ucoulddoit

Thanks Archie. Sounds like it is 'just down the road' and small enough to remove pretty quickly. Andrew

Archie. I'd be really interested in milling the main trunk if it is sound. How soon would it need to be removed from the site after felling? Would there be time for you to photograph the ends to see the colour and check it isn't rotten. Been looking for a reasonable sized plum tree for a few years....... Andrew

I suspect there is a differerence between timber dried in a steam kiln and timber dried in a dehumidification kiln which works at a much lower temperature? So maybe the smaller scale operators using dehumidifiers might be producing better quality timber? I read years ago but can't remember where, that although the moisture content of timber rises when stored outside after being 'kiln' dired, many species don't behave elastically. So the width of a board dried down to say 8% mc, then left outside until the moisture content rises to say 16%, will still be narrower than the board width when it was originally dried down to 16%. So I suppose you could say that some of the drying shrinkage is 'locked in' which reduces the risk of movement in service which corresponds to a note for some species in timber data tables 'low movement in service'. Andrew

Thats' really impressive! Andrew

Sheppach 2600 CI. Very accurate, but limited to 10 inches wide. I'm by no means an expert on this, but my view is the choice depends on the intended use (pretty obvious!). My priority was to be able to flatten and straighten a piece of milled and dried timber which might be quite distorted, in addition to planing to a uniform thickness. I looked at bench top planers but was concerned that it would be difficult to straighten and flatten longish boards before thicknessing them, as the bed is very short, so a banana shaped and twisted boarded would come out still slightly banana shaped and twisted, but flat across the width and uniform thickness. Probably less of an issue for short timbers or constructional timbers? Andrew

I see what you mean. Could also increase the gap to 20 or 25mm and run the horizontal battens over the inner boards. Another thought. The overlapping boards will make it much darker inside compared to Yorkshire cladding. I've put a fibreglass roof sheet at the opposite end to the open wall and the other roof sheets are white inside which may help a bit. Andrew

Looks a useful sized drying shed. If you can, it's best to keep direct sun off stacks of drying timber to minimise the risk of exposed bits drying too quickly and splitting. I'm also building a drying shed and am leaving the northwest side open but this side is against a low retaining wall, so no good for access. On the southwest side, I'd planned to leave half of it open for access, but seeing how the prevailing wind blows the rain in and on dry days too much direct sun gets in, I'll put on hinged double doors, clad to match the walls. I was going to use Yorkshire cladding, but saw from a farming forum, concerns about the amount of rain that gets through the gaps, soaking the bedding straw. Probably less of a problem for a timber drying shed. I'm going to use overlapped vertical boarding, with a 10mm gap between the inner and outer boards to get plenty of air through but hopefully keep the rain out. Also leaving a gap round the bottom rather than building a low dado wall which was the original intention, again to get as much airflow as possible. Andrew

If there are cross walls inside, an option for a low pitch roof might be to use these to support oak purlins running along the length which could be left exposed. But I can see that trusses might be the style you're after. Andrew

I have one of these Lie Neilson plates but find the step of 2mm between holes too big and small diameter dowels are easily snapped when being driven through with a hammer. If I need really precise dowels, I use my homemade mild steel plate to form the dowel to within a millimetre or so, then finish off with the Lie Neilson plate. Looking back to the start of this thread, I'd assumed it is smallish diameter dowels for furniture rather than a building frame? But if it is a frame, larger dowels can be made with a single hole in a plate as Alec suggested as they are much less likely to snap when driven hard with a hammer through the hole. Or you can hammer them through a steel tube. For a small frame I made, I found several places selling 'dowels' for green oak frames, and most were selling octagonal rather than round dowels. So I made my own 20mm octagonal dowels from dry straight grained oak on the table saw and router table. About 75 in a short afternoon which worked out well. Andrew

G&S Specialist Timber at Penrith make and sell a range of dowel sizes in a variety of timbers including oak Hardwood Timber Merchant and Hand Tool Supplier in Cumbria. I've not bought any from them, but they will be round whereas dowels from elsewhere are usually fluted which might be an issue if the ends are left visible. I use the method suggested by Alec, except I've drilled a line of holes in a steel plate, reducing in diameter by 0.5mm so the dowel is steadily trimmed to the required diameter after starting with the larger holes. Andrew

Most of the logs were raised off the ground which had helped to delay detrioration but where short sections were in contact with the ground, e.g. the flared section at the base of a tree, the timber was starting to decay, especially the sapwood. Another issue is staining of the timber which is more likely if left in the round. But I'm not sure of the limiting timescales. Fingers crossed the cladding is looking OK. Maybe someone else could comment on this? Andrew

Planning to be finished by the Autumn but don't be surprised if it is later than that! Would be good to see some pictures of milling, fabrication and erection of your frame. Andrew

I’ve just completed milling the larch cladding for this project using an Alaskan mill, a mini mill and a band mill, and thought the pictures below might be of interest to others who have freely available timber, but located at inaccessible places. I used a few more of the larch logs which had been felled some years ago in the neighbour’s wood behind the house. They were further into the wood than those used for the frame, about 100 feet up a steep hill and although there is a narrow track a bit further up, it was just not possible to extract the round logs economically. As the cladding will be fairly narrow, 100mm wide vertical boards, I used the Alaskan and mini mills to cut 100mm thick slabs by 3.1m length from each log which could then be manhandled to the track from where I transported them to the sawmill which is less than 2 miles away. I cut off one side of each log using the mini mill so that the two or three slabs from each log could be placed together vertically on the bed of the Woodmiser, i.e. two or three slabs at a time were then milled into thin cladding boards, instead of one at a time. The larch trees, some of which were 100+ years old, yielded some really good timber and much of the cladding is ‘boatskin quality’. The photos below give some idea of how inaccessible the trees were, the first cut revealing almost knot free timber, the stack of almost 2 tons of 100mm thick slabs, milling the slabs into thin planks and the cladding planks stacked for drying. About 75m2 total area which has worked out to be very economical, as it is for my own use. I bought an MS661 after milling the first couple of small logs with my MS391 (which has more than paid for itself milling timber over the past few years), but with a bit of creative accounting, I’ve discounted the cost of that as I felt this was a large enough job to justify buying the bigger saw with a view to milling more in the longer term. It worked well having two saws, the larger one set up in the Alaskan and the smaller MS391 being used for cross cutting the logs and in the mini mill. Andrew

I also use PVA applied either before or after milling. But now cut off the sealed end after seasoning and before further machining with a planer, bandsaw or table saw. This approach follows blunting/nicking a set of planer knives on planks with grit embedded in the PVA. The grit had 'contaminated' the boards after milling, while temporarily laid aside on the ground. I now pressure wash all timber after seasoning including removing the sealed end and it's pretty much standard practice to pressure wash logs before milling if possible, keep the planks clean and temporarily stack freshly milled planks off the ground! Andrew

I only mill on an occasional basis for my own use but over the years have needed various spare parts. Last weekend at the start of a day's milling, a bolt in the frame sheared off after being adjusted just once too often and being 80 miles from the nearest hardware shop was pretty relived I had a bag of spares bought from Rob ...... Andrew

Thanks for the compliment Corco 2000. I'm sure you could build this in some places without planning permission but there are local restrictions around here which was annoying. The slab is 100mm thick with a layer of A142 steel mesh. The location is not accessible from the road so I mixed the concrete in a Belle half bag mixer and cast it in three panels. I used an MS391 which is on the small side for milling but it is for my own use rather than trying to make money so I just took my time. At the start of milling the timber for this project I already had an Alaskan Small Log Mill and bought an Alaskan Mini Mill to make it easier to cut the sides of the beams. About half way through milling all the beams, following advice from Alec (Agg221) I bought a 25" bar and a Granberg rip chain and also some extra bits for the mill so that I could convert it into an Alaskan 24" mill. The max bar length recommennded for the MS391 is 20", but as you lose 5 to 6" off the length once the mill is fitted I decided to try with a longer bar so that I could go up to almost 20" with the Alaskan 24 mill and this worked fine although a bit slow on a full width cut. Just starting to mill some more inaccessible larch logs this weekend into thick slabs which I'll be able to manhandle out of the wood and take to a bandsaw mill for milling into cladding to be fitted this summer.

I've a similar problem with a small walnut table finished with Osmo Top Oil a few days ago. First time I've used Osmo Top Oil, so pretty disappointed as it gets excellent reviews online. Just resanded the top tonight as water drips seemed to have soaked right through and raised the grain in small spots. Can't understand why it's happened. I wondered if the waxy oil hadn't soaked into the walnut despite having three coats at 12 hour intervals? Andrew

The title of this thread sounds like a question my family sometimes ask me! I enjoy sourcing, milling and drying timber as a hobby in itself and have accumulated several tons of milled timber over recent years which is gradually getting used mainly to make pieces of furniture for family. Part of the interest has come from working with numerous different species of wood, seeing how each reacts to the drying process, how to avoid drying defects, experimenting with different methods of milling to achieve different grain patterns, aiming to produce timber that it is not readily available to buy, which to me gives it ‘added value’ but still for my own use. At the start I was concerned about the time it would take to air dry planks on the basis of the rule of thumb of a year per inch thickness followed by perhaps another year storing it in a dry indoor environment as I had no access to a kiln and wanted to use if for furniture in a centrally heated home. So a 2 inch thick plank might take 2 ½ to 3 years before being ready to use. Having got passed the first two or three years when I was impatiently waiting for the first timber to dry, replenishing the ‘stock’ on an ongoing basis has far outpaced the rate at which I can use it, hence the mounting pile of timber. So I tend not to mill for specific projects and follow advice I read in a book written about 40 years ago, ‘The fine art of cabinetmaking’ by James Krenov. In the chapter titled ‘Wood’ he says, ‘Recently I have noticed craftsmen tending to obtain wood by sawing it themselves. A concept new in America is emerging: that of the flitch cut log and fine, thick planks which will later be re-sawn to sizes needed.’ So I now tend to mill quite thick, say 3 or 4 inches which takes years to dry but I can now wait, and then re-saw it on a large bandsaw to the sizes needed for specific projects which I aim to design to suit the characteristics of the available timber rather than milling to suit a specific design. Andrew

Axminster Tools and Machinery stock forged all steel wood chisels which I found very good and can be struck with a lump hammer. I bought the 30mm and 50mm straight chisels and wished I had also bought the 40mm cranked chisel. A 38mm 'normal' chisel I bought which was designed to be used with a steel hammer broke inside the handle after just a couple of large mortices. Andrew

A boxed heart column will almost certainly develop long splits along its length as it dries, but surprisingly, it's more of an aesthetic issue than a concern about strength, unless it split in half along the full length, but I've not heard of that happening. John Boddy's had a method of drilling a largish hole the full length along the pith/centre which apparently reduced the splitting very significantly. I've also heard of a technique where a saw cut is made the full length of a column on the least visible side (e.g. the side against a wall) and this minimises random drying splits developing on the other sides. I realised my comment about a beam/column drying and distorting into a diamond shape if milled away from the heart doesn't apply for those that are quarter sawn. Andrew

There have been a few references to boxing the heart recently which has made me think about how relevant it is. Perhaps it was just the traditional way of squaring off a log by hewing the sides with an axe before bandsaws were invented and so now not needed but we continue to do it because it is the way it has always been done? In terms of strength, visual grading is based on the visible defects on the outside of a beam or column and since the most significant defects tend to originate in the heart, a boxed heart section with the pith at the centre, milled from a small/medium sized log is likely to have fewer visible defects on the outside and hence, I would say this is likely to achieve a higher strength grade compared to a section milled with the pith on one face for instance. So that is an advantage. Nowadays large diameter logs can be easily handled with machinery and milled so there is no need to be restricted to small/medium diameter logs. The outer parts of large logs are likely to have more closely spaced growth rings and might be completely clear of defects such as knots, wane and fissures. So I would speculate that this timber will have a high strength grade, maybe even higher than the boxed heart section. But as it dries, the original sawn squared section will distort into a diamond shape whereas the boxed heart section will remain nearer to a square shape. This probably doesn't matter for floor joists or beams, but in a timber frame, the beam to column joints need to remain tightly together, held by the oak pegs. So if the column distorts into a diamond shape the joints may open excessively. But this will be more of an issue on columns with a large cross section so not always relevant. Another other issue that I think might be a problem is a beam or column warping along its length as it dries. I feel that a boxed heart column which has no intermediate restraints between each floor level is more likely to stay straight compared to a timber cut from the outer part of the log. A banana shaped column is obviously weaker than a straight one. But a beam or joist cut from the outer part of a log and used as part of a floor will be restrained by floorboards or other timbers which hold it in a straight line as the frame dries. Andrew

Found an interesting recent publication on google about using green softwoods in construction including post and beam, which might be of interest to others. It promotes using larch which is predicted to be widely available due to felling because of .... (can't remember the name of the bug/virus). Just needs a bit of innovation in the supply chain to get people to start using it in decent quantities. http://www.bc.bangor.ac.uk/news-and-resources/news/documents/WelshSoftwoodsinConstructionReportNov13.pdf Andrew

Steve Happy to share this although I'm not sure how legible it will be and it is quite a small outbuilding. One thing to note is there is no roof bracing shown. I relied on the steel roof sheeting which was well stiched together at the overlaps and fixed to dwangs along each end of the roof, but others might prefer diagonal BAT straps or something similar. Andrew