woodyguy
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Everything posted by woodyguy
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Sent you a PM
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Fascinating experiment. Doing 4 and 5 is really interesting.
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Great. If I repeated the experiment I detailed but taking the bark off, I'd be very surprised if it varied. Yes bark is a better seal, but not that much. One point for yours. Moisture meters are useless, so just weigh the wood on kitchen scales at the beginning and use weight loss. Will be interested to see your results.
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That's interesting. I hadn't realised they'd moved closer to home. Might have to bag up my clippings!
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My god that man is talented!!!
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Glad to see you're interested. Not aware of humans dying, although poisoning making someone feel ill might go undetected. I've listed the references below. All parts of the tree including the wood are equally poisonous except the red berry. The yew we grow isn't the best source for the anti-cancer drug and clipping are harvested to extract it from tropical yews. So no chance to make money there. 1. Burrows GE, Tyrl RJ. Taxaceae. In: Toxic plants of North America. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 2001;1149-1157. 2. Wilson CR, Sauer J, Hooser SB. Taxines: a review of the mechanism and toxicity of yew (Taxus spp.) alkaloids. Toxicon 2001;39:175-185.
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if the length is fixed ie 500mm then splitting will speed up the drying. Generally though if you want them to season quickly, you cut shorter and split as well. If people don't understand that, then cut a full round from a 12" log about 1" thick. I tried one and measured the weight at 700g. Then cut a 2inch branch until it weighs 700g. So one is short and one is thin, but same mass of wood. I put them on the window sill and the round had dried to 20% in 3 days. The 2inch branch had barely changed showing that wood mainly dries from the ends but not exclusively. In reality though we can only cut logs so short, so short and split is the quick way.
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Several dogs have died from chewing Yew wood. The lethal dose for a small dog is about 4g of wood. Not a risk I'd take with my kids.
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Rob, take your point that many woods have toxins within them. There is just a huge difference between tannins (ie tea) in oak and specific toxins in Yew that are so powerful they are one of the mainstays for killing breast cancers. Not all toxins are equal. Plenty of farm animals have been killed from eating Yew but can't remember too many from Oak. I wonder where you'd stand if someone was injured from a bowl or chopping board you sold?
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Yew will shoot from the trunk however hard you cut it. It will look awful for 2-3 years but then bush out and be fine. I've seen yews with 90% reductions and 5 years later they're fine. The art is to try and produce a shape that won't look too dreadful for the next couple of years. Best to warn the client though.
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A log of wood is basically like a bundle of straw tied together (the xylem). Very little water loss occurs through the sides of the straws as most is lost through the ends. So cutting to length early is the quickest way to dry. So whether splitting or not, cutting to length should be the first thing you do. It will also cut easier with a chainsaw when green.
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Yew is a source of chemotherapy drugs used in breast cancer. The toxin is found throughout the plant. How much would be in the chopping board and how much would move into your food I don't know. Not something I'd wish to chance really. I'm sure many people have used Yew utensils before but traditionally it isn't used because of being poisonous. This makes sense.
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Do we have any evidence that "Torrified wood is suppose to be hydrophobic so it won't reabsorb any moisture" If charcoal absorbs water then why should this be any different. I'm lucky that my stove top is only at about 100c so doesn't char.
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Why on earth would anybody buy a Landrover??? I had a disco once. Not sure what was worse. My wife thinking I must be having an affair with someone at the garage as I was there so often or my suspicion that I was personally funding the entire garage from the massive repair bills. No thank you.
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If I put logs at 20% MC off my log pile on top of my stove for 24 hours then they have a MC of 6%. They burn very quickly and very hot. If I leave them there for a week they will get down to 2-3% (all measurements by weight as moisture meters are hopeless). I personally wouldn't pay inflated prices for bone dry wood (which would pick up moisture in storage anyway) and I doubt whether many other would. Especially as it looks hideous which really matters to the types who pay top whack for wood.
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Sounds as though you could make a good case.
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Own tools, ppe and fuel helps. What puts you at risk is working set days rather than for a set job. If you are paid to fell and remove a tree and are ill, then a sub contractor would be able to send someone instead. If you can call in sick and then do the job next day that you're working for them, then you are employed.
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For sheer biomass it is impossible to beat hybrid willows. Alders are pretty good as are sycamore and poplars. Can't see how the nitrogen moves beyond the root zone of the tree but that can be pretty extensive with Alders.
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I've just had a big order from Cheviot trees who were excellent. Not sure if they stock Silver Beech though
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Tom is right. We got advice from HMRC and checked it with legal advice, which meant that people working half a day per month for us as advisers have had to be taken onto the payroll. Not welcome news.
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People keep talking as though the people they sub for have a choice. Recently the revenue have been getting very heavy about this and insisting that anybody who works regularly for you is employed. An NHS trust was fined £1m for failing to do this recently. So it doesn't matter how many hours your work. Half a day a month has been regarded as employed. You can also be self-employed for the rest of your work but if you work regularly for somebody then unless the job is priced individually and especially if you don't supply ALL your won kit, then you should be employed. Not welcome news but true. Many get away with it but it may come back to bite you.
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They are dead easy to grow from seed. I've got one just outside my house which I cut to the ground each April. It then puts out a lots of buds and you select two to grow on. These grow 12-20 feet that year and have leaves much bigger than 25cm. Easy to grow and quite phenomenal growth. Coppicing though stops them producing flowers.
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If you're looking for a fairly quick return on logs then I'd go for a 6 foot maximum spacing. Also you say Alder for nitrogen fixation but then the two species are totally separated. How will nitrogen fixation help the willow 100 yards away? Presumably you'd need to mingle the alders amongst the willows to get any useful benefit overall? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick.
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As I said in my post, its the proportion that counts. There is no absolute amount and my wife has claimed several thousand pounds on the house this year, self employed from home (we had some new windows and decorating). As others said though, you just need to keep it sensible or you will attract the interest of the local authority and business rates.
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I've recently tried cutter gloves which are brilliant. Ordered a couple more pairs but last well.
