Billhook

A sunny morning at last after what seems like endless rain. Fixed up the electric winch for a direct pull. Really I need to buy a longer length of thinner wire to pull the trolley evenly and at half speed as I did in the first electric winch video on the Ash, but I have slabbed so much that I am running out of room and need to put the blade back on to create some useful milled timber that can be used straight away. This is the set up which was awkward to film with an ipad so sorry about the fluency. [ame] [/ame] The motor certainly was working a bit harder on the Oak than the Ash/ The chain was sharp but it created a surprisingly fine sawdust which needed goggle protection. The heavy weight of the wood at two and a half inches thick meant that it was important to keep tapping in the wedges. [ame] [/ame] The Oak has some interesting patterns which may work well to make an attractive coffee table. [ame] [/ame] I will stick the whole log and see what happens in about three years time in terms of splits and warps. Anybody had some successful experience with Holm Oak?

Just found this on the web Stove efficiency

Maybe you should not have opened the door to greet them with that bloody great axe in your hands! Stubby, can you explain how the Burley Hollewell is rated at very nearly 20% more efficiency than the Clearview 500? Does it recirculate the gases in some novel manner?

Pre meditated really refers to killing or wounding someone in this case, not just taking sensible precautions. There was another incident the other day where some horrible little gits broke into someone's house and terrified the elderly couple. unfortunately for him the son and a friend came home and chased him down the street. They caught him and gave him a severe hiding, which is the sort of thing most of us would say he deserved. However the son and his friend were pulled up for the beating as there was no imminent threat and the man was running away (as in the Martin case) They were sentenced to 30 months prison which caused an uproar. Self defence or malicious revenge? Jail for brothers who beat burglar with bat | UK news | The Guardian By the way when I was looking on google for this case I see I was totally wrong about the man who came downstairs and stabbed the burglar with the kitchen knife as he too was jailed for using excessive force. Uproar again but Tony Martin's case is mentioned in the piece. Father jailed for killing burglar | Daily Mail Online

I agree with you but it is the law that you cannot shoot someone in such a premeditated manner and that is the way the jury saw it. It would be fine to make a human "rat trap" in a premeditated way. A sort of cage that they are lured into by a stack of shiny tools, and when they pick up the tools the doors close behind them and locks them in Then you could have some fun as long as you did not physically harm them!

Yes there is a level of lawlessness in this country and the bar is creeping up. I would not expect much police response if I phoned to say that I have hare coursing going on or even a workshop theft and car/tractor thefts are deemed to be covered with insurance and as long as nobody is hurt it is pointless for the police to fill in a mound of paperwork only to see culprits even if caught, let off with community service which they never turn up for. However you may find a difference if you phone and say that there is an armed gang in your shed........

Yes, but a person whose becomes unhinged by a series of unfortunate factors such as constant thefts and lack of police help, may become of "unsound mind" and take a pot at anyone who appears walking up the drive in the dark. A loner without any friends, sleeping rough and in fear would expect everyone on his land to be an enemy.

Did not realise it was Teflon coated as well which must be another reason for not putting a file across it.

I think the law as it stands is reasonable. It is something like "A person of sound mind must have reasonable apprehension that his or his family's life is in immediate danger, and the force used must be proportional" This leaves it flexible enough for a jury to decide. I think you need to have heard the full story and there definitely is a fine line here. He had been a victim of many thefts and was at his wits end without much help from the police. However he was telling people at the local pub about his plans to lay a trap for them and indeed he cut half way through the steps of the ladder going down the cellar where they usually came in. When he confronted them with a shotgun he was not in immediate danger as they were not armed and he shot one of them running away. So there was premeditation and unlawful killing. A week or so later another story hit the press in another part of the country where a man heard a disturbance in his kitchen, went down to investigate and was attacked by a burglar. He grabbed the nearest thing to defend himself which was a kitchen knife and fatally stabbed the man. He was acquitted quite reasonably. You cannot have a situation where a man like Tony Martin, driven to desperation is allowed to shoot anyone on his land. It may be that one of you lot has an accident near his farm, your wife and kids are trapped in the car and you need a phone for help only to be greeted with blasts from a shotgun.

Totally agree with you and Openspaceman on this. I have never sharpened my X27 from the day I bought it and it seems to produce a shock through the wood that will open up even the most difficult logs. Together with using an old tyre to contain the logs and prevent it becoming stuck in the block below, I find that if it does become stuck it is very easy to pull it out. I think that this is partly due to the lack of razor sharpness and partly due to the small head compared with grandfather's old axe

It is hard to find the truth when the facts are distorted by politics and money. They were growing grapes in Lincoln in Roman Britain in a period much warmer than now and yet they were not driving Range Rovers or setting fire to rain forests. Perhaps it was the farting horses pulling the chariots Mull? What we can agree on is that we all want to breathe clean air and conserve our natural resources. Going electric and cutting out fossil fuels is a good idea to help solve those problems and may help the perceived warming issue to satisfy those who believe in man made warming. In the mean time I shall watch the weather in Mexico where things seem to be much hotter! https://www.youtube.com/embed/ePG6zUYvUZg

Join the club, you won't miss it! I made this resolution over two years ago and now realise what a waste of my life it was just watching it with no real purpose. Try and remember what you watched last night for instance just for an imaginary police alibi. I never could. The brain just shoved it all into the recycle bin never to be retrieved.

Saalbach/Hinterglemm I have always enjoyed. Big ski area. St Anton if there is not a lot of snow about.

Sun was shining so I rigged up the Electric Powerwinch firstly with an idler pulley so it worked at half speed, This seemed to produce a nice steady pull at the sort of speed I would be pushing by hand. I adjusted the slip clutch to just bite. The motor did not seem to feel the wider knotty bits and it worked well but I ran out of wire again. [ame] [/ame] So I put the idler pulley in the middle of the saw and did a straight pull. This also was not causing the blade or the motor any problems even though it was going through the 18 inch bit of Ash at Four feet a minute. In fact I forgot to put the wedges in and it did not seem to notice. This certainly beats pushing by hand! [ame] [/ame] I have set up the lump of Holm Oak for the next test.

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I have hidden the main recorder in two properties. It has to be a compromise between giving yourself convenient access to review, and the device being hidden enough for the thieves not to want to spend unnecessary time looking for it. On one system, I am not sure if it was the Maplin one, there is facial recognition and it can send the images to your email and phone so you would not lose that record. These devices move on so fast it is hard to keep up with the latest!

I see that Commando has mentioned the vulnerability of these camera to Laser guns in another thread. Perhaps we need to put up dummies to deter and hide the real ones inside bird boxes, oil drums and old pallets etc. I hid one in the office that looks out through the hole in the side of a standard box file.

Top reply. I am sure that a combination of one of these gps devices together with a secret identity mark or postcode and a good CCTV system linked to your smartphone would prevent a lot of this thieving. I bought a Maplin CCTV system for £250 and can see what is going on in my yard from anywhere in the world live. 30 days continuous recording and an easy to find red line signalling an "event" so you do not have to trawl through the whole period that you were away. It alerts you by text and email. Swann DVR8-3425 8 Channel DVR CCTV Security Kit with 4 Cameras and Alarm | Maplin

Thanks to Rob D and Brian on the Alaskan site for the idea. I tried a log today with a winch bought off ebay for about £12. Unfortunately the wire was not long enough to go the whole length but there was enough to demonstrate how much easier it was than pushing. The idler pulley at the far end is inserted into a bit of 2x4" which is held in position by two more bits of 2x3" inserted into the ends of the aluminium rails so it rises and falls with the slabber. I could buy a longer length of thinner wire but I think I will try the 12 volt Powerwinch AP 3500 which I already have. It was only designed for light work such as pulling a small boat out of the water and it has a slip clutch which I could set so that the slabber is not being pushed too hard. It also has the required 40 foot of wire. This will be video number 3 hopefully and I have a large lump of Holm Oak which should test it out. [ame] [/ame]

Sorry to hear of all the trauma and worry and inconvenience caused. I have been robbed several times and it actually was not the easily replaceable expensive items that annoyed so much as the wonderful old hand tools passed down from Grandfather etc that are irreplaceable. I had a quick search on google and came up with these links about tagging equipment. Electronic Tags - Materials, Technologies and Applications http://thecrimepreventionwebsite.com/property-identification--marking-tagging-and-tracking/592/methods-of-property-marking-and-tagging/ I then wondered with all the "Find my Phone" technology out there, whether it would be worth actually buying a mobile phone and concealing it somewhere on a larger piece of valuable equipment. Perhaps some of you out there know more about what is available.

THe Lucas Mill has a handy weatherboard attachment which will cut an eight inch depth tapered board and up to twenty foot or more in length which you could cut into whatever widths you need with a crosscut saw. [ame] [/ame]

In the 1970s we had a lot of mature Elms here which dominated the landscape and everyone laments the fact they have been wiped out by DED. But in fact there are just as many as there ever were here, alive and well in the hedgerows until they are about 10 to 15 years old when they fall to the disease again. They are waiting for the beetle or the fungus to mutate or die out, and they have plenty of time on their hands, maybe beyond our Great Grandchildren's life times. I agree with SteveA and from what little I know I understand that the Ash do not fall to the dieback for some time and there will always be a stock of native Ash waiting for an opportunity to step in when the disease mutates. These processes may happen with all our native trees, Oak, Beech, Lime etc and work in cycles of hundreds of years and beyond our records

Why do I have no trouble finding a left handed guitar, but have never found a left handed chainsaw!

Some helpful advice there thank you Brocky

Sensible precaution for some like us, madness according to others.