adamelder

That was quick. Tree Officer came out, took a look and said remove the three oaks as soon as possible. Severe agrilus infestation with extensive structural decay.

Thank you for the thoughts gents. I've written to the Council Tree Officer this morning asking for advice.

Difficult to say what the crowns are like in leaf. I've only been there in winter. The road is used by a new-ish housing development of about 20 houses. It's not a through road so that's the only traffic. Looking up into the trees, I can see a fair few dead limbs. There are houses to the left of the pic just out of shot that would be in range of a faller if it went in that direction. The Residents Association have expressed concerns over the trees.

These are three oak trees on the road boundary of a piece of woodland I've just bought. It looks to me like there's significant decay in the trunks, splits and dried stem bleeds. There's also the D shaped beetle holes in the trunks. I'd welcome any opinions on whether to ask for removal permission (TPO on the trees) or if remedial work is a possibility. The road was put in in 1989 so I'm thinking that maybe during the construction of that these trees, being very close to have had some root damage at the time leading to weakness later.

If you look next to the oil adjuster you'll see a little pin that sticks up. Push that in and you can then increase the oil flow to the very maximum. It's hidden away on page 31 of the user manual.

Did you knock in the little pin inside the oiler? That increases the oil flow a fair bit.

Beautiful work! I've got one of these things because I can't really justify the cost of a dedicated pillar drill. It works pretty well, certainly better than just eyeballing to get vertical holes... https://www.buildaworkshop.co.uk/product/4522-tec-mobil-drill-stand?gclid=Cj0KEQiAzZHEBRD0ivi9_pDzgYMBEiQAtvxt-DnTYQPl9lsZAcK8ErsXTvzLtClhBUExTghqictAZgQaAv7I8P8HAQ

Beautiful! When I started milling I used to think that it took an awful long time for each cut. But then I put a stop watch on it and found that in reality it doesn't!

Get a longer one. Hold it as far towards the end as possible to get as much leverage as possible. Grind the hook sharp and give it a kick to "set" it in the tree. A long one is excellent for ripping old flooring up too!

Excellent!

Oak is a nightmare to dry. It's also not good for chopping boards. It's too hard and blunts knife edges very quickly. Beech is ok but sycamore or ash is best. Mill the oak, it might be really nice but use it for something else.

What I do is get the clamp as close as I dare, tighten it up as tight as it needs to be. Then I run the chain by hand. If it runs, fine. If it doesn't, I shift the clamp down the bar, tighten it again and see if the chain will run by hand. Not very scientific but it seems to work.

That looks very interesting. What's the plans?

Had 661 for about a year. No problems apart from an occasional tendency to "flood" and need 10 mins before restart but that was possible me simply not giving the cord a sharp enough pull. I've used a 50 inch bar a few times with no difficulty. But usually 42 lo pro.

It's interesting to hear how long things take. I don't really measure time taken for any real reason. I reckon the last table took maybe about 20 hours but making the wee pegs for attaching the top took about an hour each, maybe more. It's the fiddly things that test patience! A good friend of mine is a full time professional wood craftsman who makes some spectacular work. He's working on a carver chair just now. He says it'll take him a week - 10 days. So it's easy to see why he'll charge maybe £1500 for that. Huge respect!

Butterfly - I draw them out on the piece of wood I'm going to make them from and cut them out on a bandsaw. Then I draw round the wooden butterfly onto the surface where the crack is. Then I use a combination of a multi tool and chisel to chip out the shape. To fit the butterfly I sand the edges to chamfer it slightly so that it fits into the hole but gets tighter as it goes in. The top is fixed in place as in the picture. It means that the top slab can expand and contract if it wants to but the top is reasonably firmly attached to the base. So there's one of these pegs at the end of each supporting arm.

Fantastic! Great joinery. How long to make?

Table finished today, before and after. Here's a spalted beech and elm table with a slab of steel thrown in. Table is 7 foot long. The pedestal is elm, single chunk 58 inches at widest, 5 inch thick. Base is 8mm steel plate. I thought I was taking the easy route by having a one legged table. In reality it took just as long as a 4 legged version! The top sits on two cross pieces (hidden) and is just attached with 4 toggles into routed slots to allow for movement in the slab. I used West Systems resin with bronze powder for filling cracks and butterflys to help with stability.

I've milled a lot of sycamore. Found the easiest thing to do is to mill an extra 5 mill thickness and then plane down once seasoned. I know that's a wee bit wasteful but much better than having to trash the whole board. I also have a stack that stickered with lengths of blue mains polypipe. There's no sticker staining at all. Good airflow through the stack makes a big difference too.

I ran a GB 42 inch bar with lo-pro for quite a while and it was fine. Went through hardwoods ok. Eventually though I did upgrade to an MS661 and although it wasn't a huge amount faster it was a lot more consistent in the cut. It's worth the upgrade but have to say I was pretty happy milling with the 42 on the MS441.

You've opened a fantastic can of worms! It is tremendously addictive. As the other guys have said, the first slice is vital to get right. If it's wrong in any way, the rest of your cuts will be too. Make sure to keep the cut open using wedges. Check everything twice. Keep the chain very sharp. Maybe invest in the Granberg Precision Grinder. Try to never run out of fuel in the middle of the cut. Don't stop during the cut. It tends to leave an edge on the surface. Stack your wood as soon as you can after cutting. Consider getting an auxiliary oiler if you're using a bar over 36-40 inch. Oil is your best friend, especially with a long bar, on a long cut, in dry hardwood. Think about what you're doing before you do it. You've kind of got to talk to the tree, see the possibilities in it, look at it from every angle before you decide where to make the first cut. Watch out for foreign objects in the tree. Nails, wire, bullets, golf balls, stones, all sorts of things get buried in trees during their life. It's a real bummer hitting a nail and having to regrind the chain. It happens more often than you might think, especially with garden or town trees. If the bark is muddy give it a clean with a stiff brush or even a pressure hose. Grit really dulls the chain quickly. A ripping chain generally leaves a better finish. The more you do, the longer you do it, the less problems you encounter. I've been milling for about 10 years though and still screw up sometimes but the cockups get less and less.

Mostly used on the mill but taken off just to slice this elm crutch. 50 inch Canon bar on MS661

Douglas fir. Single slab with a long mitre that was very tricky to get square due to just using a hand circular saw. The scale on the saw was miles off the claimed 45 degrees so had to befinished with a plane. But even at that it only took a day to make including sanding and finishing with Danish oil. There's a single stretcher underneath just to help the two legs stay true to the top. There's three long screws through each joint, recessed and hidden with plugs cut from an off cut. Pretty much invisible.

Oak table, so needs a good slathering of oil every now and then. Larch bench.