CDMR

It can be due to hammering the wedges in too far. It lifts the middle of the slab you are cutting and points the mill down at the end and, as you say compounds with successive slabs.

I use a 48" Lo Pro on the 661 form milling. It starts to struggle on harder woods, particularly if they have been down for a while but is a useful setup if you are meticulous with your sharpening. Larger than that I switch to the 880. I would have thought for general tree work it would be too slow.

It's a sod though because if you do dry it quickly (or slowly actually) it warps like a bastard and it's generally too small to be easy to get weight on to to keep it flat. Bloody good fire wood, just wish I hadn't spent quite so long preparing it.

The steel section is smooth and has rounded corners so fairly easy for it to roll without something that engages with the guide beam. You can always flip the beam so at least you get two uses. I'm not saying its a good design (in fact I said it wasn't) just what I think they are intended for.

They leave marks on the beam you use as a guide so you can tell if you start to go off vertical as the track from one of the pips disappears. Personally, never use mine for anything but the roughest jobs.

Only air drying slowly then finishing in the kiln slowly works for everything. The big commercial set-ups are about putting big batches through quickly so they can hone in on an optimum balance between speed and quality. If you are producing specialist timber you can't realistically go through this process. The other issue that gets forgotten is that kiln dried timber is only kiln dried when it comes out of the kiln. If you store it anywhere other than in house like conditions it will soon go back to an air died moisture content again. If you have a large stock that could get pretty pricey. You could be better off offering all your timber air dried and then offering a 'finishing' service of kiln drying it where required.

Chaps, Had an enquiry from a lady in Wolverhampton that has a Hornbeam down in this weekends winds. She's looking to have something made from it. It's a bit off my patch so DM if interested and I shall pass details on to her.

Could the works be delayed for a while? Could be worth seeing if Network Rail have any scheduled closures in the future e.g. for track renewal. If you can jump in on someone else's closure it may not cost and you may not have to work within 45 minute windows. Doesn't look like there are overheads or third rail so could be fairly simple.

To the timber, no. To the saw, maybe. To your lungs, definitely.

That's going to be some heavy work!

Better?

and I cannot Lie. You other fellas can't deny.. This log was pretty rotten but got some 1.5m x 1m slabs at 50mm The other was very similar, covered in really deep burrs and about .75m x 3m I also got a load of big burrs up to 30" diameter. Any ideas as to the best thing to do with them? I am assuming, seal and dry very slowly then find a turner with a really big lathe? I believe they are silver maple.

It looks awesome but doesn't it turn it into a thief magnet?

The other problem with a trad planer is workshop space. You need a lot of infeed and out feed space as opposed to moving the head over the work.

Definitely interesting, what's the likely price?