Mr. Ed

Not just rich folk - when we bought our little bit of woodland we were introduced to one of our neighbours with the unspoken comment “this is xxxx. He’ll be poaching your deer.” The first time we accepted some venison from him made us co-conspirators.

9 hours ago, Squaredy said:

Such a shame that the beautiful deer are the basic reason the Caledonian Pine Forest is a shadow of its former self.

 

Beautiful as the Scottish Highlands are they should be full of trees, not as naked as a naked thing.  As we have killed all the Deer's natural predators I guess it is up to us to hunt them enough to keep them in check.  Sustainable meat production I would say.

 

Down my way we have Deer, Grey squirrels and sheep to ensure natural regeneration is a rarity.  Sad really, and you try speaking out against the squirrels!

Our pine marten really does work. Not a grey been seen and reds not common but present. Has anyone tried introducing them? 

14 hours ago, ucoulddoit said:

 

I’ve found the attached tables useful over the years to work out the size and spacing of stickers for different types of timber and thicknesses. They don’t mention mulberry, but a quick look online brought up a tendency to checking and slow to dry. Not sure what thickness your planks are, but I’d hazard a guess at ½ inch sticks about a foot apart. And plenty of weight on top as already mentioned.

 

Andrew

What’s that from please? And as a numpty to the world of cutting wood, is there a “bible” on it? I’ve seen people biggjng up a chainsaw book but is there one for more conventional

milling?

3 hours ago, trigger_andy said:

Managed to knock out over 40 slabs. All 2-3”.

One log had some “Roughty Rot”. The Farmer can keep them. 🤣


 

“Roughty rot”. Lovely.  Will steal that phrase, living as we do on the banks of the Roughty River!

35 minutes ago, skc101fc said:

If the change happened suddenly and wasn't cured with a blade change, have you smacked into one of the blade guides to push it offline? Or a track bed support has loosened, allowing the track to flex as the sawhead passes over it, effectively changing the logs height?
Shaun

Exactly so - lots of conifer crud ul

there so the guides is the first thing to look at. 

42 minutes ago, skc101fc said:

54 minutes ago, Mr. Ed said:

Hi SKC101fc (or may I call you SKC?)
I do have a whole load of shite that I’m sawing so that’s a good idea, as is the dodgy blade. However the problem developed suddenly and I’ve changed 
the blade and done some different  woods with the same problem. I’ve been using the fine weather this weekend to knock down some of our thousands of dead and dying ash trees so haven’t done any fiddling yet. 
I have some raised flowerbeds to make from Leylandii and may get round to it tomorrow and will have a tweak of my bearings beforehand.
We’re just over the Kerry side of the border - a few miles east of Kenmare, a nice place and we’re safe in the event of a cashmere crisis or a shortage of organic chocolate. 

Read more  

Bonane then I guess. That's a place name for those not in the locality ,reading this wondering what I'm ctapping on about

Not quite - halfway up the Roughty valley. Healy-Rae country. 

5 hours ago, skc101fc said:

Before you go making adjustments on band wheel angles, are you truly sure it's not tension coming out of the timber? Or that one edge ( of the lower teeth) hasn't been minutely damaged by grit, steel or as we all do ,more than once, in my case, cutting too close to the log stops.

Looking at your sawlog pile in one of your pics, you have some less than perfect lengths with crooks and twists. Timber from leaning or woodland edge trees will often have wild grain, with lots of tension/ compression issues that will deflect the saw blade a surprising amount if there is any slight damage or lack of sharpness and set. Similarly when tension is released each time you remove a board the fibres can expand causing movement in the log by several mm. If tension is suspected, flip the cant over frequently to keep the movement in the fibres of the wood equalised.

 

Where abouts in SW are you?

I'm near Drimoleague, West Cork

Hi SKC101fc (or may I call you SKC?)

I do have a whole load of shite that I’m sawing so that’s a good idea, as is the dodgy blade. However the problem developed suddenly and I’ve changed 

the blade and done some different  woods with the same problem. I’ve been using the fine weather this weekend to knock down some of our thousands of dead and dying ash trees so haven’t done any fiddling yet. 
I have some raised flowerbeds to make from Leylandii and may get round to it tomorrow and will have a tweak of my bearings beforehand.
We’re just over the Kerry side of the border - a few miles east of Kenmare, a nice place and we’re safe in the event of a cashmere crisis or a shortage of organic chocolate. 

8 hours ago, topchippyles said:

How you finding that new saw ed 

It’s fine for what it is - I have to go and wiggle my bearings a bit this morning to try and tilt the blade down, but overall I’m quite impressed. 

2 hours ago, topchippyles said:

Nice idea ed but you can have to much wood sometimes. Maybe do one wall in each room so its a feature but only a suggestion being a chippy mate. You will know better than me the look your after 

Agreed - if we do that It’s going to be painted - we don’t want to live in a fecking sauna after all - it’s an old farm style - matchboarding they used to call it I think. Just using wood instead of plasterboard. 

And I'm planning on making a scale model of Venice on miniature alder piles, while wearing clogs . . .

32 minutes ago, Mr. Ed said:

what diamter Paul?

sorry didn't check my own sources - 20 - 30 cm. Second thinnings.

what diamter Paul?

apparently one of the reasons woodworkers like it is that it stains very well - so that floor is faked up a bit to look

likesomething more expensive, but hey!

3 hours ago, AJStrees said:

To be fair, I felled it as it was hanging out along a path, so decided it would be nice to try milling it. So long story short. No plan yet.

And you?

Interestingly, though it's soft, it's a little less soft than pine, which of course is used for floorboards all the time - here's a picture of a very sexy alder floor

32 minutes ago, Khriss said:

Nicely done and no fencing wire 🙂 K

Thank you Khriss - I think I've got to go back in fiddle with my wheels, for the blade seems to have developed an upward slop - as it comes out of the wood I can no longer just wheel it back, but have to raise the head - that only mean that the blade is cutting at an angle I think. I've got one more similar to do, which will probably give me just not quite enough for the staircase. Ha!

No plans, but I'm very interested because oddly we have a very healthy 1 acre plantation of it - only ten years old but going like a train. It was planted quite widely here in Ireland recently (as well as thriving on river banks and hedgerows and so on). It seems that its principal virtue is that it's easy to work and fairly light in weight. It's neither strong nor durable, which is why it typically has such a bad reputation. 

I'd love to find a use for it in our house restoration we're having a go at - it seems like joinery is the best hope - it's too soft to use as floorboards. Come to think of it our architect has just specified vertical tongue and groove (very tight so you can hardly see the lines) for the interior walls instead of plasterboard, and it might work very well for that if we could get enough of it together. 

Because there's quite a lot of it in a similar stage as ours, there is some work going on to try and find markets for it here - 

Baby's first hardwood: a 2 metre length of hedgerow oak. I tried to clean the bark as much as I could, but obviously not enough. Stair treads for our rebuild, here we come. (I hope).

On 01/03/2021 at 23:19, AJStrees said:

Bits and pieces over the last few days.



Little bits of Ash



A few lengths of alder.



Sycamore today.

What use do you have in mind for the alder, if you don't mind my asking? I have a couple of fair-sized ones in my inbox.

Understood.

Very overstood. 

And I assume they would indeed be very wonky, sticking out like daffodils in a bunch. Lots of first rate firewood though I assume.

I won't complain about my weekend work, which is trying to get as much firewood out of our 10 year old ash plantation before it all gets mulched and replanted. Being done under Ireland's Reconstitution Scheme. Six inches at best.

How big is big?

Lovely photos Idiot! 

Nice to see you made it through the winter.

Fred is still smoking but he’s a good worker. 

2 hours ago, Rough Hewn said:

They begin fading within seconds of the cut being opened and exposed to air and draught which drys the surface very quickly.
After a few minutes they will have faded considerably.
However the sapwood goes bright orange!
(Just pour water over and rub in to see the original colour)

After drying and planing and oiling they can be from caramel to peach with pale sapwood.

Herself has just come in from a therapeutic session in the shed turning a bit of spalted birch, and has had the joy of seeing these wonderful unfaded colours. Like a fresh mackerel (well not much like a fresh mackerel in fact but you may get my drift). 

Thank you for all this lovely tree totty Mr. Rough - very enjoyable

How quickly do these beautiful colours fade? Days, weeks, months, years?

Or not at all if you use some special unguent?

I have a feeling you're going to say that they all sell the day after you mill them, so you don't know!

let's try this compressed one.