TuscanPhil

I'm not sure where you get a £60 set of blades from? That's the price difference, not the price. I'm sure if the Northern Arb blades were no good there'd be lots of feedback on here - and there isn't (from what I've found - or not found as the case may be).

Global Recycling at £190 ex VAT (I'm private so have to pay the VAT) - M300 Set of knives (£190.00 ex. VAT) - Global Recycling WWW.GLOBALRECYCLING.EU Jo Beau M300 replacement knives or Northern Arb at £140 ex VAT - Rotatech Chipper Blades To Fit Jo Beau M300 - Northern Arb Supplies WWW.NORTHERNARBSUPPLIES.CO.UK Browse and shop Rotatech Chipper Blades To Fit Jo Beau M300. Genuine Rotatech Jo Beau type blades. £60 (inc VAT) price difference between the two.

😧 No please don't do that! Do you also sell spares blades for JB M300 by any chance?

There's your answer - ask to see their calibration certificate when you show them yours.

yeah, I'm pretty much there - where best (cheapest) to buy?

I think I need new chipper blades for my JB M300 - does anyone know the min width that blades can be sharpened down to or is it just a case of 'when the adjustment runs out (or can't be adjusted enough)' then they need replacing? Is Northern Arb the best/cheapest place to get them from? I'm only a home user - about 10 hours per year, so I'm not looking for super duper made of unobtanium last a lifetime megga hard blades, just blades that will do. I have a local saw blade sharpening place to sharpen them to the correct angles (all 4 faces) and my 'old' set were sharpened but I think they were pretty much on their last legs then.

My A4 sheet of 1.5mm cork gasket material arrived (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254504193278 - all £3.25 of it) and I successfully cut out a fuel cap washer but sadly it didn't solve the issue - more 'fault finding' revealed that it is the duck bill check valve that has failed (in fact it was just a mushy mess) within the fuel cap, just behind the brass breather filter thingy, so I'm on the hunt for a replacement (or two as the oil cap also needs one). Seems I need an Oregon product (an equivalent part) so I'm hunting for a (reasonably priced) Oregon 07-004 Duck Bill Valve. Amazon have them for around £7.85 but I'm as sure as I can be that there is a cheaper source out there somewhere! The Homelite number is UP06862. Any parts spotters amongst you know of a cheap source?

Just to pick out this bit - I'm surrounded by the stuff! Well lots of (poorly shaped) oak and narrow leaf lime, aged (and poorly) cherry and a few other odds and sods - about 4 acres worth that I need to slowly over time get back into better shape!

Thanks Andy! Great post! To answer some of the points raised: First go at milling, so it was just to see how I got on. I was only milling a reasonably small log, so wanted to get a few boards out of it so didn't go for 'fat' boards. I was actually aiming for 1.5" which is what was set on the Mill, but with it being my first use, I now know to 'calibrate' the measurements to get a size that I want rather than to rely on the graduations on the Mill itself. The boards generated from this log have no specific use so they will likely end up as 'rough' garden furniture. Ref the flattening - how do you go about this? Is it a case of going over them with a power plane, or rigging up a router sled and doing it that way? I'm guessing a belt sander will be too slow but good for later / finer finishing? I don't have (or have access to) a planer thicknesser and I'm guessing my local timber yard (https://nickstimber.co.uk/) wont want me dragging 'gash' boards to their yard, upsetting their machinery settings etc for their commercially produced timber. As it stands, I'm just looking to 'cut my teeth' and find out what works and what doesn't. Once i know more what I'm doing, I have a large Poplar that, if I can do it successfully - need to get a 36" bar though, might be used for weather boarding on a wooden garage I have, a large Doug Fir that I want to mill beams from (so the centre square section of the log?) with a potential to use it for building a new wooden and brick porch on our home. They seem to good to be cut into firewood (which I can use plenty of as my central heating is biomass). Once I know more what I'm doing, I have a roughly 6-7m long (has a fork in the last 1m), max dia 45-50cm oak trunk that could be used to make some (hopefully) nice boards with - again, no end use planned for them at the moment, but maybe once I learn more about this whole thing!

Oh,forgot to say, boards now resting on my pallet floor of my open sided wood shed, stickers in between boards, stickers lined up vertically, heavy weight (old 10 or 12" gate post about 4' long) on top to try and keep them flat. Did I ask - are they dry yet?

If by expensive you mean 30p for a rubber or cork gasket, then yes, I'll happily throw it away and spend £500-£800 or more on a 'new;' saw - or I could just fix this one and when it breaks catastrophically, bin it then and get something else if I've still got any wood to use it on? So far the saw has cost me (outside of the purchase price) a carb overhaul kit - £3.13, a carb inlet boot (from America so 50% of cost was postage) - £19.79, a spark plug - £2.52, and 3 new chains (2 for the 30" bar, one for the 18" bar) - £38.30, so it hasn't exactly been expensive in spare parts (yet). Tried an O ring, too sloppy, so I tried 2 O rings, one inside the other - still didn't work! It might come down to that - I have some old cycle tyre inner tubes that might be fuel tolerant. It's just getting neat circles cut out that will be the tricky bit but I could try a scalpel blade in a compass. Maybe somthing from the local plumbing supplies might fit...?

About 3 and a half usable boards (1.75" thick) out of my 'playing' today. The top and bottom edges I can chop up and use to make Bird Box fronts with, (or just stick 'em through my biomass once they are dry) or something else... The 2 widest boards will probably end up as rustic benches around the garden, the slightly less wide boards might be used to make the end supports or something else... Oh, and are they dry yet??? 2 more pics!

They are actually quite strong. 3 or 4mm galvanised steel. I could probably pick the log up by the ladder with them. Nope, just a standard 3/8 semi chisel lo pro ground to 10 degrees. By pith to pith, do you mean through the centreline? All new terminology to me I'm afraid! I cut this one like that as my ladder supports wouldn't have given me much more clearance to cut the top board off first. If I screw the ladder on and pack it out for my next try, then I shouldn't see the banana effect?

New semi chisel lo pro chains arrived today, so I set about re-grinding one to 10 deg so I could mill with it, but I've encountered another issue - my fuel tank cap leaks when the saw is on its side. I'm 99% sure it is the cork gasket so I need to source a new one (or a rubber one) as I've temporarily pinched something from another 2 stroke engine, which slows the leak to a small drip every so often. Any ideas where I can get a 25mm ID 40mm OD (approx) cork (or fuel proof rubber) gasket? I've had a quick look on ebay but nothing pops out at me that isn't a stupid price. This is what I need (or something similar that will do) https://www.ebay.com/itm/292535774410

Having bought myself a 41 year old saw, a new 'chinese' chainsaw mill, some assorted spare parts (for the chainsaw to get it running), I've managed to have my very first go at chainsaw milling this morning! I've been reading this forum (from the beginning - I'm now on page 77 working my way back to page 1) to try and learn from others and see what methods have been used. I've fabricated a couple of brackets to hold my ladder in place for the first cut, but these only held the ladder at the far end - I need to make 2 more for the front end to hold the ladder and stop it moving as I go down the log. I've also made some 'homemade' wedges which are not that great - so propper wedges are on my shopping list unless I make some better ones! Apart from not getting particularly well centered on the log (it's only a 'throwaway' log to have a play on), I found that the saw gap flexed open rather than closing down, as I went along the log - there must have been a lot of tension? in the log? A few pikkies! I made ladder supports out of some dexion and plywood - will make something a bit better as I learn what works and what doesn't. The clamps simply bolt through a hole in the dexion and have an additional nut/bolt to provide some tension as the plate is moved onto the ladder rail. First cut went well to split the log in two (first two milling pics), but when I did the second cut (to make a board) I can see some marks where I must have stopped milling to put in the wedges (3rd milling pic) - is this because I stopped too quickly, too slowly, started too quickly or something else? I set 1.5" on the mill but it cut about 1.75" - no worries, the boards will probably only be destined for some benches around the garden until I get a bit better and can mill for a specific purpose! Might need a bigger bar as well as I have a large Poplar to get through as well as a reasonably large Douglas Fir (see https://arbtalk.co.uk/forums/topic/121764-trees-for-milling-various/ for pics)