TuscanPhil

I currently have a hard nose 30" and a sprocket nose 18"

Mine's an 84cc and takes up to a 36" bar according to spec

Cheers both - thanks for the positive steer towards Oregon. I'm aware of @Rob D and the excellent service he supplies - but as with any/all of my milling, it is on a relative shoestring and I can't ignore the price I can get the bar from elsewhere. I know that he (sometimes / always?) gives forum discount, but I can't see him giving a discount of £30 or so on a £100 purchase - happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.

Hi Bolla, I asked a similar question a few years back regarding my Entec CH25 - didn't really receive good answers but the general consensus was that any general purpose grease would do - think I ended up using LM grease as that's what I had a tin of. My old thread is here:

A question for those still reading..... I want to get a longer bar for my Homelite and to use on my 'domestic' (for home use only) milling- it can take up to a 36" so that's what I'm looking to buy. Bit of a 'double edged sword' though - the 36" bar gets me an extra 6" on what I've already got, but it also comes with a sprocket nose (correct term?) so should take less power than my 30" hard nose bar. I win by needing less power (or working the saw less hard) but lose by losing the sprocket distance, so I'll probably only gain about 3" at best. BUT, my Homelite bar is probably quite well worn and hence will have slop from side to side with the chain. A new bar and new chains (and new drive sprocket) will be much 'tighter' and have less wobble and hopefully work my saw less hard and give better milling results. Whatever I decide, I can't get a 'new' bar for the Homelite (Bar Mount - D096 or D196), so I need to modify the bar mount from another bar - choice between an Oregon bar and a Rotatech bar - it will only be used for milling and the odd bit of cross cutting any large felled trees that present themselves to me (I'll certainly NOT be doing the felling!! Far too scary and I'm not trained.) The Oregon bar looks 'fatter' so should sit flatter - if that makes sense, whereas the Rotatech bar looks slimmer. Oregon takes 115 links and the Rotatech takes ?? drive links. Is the number of links very important? Clearly I realise the right number for the bar else it won't fit -but does it really make any difference (other than sharpening time) about the number of links? As they all say - what would you do? Or what would you recommend?

I have been using an SHT TDA 25Kw for the last 4 years - heating a 2000L thermal store. It also has a pellet chamber on the side (not separate burner) and is auto start. Just load it with logs, press the 'on' button, and wait for it to 'call' for heat and it lights the boiler automatically. It uses hot air to light the handful of pellets (literally a small handful), which then light the logs, which then heat the thermal store. Burns once per day in the winter when cold - 1 deg or so, (though I do extend the burn by topping it up with logs while it is still burning) and once per 7 or 8 days in the summer for hot water only. One thing to be aware of, that wasn't made clear to me, is that my pump system and boiler, like to put 50-55deg C water through the rads, so as we've been renovating the house, all rads are being swapped out for 'oversized' rads - or for us - normal sized rads. There's a conversion chart online for different water flow temps in rads, but ours are about 1/3 bigger than a gas boiler heated house would use. One benefit of the SHT TDA is that is also has an internet enabled interface, so I can control the boiler from my phone when out and about. It has a 'holiday' mode, so you can load it before you go away and it will start itself automatically after X days (whatever you set). SHT do 4 boilers in that range 15, 25, 30 and 40Kw. Don't underestimate the amount of logs you'll need, we use about 15-20 M3 per year. Happy to answer any questions etc. Oh yes, the ash pan needs cleaning about once per 3-4 weeks over the winter (assuming you are burning good wood and not crap pallets etc) Not my boiler but it looks like this (boiler, thermal store and expansion vessel) http://www.efficientenergycentre.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/IMG_3133-800x380.jpg

Cheers @gobbypunk, sorry I missed your reply the other day! I've bought a hand-winch but have not yet had chance to try it out - need to work out an 'end stop' to pull against. Thanks for the suggestions regarding furniture but I don't quite follow your comment about a flat shelf on the underside?

Yes, er - no, erm , maybe!!! It's about to have its 42nd birthday on the 5th March (1979 was it's creation year!), so ultimately , yes, that's what I'm using!!

Lots of powdery sawdust - might be my chain sharpening technique (chain at 10deg), might be the 'old' chainsaw bar (and a wobbling chain) might be my technique - lots of variables. To sort the bar issue, I'll probably get a D009 mount bar and file it to fit my D096 mount - I'm told it is possible, but I've not yet bought the bar or been brave to try!

Another quick play today - chance to cut 2 more boards. Also managed to 'get a new badge' today - my first bit of metal!! Woo Hoo - when will my badge arrive in the post? I think the chainsaw took most of it out, the only visible bits are about 1-1.5mm sq so maybe it was a piece of wire used to hold the baby stem to a pole while it grew initially? It's pretty much in the central core and is a good 2-3m up the trunk!! Oh, and there's a 'healthy' huge split up the middle but as the boards are not intended for anything special, I'm not overly worried. It will probably only end up as a garden table and bench seat.

I just use a suitable long zip tie on the handle! can be 'folded' (or rotated) out of the way when not needed. If it breaks, just get another one. Cost? - pence!

Another one regarding Moisture Meters you might not have seen.

Cheers Will, good to know. I have plenty of old pallets so maybe I'll set about cutting some of them up (on a dry day...) and swap them over when I move the boards to my woodshed.

Chainsaw no longer needed due to change in career!

As it wasn't raining today, I thought I'd have another play in the garden, so I set about an old Turkey Oak (I think) stem that was felled in Jan/Feb 2016 and has been lying on the ground ever since. It is only destined to become a bench for the garden or similar, so nothing ventured, nothing lost. I didn't 'de-bark' it first which probably didn't help the teeth on my chain, and only managed to get 2 boards cut and the top 'waste' slice as well before I knew it was time to start clearing up before I lost the light. The 2 boards are cut to 2.5" and there will be quite a bit of edge waste, but if I can get 4 good 'planks', then I can turn those into a long table-top and fashion some seats and the remainder of the table out of the rest, once I've milled it. All 3 boards (2 good and 1 waste) are now sat back on the rest of the unsawn log (with stickers - roof battens!) and covered with an old groundsheet to keep the worst of the rain off before I can work out how to move them into my well ventilated woodshed and under cover.

I bought both in the end - she seems pleased so far. Has tried the Oakastune but not the Jakoti. Thanks for the recommendation.

Mind sharing what the charge was please (per set of blades if you had more than 2 done)?

Thanks - she has secateurs - many - half a dozen or so, but are they any good? Mainly not, so maybe a decent set of manual ones - thanks for the Oakastune recommendation.

Any recommendations for electric secateurs, say up to £100? I've seen the Bosch Easyprune for around £75 but interested to know what else is recommended. Foe use by my wife in the garden rather than for 'professional' use, but will still be put to some quite heavy work (1.5 acre garden with lots of herbaceous borders and shrubs etc!!).

Depends on variables outside of your control. I've been registered for a while and have been used twice - by the same person both times. The variables are: Where people are working and need to get rid of chip/logs/etc How many other tip sites are nearby What their tip-site write-up says about ease of access, how much is wanted, what is wanted, what is not wanted etc It's just a waiting game by all accounts....

Guess I should have put a smiley face after the 'you didn't flag it up to me' as this seems to have been taken the wrong way by some on here,

Yes it's a tool I want, but it is not a tool I currently need - I don't have any boards or wood to put through it and I don't have any projects on the go, so I can take my time and find one closer.

Ah but you didn't flag it up to me. In my defence, it doesn't appear when I look on Gumtree 'less than 30 miles' but does if I look at 'less than 50 miles' and I'd generally not look that far.

He sold it earlier this summer - it's no longer available.

Do you have a link to that? I can't seem to find it.