Woodworks

I'm just happy it's not pop whatever it is

Steve is going for acer platanoides

Yes been chatting with Steve and he thinking on the same lines. Going through my handbook of hardwoods which only describes the wood and not the tree Acer saccharum fits pretty well.

So it's in excess of 700kg a cubic meter and looks like this

I would have gone along with the pop but the wood itself is not like any pop I have seen. I will plane up some this evening and give some weights for it now it's dried. Maple fits the wood so much better but not found any with bark like this.

3m lengths roundwood from 8"-30" . The rounds in the picture are 12"

Does it ever have consistently tight growth rings? Talking 1mm a year

Thats the thing the growth rings are as tight as an aquatic birds rear end.

No not beech. There is some in the load and it's not like this wood

Agreed. I am oven drying a sample to see how heavy it is. Just think it is too heavy to be pop but cant deny the bark is similar and the way it's peeled off. Hope it's not as I have lot of it in the loads

The grain look far more like maple than pop from googling a few images. Slightly whiter than sycamore but other than that very similar.

I did wonder about this but it seemed a bit more weighty and didn't have the smell I would associate with poplar. Tight growth rings as well

Cut up enough in recent years but really not sure on this one. It came in some loads which were supposed to be beech,ash and sycamore. Glanced at the load and thought oh good plenty of ash is this lot but once split realised it's not ash. Weight and grain seem like sycamore but I have never seen sycamore with bark like this. Only thing of note it's shedding it's bark easily like chestnut does. Taken a few pictures of ash and the un identified wood. Unknown wood on the left in the top three pictures and on the right in the lower one. Think the wood on left in the lower one is sycamore just to confuse matters.

I think Bilke user has pretty much covered it. Dont worry about the blades as they are as tough as old boots. Done orrible things to mine and its survived it all. The support behind the blade does get worn over time (picture below) and I have had a bit of weld added there and ground flat but it's seen many 1000 tonnes so no biggy. Weakest points I would say are the flap on the end of the conveyor (picture below). I bent mine and shortened it to lessen the loads on it. I think the new ones are far more reenforced though. There is a big gap between the roller and the conveyor and wood can easily drop down here but myself and others have fitted an extra roller to solve this (picture below). As said make sure you drop the log lifter manually as if you let it fall on the return the arm can bounce up and wedge up under the conveyor and cause major damage. Paint is poor but it seems common on the lower price processors. Heard a dealer moaning about the paint on the Japa so just something to keep and eye on if you are road towing it on salted roads in the winter. The ram does slide steel on steel but seems to work fine. There are nylon sliders underneath to stop it lifting in the stroke (picture below). They all have there bad point and I would have no hesitation in recommending the Farmi WP36. I looked at the APF but in this price range I cant see anything to touch it for speed and simplicity with smaller wood and as you can see from the ring it can split some decent sized timber.

Fingers crossed they do hold their edge for longer. Always looking for the perfect chain for the processor and longevity is what I am after.

That looks very wrong! You sure you have the right guide and files in it for that chain? If so send it back. My one for the 0.325 does a pretty good job IMO. Defiantly no problems with the hook angle

Done a test and it doesn't take them down too far at least not on a chain that needed the rakers taking down. A careful measure after 3 strokes on a 0.325 chain left the rakers 0.5mm below the teeth. As a guide I prefer it to the regular plate type guide as you can watch the file doing it's work and see the top plate angle you are leaving. Also the double support it gets with the two guide rails makes hook angles very consistent.

Thanks for the comparison, so sadly not a game changer.

I have one. I tried one for my processor chains but it makes them try to take too big a bite. Seems OK on the saws though. Keep meaning to measure how far it takes the rakers down but gut feeling is it's bit too far,

The saw is always being blunted just far more slowly in clean wood than dirty wood. I am not going to choose my bar length based on the vague possibility of hitting metal. I do logs not garden felling so might take a different view in that environment. Very rarely meet metal in my line of work.

Well we have Timpsons here and they fixed it for £7 including glueing back a bit of the toe wrap around that was falling off. Very happy happy with that

Agree that if you dont need a long bar dont have one but a longer chain has more teeth to sharpen but they blunt more slowly as there are more teeth to do the work.

As others have said bite the bullet and get a 462. I cut up a lot of wood in that sort of size and have a 60cc saw with a 20" bar but the my old 460 with 25" bar is my goto for stuff in that range.

Thats a very comprehensive link. Not a clue how they manage to sell softwood so cheap though

So whats the problem with nicking the tie straps? Clearly lots of you avoid it but it seems like a hassle