I even ended up milling through the berberis at one end of the upper section there was so little space. I don't think this could be done with anything other than an Alaskan (nothing against other chainsaw mills - just a bit less portable). I do run a chainsaw driven bandsaw mill, which is excellent - there is a brief video of it on the same thread. The up side is that it gives the speed and narrow kerf of the bandsaw with the portability of the Alaskan. The down side is that the throat is only 14" so you do have to break down larger logs first (not too tricky) and that it can sometimes be temperamental like all band mills. The other down side is that they are only available in the US. Alec

Yes, I'd forgotten the 050 and 051. The 066 and 064 are on the smaller mount that fits the 024 and up. Not sure my 026 would like a 36" bar though... Alec