Billhook

I bet that a Rolls or a Focus could not do this job either!

Just remember that a Fiat Panda 4x4 will still reach the destination when the other two are stuck! (For the price of a wing mirror on the Rolls)

All of that and what about my open fires? Do they not have the same potential dangers if not ventilated? Would I need a Hetas certificate if I wanted to install another open fire? Surely the dangers of an open fire, logs rolling out, smoke, sparks, unswept chimney are greater than a wood stove?

Always worth watching again! (It's four Yorkshire men!!)

I paid 78 old pence a gallon when I started to drive in 1970. Six shillings and sixpence/gallon or 32.5 new pence. or 7p/litre. Only trouble was I was earning £12 a week student forced labour! 60 hour week took me a hell of a lot longer to earn the money for a gallon of fuel than today.

Another vote here for the Stratford, faultless now for eight years, fifteen radiators. Two Clearviews, the original 650 with twin doors is excellent for room heating and log capacity but I do not like the double doors for a good seal. The Pioneer Vision 500 is better in the office, a very good stove. We have just bought a Danish Aduro 9, which seems to be very efficient and is pleasant to sit by with a lot of glass front and sides. It also is very different to light and a small amount of wood lasts all evening. I agree about a good open fire though and if we entertain we light an open fire in the living room. I think that people are more comfortable around an open fire and conversation flows more easily with people who do not know each other. This is a three foot wide custom built design by Count Rumford back in the late 1700s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumford_fireplace I asked the builder to do one when I built my house. He was a very good old school bricklayer and had years of experience but very set in his ways. Generally they stick with what they were taught when they were an apprentice and the air was full of foul language for a while "Well in all my years I've never built a bugger like this" etc etc. "You do what you like, it's your money down the drain" Turned out to be a mistake when it turned colder as I came in from work and found them warming themselves in front of it when they should have been pointing bricks outside. "Well I never would have believed it" was the comment now. One of the secrets of an open fire is drawing the air from outside rather than creating draughts under doors so when we put the floors in I laid two four inch waste pipes in the concrete on either side of the fireplace so all the air feeding the fire comes from outside and there are no draughts. There are sliding vents on each side to control the air but I never close them in practice. I also built two mesh fire screen doors to keep it safe when we leave the room.

My wife with the nine inch angle grinder

I am a farmer, and nothing I have ever welded over the last 50 years has broken! And no, there is no slag there, it is just my special extra strength gusset you cheeky .........! Similar quality to my hinges, thick and strong!

I bought my Palax Combi from Jas Wilson in 1996 for £2500 second hand. I do not know how many tons of wood it has processed but a great amount. I put an electric three phase motor on it and apart from a few blade sharpenings and retippings it has been totally reliable but today the small plate which trips the return for the splitting ram broke off. Luckily I found the piece in the sawdust. Two bolts to undo released the assembly and I welded it back together with my ancient stick welder in about five minutes and was back at work within ten minutes Really though this post is to give credit to Palax for a great machine which happens to suit my needs perfectly. It has a three point linkage and PTO as well as a towing hitch and wheels. Thank you Palax Oh and you had better "rate my weld" in the same way as "rate my hinge"!

Every day is a learning day for me here! Thank you for that Steve

Mmmmmm forgot that one Janka 4390 ft lbs and crushing strength 12,200 lbs/sq inch Not tackling that one with my X27!

Just discovered the Janka scale which reveals some surprising facts about different woods. It measures the strength in terms of the force needed to break a certain size of timber in special press. Australian Buloke is top of the list at 5000 ft lbs and Balsa at the bottom with some bits as low as 22 ft lbs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test Hornbeam has a Janka of 1630 ft lbs and a crushing strength of 7320 lbs/sq inch English Oak 1120 6720 Apple 1730 6030 Beech 1450 8270 Elm 810 4740 Ash 1480 7400 Holm Oak 1610 no data

Just been out to the shed where I keep the few remains of the workings of the Windmill, which has been on this site since the late thirteenth century. A brick tower mill replaced the old post mill in 1812. The brick tower still remains but the metal work was removed in the 1950s and these last pieces were left out in the weather for a few decades, However there is still some wood left in the gear cage, not identified, and some in the metalwork in the other picture. I think that piece fitted on top of the drive shaft and somehow sat inside the gear cage or perhaps one of you experts can tell me where it was used It does say a lot about the longevity of the wood to still be there after so long in the weather

Just found this site where it states that not only Hornbeam , but Cherry and Apple were also used in making gears inside a cast iron frame. particularly in Mills. They are much quieter too. http://www.newhallmill.org.uk/gears.htm

Well blow me down, (just like the Hornbeam) the amount of interesting facts I have just learned from a fairly innocent post about a very hard lump of wood. And I thought that I was old enough not to discover many new facts about the woods.! Just shows what a great site Arbtalk is, a veritable fountain of knowledge. Thank y'all

I forgot to mention that the tree was alive when it came down so not seasoned. you could see just by looking at the grain that it was really tight and there looked to be no "splitting path" in the log unlike a piece of Ash which generally shows a line to attack with an axe

I had a look through the search engine here but could not find the subject mentioned although it must have been discussed many times. A half grown hedgerow Hornbeam was blown down earlier this Autumn and I tried to put a 10 inch diameter trunk through the Palax Combi and the hydraulic splitter would not touch it. I cut the trunk into 18 inch lumps. This was quite hard work even for the newly sharpened Stihl compared to a similar piece of Ash. So as a challenge I took out the trusty old Fiskars X27. Gave the lumps my best shots and they just laughed at me. I was joined by a strong young fit lad who thought that he would show the old fella how to do it but they laughed at him too. We just managed to split them with the X27 when I halved them again to 9 inch lengths and only then by going round the edge rather than down the middle. What is the hardest timber any of you have dealt with?

Yes, we could have appeased Hitler, they would have occupied us in the same way as they occupied most other European countries . Nobody would have known about the six million Jews as that would all have been "Fake News". We would all be speaking German and building Volkwagens and millions of lives would have been saved. Yes it would have been better to all live in harmony under one unelected dictatorship, but wait.............................

There are so many different versions by Eric. I find the backing singers irritating on the one above and rather spoilt the nice guitar. This earlier one has a better feel for me

Raining hard on Monday, 8.00am I had just made my omelette and a nice cup of tea was waiting when the phone went, could I help please urgently. Guy who runs a county house weekend party business had given instructions to a family of Germans on how to find the house, however they elected to turn into one of our field gateways where there was plenty of chalk for them to turn around. But no they carried on about three hundred yards down the side of one of our heaviest clay fields, just sown with wheat. I went down with the Teleporter making a filthy mess myself and when I arrived there were five of them looking pretty miserable under umbrellas. They were well and truly stuck Slipped a strap through the towing eye and gently pulled them out onto the road, mud everywhere. Their English was limited and they could not explain why they carried when it was obviously a field rather than a driveway Tea and omelette were cold on my return Apparently a couple of whiskys are waiting for me at the local pub so I may go down and hear a little more. All in the interest of keeping friendly relations with Germany after a hard Brexit! (you never know when you might need a Claas spare part!)

There is some good work going on for the forces personnel affected by ptsd in the form of helping them back into the community through working with archaeologists. Here is one site http://www.breakinggroundheritage.org.uk/ We had some archaeology on the farm this year and I was asked if I minded if some of these people joined. I said they would be welcome but it turned out that the British group were on another dig so we had some Americans who had been in Afghanistan and Iraq. They came for two weeks initially with their heads down a bit and a bit awkward but left with their heads high and full of enthusiasm. Some local RAF also became involved and the group Captain who came out initially to observe found himself on his hands and knees digging away. It was hoped that this sort of positive activity will be reported back to higher authority and more funding will be available You would think that perhaps people who had had their mates blown apart would think that the last thing they would want to be doing was digging up human skeletons. The 1500 year old skeletons were somehow more remote and the important thing was the history and archaeology but perhaps the most important thing for them was the socialising after work which did involve alcohol at the pub, but it was drinking with new friends in a happy situation as opposed to drinking alone to try and cure depression. It was interesting for us to hear their stories and to see their relief and release I suppose while talking to people who wanted to listen. The archaeology was hard work with long days but their discipline was good and they did fine work and importantly felt needed. Next year we are hoping that a group of Danish ex military will join. It is not just people who have had a very bad experience in battle but also people who have just been institutionalised.

I learned to fly at good old Skeggy Aerodrome and I can assure you that the dark patches are probably not crude oil but more likely something much more unpleasant As we took off over Butlins and then the North sea there was a black slick heading out from the caravan sites in certain weather and tide conditions.. That was in 1978 and although the Golden Sands project did improve things, there are still problems down the whole East coast https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/15412592.Millions_of_litres_of_sewage_pumped_into_sea_by_Southern_Water/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/23/uk-bathing-water-ranks-next-from-last-eu-beach-table https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10178020 A couple I met near Oxford back in the 1980s told me the sad story of their eight year old daughter swimming off Bognor Regis in about 1960. That evening when put to bed firstly it was "Daddy I can't feel my feet" An hour or so later it was "Daddy I can't feel my legs" It was a very virulent form of Polio caught from the sewage contaminated sea water and she was dead by the morning. They spent the rest of their lives inspecting all the sewage outflows of all coastal resorts and recording the "solids" and various other items in a book called Golden Sands. I think this may have sparked off the Blue Flag system but obviously things have become lax again with all the extra holiday makers. All that food has to go somewhere.........

We make a special point of taking friend's children there to show them what will happen if you smoke and drink too much energy drink and coke, eat crap food and do not take any exercise. It must be the mobility scooter capital of the world. You have not made it in life unless you became pregnant at fourteen, followed by a free house and obesity fuelled by benefits. You then at about twenty five stone qualify for a mobility scooter before you are twenty five. I am not joking when I say that the danger of being hit by one when window shopping is a serious problem!

Don't think there is much argument about the world becoming warmer as it has done many times in the past without Range Rover Sports and modern warfare. The big question which is up for debate is how much of it is man made. If we all cut out all fossil fuels now and other forms of pollution would it make any significant difference to global warming?. These things should be done anyway for a clean environment, but that is a different argument.