Mobile Milling Mike

I concurr with my learned and esteemed coleague. Its tree wood.

have PM d you.

Me, Chessington.

If I were to have to give you one piece of advice only, it would be to seal the ends of your boards ,(easiest done before milling. The worst splitting is at the ends due to the rapid drying from the tubules which carry water up the tree. We use a proprietory water based wax but have seen "blackjack "used to good effect too.Oh and we do stop milling at one point in the season ,generaly from the 25th to 26th December.

If city folk could only spend a bit of time milling timber ,the world would be a better place.

Is there access for a 16 tonner lorry with Hiab on the tail ,to pick up? My number is 07788 724372.

It started with a routine stop by the police ,of an agriculturally registered vehicle,derived from a 16 tonne hgv lorry. several alleged offences were reported and it all went to the magistrates court. I had left a solicitor to deal with it as I considered it pretty straightforward. They all made a complete pigs ear of it so I appealed. The first time it went to appeal ,the CPS again made a pigs ear of it. The appeal court judge stopped the case and admonished the cps Barrister .One of the principle reasons for this was because the regulations had recently been changed and the effect of the change was retroactive. The court were ,as is normal ,working from "stones justices manual" which of course wasnt sufficiently current to cover the changes. As I pointed out,Law becomes effective once it recieves Royal Assent,and not when stones have printed their latest edition. The judge appologised to me but said that the appeal must be reheard before another court. At this hearing the CPS brought in one of their big guns,who at least had some understanding of how the law worked on these issues. The charges were all rather minor but involved it being necessary to prove that this was not an Agricultural vehicle but an ordinary HGV. There was no direct charge regarding red diesel but all the framework of the various regulations was explored in depth. One stated case I refered to,which is ,to my recollection one of the first involving the revised regulations was "Frees Land drainage" interesting reading you may find.

I do agree.The problem is however that in 1989 the regulations were indeed simplified . The problem was however that too many people continued to try to make the rules work as they had done before. As one police officer explained to me ,out of court, where he had been giving the factual evidence regarding an agricultural machine. He complained that no one had informed them the rules had changed and the thing he found hardest to understand was that the new rules actually assisted the vehicle owner. Not somthing he was used to. I have watched with dismay over the ensuing 25 years as more and more poor interpretations and nonsense have almost buried the true nature of the various regulations. I do regret that my own case was in what is known as a court of "no record".This means that it didnt become a stated case. In hind sight ,this was unfortunate for all concerned . We certainly covered the situation in depth. What was supposed to take about an hour ,wound up taking 8 hours of legal argument ,and we ran on till after 7 oclock in the evening. The Corby castle case has certainly been a refreshing improvement.

This is the sort of thing that causes more confusion that it resolves. Or to put it another way parts are just plain wrong.No grey areas ,just wrong. Consider the question regarding Agricultural tractors ,red diesel and speed limits. What a mistake! The definition Agricultural machine ,belongs to the construction and use regulations. These regulations govern amongst other things ,speed limits . The Hydrocarbons(road fuel)duty regulations do not draw vehicle definitions from this source.They are drawn from the Vehicles excise act. This in turn takes its definitions from the Driver and vehicle licensing regulations. The problem is that because the two sets of regulations sound like they are refering to the same thing the unwary often try to hybridise them .Operator licensing for example takes its derivations from the construction and use regulations. Hence an Agricultural machine may become subject to operator licensing . For matters concerning taxation class and type of fuel ,it is irrelevant because these draw definitions from a different source.

I have not quoted verbatim ,the judges summary ,meerly the gist of it. Personaly my expereience is that judges interpret the law. If you choose not to believe that there have been a couple of cases recently where the judge was severely critical of HMRC ,it doesnt matter to me in the slightest.

Hi Openspaceman , How did you guess it was me? The name or my comments on Agricultural/forestry vehicles? Interestingly, regardless of what HMRC say on their guidance notes. They took some serious flack recently in the courts due to over restrictive policys regarding the use of red diesel.They did not just loose the cases ,they were told by the judge to reconsider how they applied the law.

Wrong on most counts ,and I would know. I took the whole issue to the appeal court twice, first time the judge threw out the prossecution barrister and told him to "go home and study law" seccond time I won ,but against an A list barrister!. Hard going that one!The judge accepted that an agricultural/forestry machine was a machine whos definition depended more on what one did with it than on what it looked like. The issue of carrying goods . The law refers to the vehicles primary use, which infers that secondary uses are permisible. The distance one can carry raw materials is different to the distance one can carry produce. But if one is prepared to put the agricultural machine under an operators license, there is no distance restriction. Ultimately it comes down to , as I explained to the judge, not knocking the arse out of it!(Judges do like plain speaking believe it or not!). It comes down to a question of degree. If I were hauling goods (the example I used was tinned dog food ) to scotland behind my agricultural machine , I would be pushing my luck and this would be a primary use. But hauling some cord wood or sawmill logs ,hay etc localy,this would not. One thing to remember. There are two sets of paralell legislation. The construction and use act ,and the Road vehicles excise duty act. Often they sound like they are the same .They are not. They must be treated separately.

Hah , good point,I just assumed that since it was in this section it was already milled. I am currently paying £3.50 per hoppus ft for oak in tree lengths ,taking the good with the bad . I would describe it as grade B. But again ,what I said about the top class stuff, it is a lot harder to place and get a good return.

For smooth ,an angle grinder with a a sanding disk , For flat ,which is entirely different, a planer

Good grief have I accidentaly stumbled onto the "Mothers Net " forum?Guy (ok maybe gal ) asks for a guide , we all know its not that simple ,so probably he needs guidance not Bullshit.I guess he is a bit new to selling timber ,as we all were once. OP ,In an ideal world you would get top price for everything. But this aint that world. So. First you need to know what the raw timber costs , what your conversion rate is (I reccon with a woodmizer ,that it takes 1 1/2 hoppus cube per cubic ft .What your milling costs and standing costs are . Anything else is profit. I find Ash a complete pain to sell ,others may think different. There is always a ready demand for Oak ,but not the top grade stuff, the general ,timber framing stuff. I sell it in quantity at between £18 and £20 per cubic ft . I dont muck about with different prices for longer lengths because the people I deal with buy for a complete project so I take the rough with the smooth. If you have some realy good timber ,it can become a real thorn in the side for a small operator. You wind up having to store it and season it , which takes up space ,and the wastage can be phenomenal. To go for this market ,I think you need to be well established and have an already existing "bread and butter" market. This is my first post on arb talk ,and I guess it is a bit of a rant. They do say start as you mean to go on.