DuncanH

Most people say elbow height and that's probably what a beginner should start with. Personally I tend to do a lot of hollow forms and find it easier to sit whilst doing them, so I have the lathe slightly higher to suit my tall ikea stool.

Those 'kerbs' are generally known as kickboards, at least when we make boardwalks

There's been loads here in a nearby wood on the border between Northumberland and Cumbria

I can't find a spec for the size of particle filtered out (I don't think it's part of the TH1-TH3 classification), but the standard filter will remove dust particles. There's a cheap replaceable pre-filter which removes larger particles and then a more expensive main/fine filter. I've never had to replace the main filter in 2+ years, although I've not been turning much recently. You can also get particle filters which will reduce gas or organic vapour exposure but I've not had a reason to use one. I think I've replaced maybe a couple of the pre-filters in 2 years (you might be able to vacuum/blow them clean if you want to save a little expense). How long the filters last will depend on if you have any other form of dust control - I have an extractor which I only use when sanding and a home made ambient filter (with a fan pulling air through a couple of pleated paper filter). I was lucky to get my Versaflo parts separately on Ebay - the helmet was unused and the fan unit/battery was sold as possibly faulty (it worked first time!). I got the lot for less than half price. If you're comparing the Powercap, Trend and Versaflo, TH1 has 10% inward leakage of air (including any dust), TH2 has 2% inward leakage and TH3 has 0.2% inward leakage. The only disadvantage of the Versaflo and similar units is that the air intake is at the base of your back and if you suffer from flatulence it can sometimes be unpleasant!

For woodturning I use the 3m Versaflo 300 series system with their 306 helmet but it's not the cheapest. It's comfortable and it filters to TH3. It's much, much better than the JSP Powercap which I used to have. Also note, there was discussion on various woofturning groups a couple of years ago about the advertised filtration classification of the JSP and Axminster units. JSP class them as TH1P and then say that they're equivalent to FFP2, but the 2 classifications can't be compared as they're for different types of masks (I believe the TH classification system includes inwards leakage). The Advertising Standards Agency ruled twice against one particular shop who was miss-selling the PowerCap as suitable for hardwood dust. Axminster refunded several people who claimed against them for miss-selling their version.

These days I use Osmo Top Oil (designed for kitchen work tops and is food safe) or Rustins Danish Oil (which is foodsafe). I haven't used mineral oil (either Chestnut or Ikea version) as it doesn't dry. I one had a chopping board which had been in my house for several months with oil applied and apparently ok. When I gave it to someone their house obviously had different humidity/heat levels and the board exuded oil over their nice tablecloth. I've heard of other wood turners having the same problem.

I used to work for an ecology company and ended up bat surveying when there wasn't enough land management work to do. Training took 3 sessions of going out with them on evening or dawn surveys and sitting with members of their staff until they were happy that I was confident in using the detectors and recorders, could fill out the forms, could ID a few different bat species and new what features to look at on buildings or trees. The initial surveys were unpaid until I was signed off but once they were happy I was added to their list of surveyors and I still do contract work 1 or 2 nights per week. This is mainly vantage point/stationary surveys with the occasional walking survey. I think most ecology companies round the country take on contractors to do such work and most will be willing to take on beginners. After 4 years I'm reasonably competent but there's still a lot to learn. As a contractor to an ecology company you would just carry out the survey and hand data to them. This year I've started analysing data at home just to try to further my knowledge which adds a whole new level of complexity. I've never done any training with other groups or organisations, but for some activities you need to be licensed (investigating roosts, handling bats). My first port of call would be local ecology companies and bat groups. If you have climbing tickets the ecology companies may well want to work with you as it's something they often don't have themselves and close up tree surveys for bats are often required.

We have a couple of SSSI nature reserves where we've been working to decrease bracken for quite a few years. The main one is a very steep narrow valley that was prepped for plantation years ago but never planted into the valley bottom. This makes it difficult or impossible to work with machinery and we can't use herbicide. Our only option is bracken bashing with volunteers. It used to take a group of maybe 10 people around 2 days to cover the whole site using these weed slashers. We usually went twice per year but ideally it would have been perhaps 3 times. Silverline 427615 Weed Slasher 800mm WWW.EBAY.CO.UK Steel head and wood handle. For clearing weeds and long grass. Goods under £150 - £61.95 Goods over £150 - £69.95... Now a group of 6 can cover the site in less than half a day. Some studies suggested cutting, some suggested bruising. Any damage is better than none. It's a feasible solution if you have a squad of volunteers but not pratical otherwise. On another site we trialed a bracken roller towed behind a quad. It didn't work well for that site because of the terrain but I know that the RSPB had some success with one at Geltsdale. The roller is just a mechanical wayof crushing stems. Driving over the area will also help. I think this is the one we trialled Landbase WWW.BRACKENBRUISER.CO.UK As has been mentioned, I'm pretty sure they changed the rules on asulox last year and it can now only be applied by helicopter over a very short period in summer.

We also have multiple chains which we swap out during the day on our Alaskan mill with the original bar clamps. Yes, it takes some time, but one advantage is that it gives a break from constant sawing, noise, vibration etc and gives the saw a break from non-stop cutting.

we were talking about those log peelers/debarkers yesterday. At the minute we're using a spud/mutt/sharpened spade to debark before running an Alaskan Mill and the debarker would be faster and less tiring. I've also seen ones which can be used for hollowing logs to make troughs quickly. Anyone used them and have a current supplier in the UK?

I work for Northumberland Wildlife Trust based in Gosforth. We take out hardwood now and again but our sites aren't usually that accessible for machines so when we want timber extracting we usually use an Alaskan Mill (limited to 90cm from memory). If you're after planks we might be able to supply something if you let me know what size. We have a few planks (oak, sycamore, ash, cherry) which have been air drying for a few years but we don't dry much. We're currently taking out larch but may have oak, sycamore and a few cherry soon. Maybe some aspen but I doubt that's of much interest. Send me a msg and let me know what sort of sizes you're after. Duncan

I wouldn't use a TCT circular saw blade - they're not designed to run at the the speed of a brush cutter and I've seen reports of them shattering. If you hit rocks or debris the tct teeth may well break off too. A Stihl Scrather blade will get through 1/2" without a problem (they'll cut much thicker). Ideally you'll change to a clearing saw guard as well. The bore is the bore is 25.4mm according to Stihl Scratcher Tooth Circular Saw Blade 200-80 - 4112 713 4201 | Stihl Parts WWW.LSENGINEERS.CO.UK Scratcher Tooth Circular Saw Blade 200mm, 80 Teeth, 25.4mm Hole Genuine Stihl Part OEM Part No. 4112 713 4201

I usually see 3 or 4 adders per year whilst at work in Northumberland. One colleague sees them more often as they prefer the sites he works on. Numbers have been fairly constant over the last 5 years or so One of my favourite jobs a few years back was vegetation clearance on road repair job through a SSSI where there were known to be adders and slow worms. We had to move the 8 or 9 we found in to prepared hibernacula. No grass snakes up here unfortunately

Depending on what exactly you're after, whether you have a beard, how hot your work place gets, you could go for a simple mask which has replaceable filters such as https://www.arco.co.uk/products/126002/56580/3M+7500+Silicone+Half+Mask+Respirator?BV_SessionID=@@@@1295888363.1550758186@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccceadhhmemdhklcflgcefkdfggdhhi.0 It can take P3 filters for particles (wood/mdf) as well as catridges for gas and vapour, plus a combined one I believe. I used for years back for dust and it worked well and later for gas (simple spraying finish in the shed) and again it worked well. The only problem is that if you have a beard then getting a decent seal is tricky/impossible. They can also get a bit hot. You can use separate ear defenders with them and they're relatively cheap. The other option is a powered respirator. I have no experience of the Trend one but the 3m Versaflo is fantastic, although rather pricey. It does dust particles without a problem and apparently you can get a combined dust and fume filter cartridge (which should do petrol). I have the optional ear defenders on mine and they work very well. If you're patient you can get a bargain on ebay - mine was unused and I think it was around £150.

If you apply too much pressure whilst sanding you can get heat checks with a lot of woods - that might have caused all those small cracks. Once they're there you almost certainly won't get rid of the by sanding. What grit did you start at and how did you move up? By the look of some of those marks you'll need to start at 80 or possibly go back to a gouge/scraper. When you can't see most of the marks move to 120, then 180. Then finer. Only move to the next grit when you can't see the marks from the sanding previous one. Sorry if this is going over stuff you already know.

We have a small wood which was planted up 8 years ago as a coppice rotation with blocks of hazel and blocks of elm. The reason for the elm was to provide food for a population of white letter hairstreak butterflies which we know are nearby. Elm is their only food source. The plan was to coppice the elm regularly to keep them low and hopefully avoid DED. We've had a few years of coppicing but haven't yet got through each block once. This summer I noticed some of the top tips of the larger trees (just big enough to be splitting their tree tubes) were dying off - loosing leaves and snapping. Obviously my first thought was DED so I read up on it when I got back and on the next visit I cut down a tree (maybe 8cm diameter at the base) which was showing the symptoms. Removing bark and scraping back a little I found what appears to be fungal growth in most of the areas I checked - near the base and at various points along the tree. When I looked online the tips dying and snapping appears to be a common first symptom of DED referred to as Shepherd’s crooks. What I've seen below the bark doesn't exactly match photos I've seen online for DED but perhaps I've found it in the early stages, or maybe it's something else. Yesterday I cut down 10+ trees in one small area and every one I checked except 1 had marks below the bark - some of them were over 10cm diameter and some were no more than 5cm. Height wise they ranged from around 2m to over 4m. None of them had the dark streaking which is shown in most symptom lists and none had obvious marks/dark rings when I looked at the freshly cut surfaces. I didn't see any signs of beetle activity in the trees I cut. So, is this DED or could it be something else? Either way, it looks as though we'll need to cut the elm blocks as a priority over this winter. Thanks for any help Duncan photos attached...

There's one available in the US but you'll need a transformer http://conestogaworks.com/woodburners.html I like the idea of the foot operated power switch so you can keep your hands free to use the kit, but I'm still not keen on trying it myself

If anything I'd say they made my earphone fit more closely to my ears than when I use them with the supplied rubber fittings - I've never been able to get those to fit well and stay in the ear. The original earphones I got were Sennheiser in-ear and Boots had never fitted to those before so they sent them away during the process to make sure the fit was a good one. Since then I've used them with lots of cheap replacement ear-phones and they almost all use the same fitting. When you get them you could also request a set of plain ear plugs from the same mold.

I got some custom made ones at the opticians in Boots. They can make them just as noise blockers or they can make them to fit in ear headphones which come with the rubber inserts. If you take your headphones in with you they can check the fit. It's an odd experience having silicon injected into your ear canal to get the custom fit but mine fit well and I'd happily wear them all day. Once the silicon is set they send it away to produce the ear plugs. Price was less than £100 and I've had them for over 6 years

I did a clearing job in a SSSI before some road repairs could take place after a landslip, just below a layby. In a single stretch maybe 40m x 5m I found 20+ tyres, some with rims, bags of sawdust, empty gas canisters, bottles, shoes. I was clearing head high bracken and you couldn't see far into it so it was clear a couple of metres then remove litter then move to the next couple of metres. Really tedious! And one of the reasons it was SSSI was because of adders and slow worms so as I was working I had to be careful not to hit any. We ended up moving 6 or 7 adders (catching them in buckets was fun!) and dozens of slow worms. The job spec was brushcut about 5cm off the ground, do a fingertip search of the area for reptiles then strim to ground level. When they rebuilt the road they left out the layby

A few times now I've used powdered metals with thin super glue. Aluminium, brass and bronze. Fill the hole and drip the glue one it. You can build up in layers to make sure the stuff at the bottom gets enough glue and if the hole is really deep you can pack out with other material (sawdust even). I've also experimented with coffee grounds but preferred the look of metal

If it was down to me, or my own saw that's what I'd do, possibly getting it ported as well (I think that's the term, for getting more power out of it). The boss has decided to get the dealer to do it as we get a good discount off them when buying new equipment and supplies so good to keep in with them.

We recently had a problem getting out 660 to start. Took it to the dealer and he guessed with a couple of pulls that it probably some serious work, due to water in the fuel. He took it out back, tipped some of fuel into a jar and brought it back out. Within a minute there was an obvious, fairly deep layer of water in the jar. They've had to deal with a growing number of machines down to problems with ethanol in fuel. Not necessarily caused by old fuel (we get through it fairly quickly), but a growing problem caused by the amount of ethanol in petrol these days - apparently it draws water from the atmosphere into the fuel and he claimed he could cause it to happen within half an hour just by blowing a fan across the top of some fuel. We've always used the cheaper Stihl red 2 stroke oil but he suggested moving on to the green Super as it has an additive which will slow down this water production. Another option if Aspen or Stihl's Motomix - an expensive way to go (although cheaper than costly work on a 660!).

Meindl, Scarpa, Lowa, Altberg, Salomon, Berghaus..... Any of the decent brands should be good and last. Just depends on the shape of your foot as to which fits best. Don't buy online and try to find a decent shop which does proper fitting. A decent shop will also let you wear them round the house and take them back if you decide they don't fit. If you can't get a good fit Altberg do custom boots, although expensive and there's often a 6 month waiting list. Also try on at the end of the day as your feet will be up to 1/2 size bigger, possibly even more. Best pair I ever had were German army mountain boots (possibly Lowa), unused, bought for £100 from a surplus store

About time too. There are some products which haven't been banned, mainly ones which are applied and left on for some time before being washed off - they'll be added to the ban in the near future. There are natural alternatives such as crushed nut shell husks so perhaps we'll start seeing more of them now