Mr. Ed

It’s the Polish Timbery - bought cheap when they were changing identity - they’re owned by one of the American companies and it’s basically a European made version of the entry level Normiser or something like that. It’s fine for a hobbyist. A weedy 9.5 HP engine but, you know, it’s grand …

Yup. A 15 foot Daisy built by Harry Bryan of New Brunswick! She’s a sweetie - a dory skiff sort of thing with a lug rig.

This is nothing to boast about I know, certainly in the present company, but as a complete outsider I can’t tell you how pleased I am at actually being able to cut roughly flat, roughly square boards. This is from our rubbish alder - I need to make about 60 sq metres. We’re going to do variable widths and I’m expecting (once I get the hang of how much wastage I’m getting) to standardise to three or maybe four different widths. The boards themselves are a range of calm cream coloured ones and quite funky spalty ones like this. Then lots of cladding to be milled in Leylandii and Douglas.

It's very valuable timber that . . .

Gumtree is good for eucalypts … (duck and cover)

Euro-quids of course Andy

And I forgot to say there's extras as well, like chunks for her ladyship to put on her centrifuge . . . WhatsApp Video 2021-11-20 at 15.49.11.mp4

Roadside prices for fresh "large sawlog" sitka have been quoted at about €125 per M3 at the moment round these parts. And I do want to give him a good deal - he has some ash we want as well!

I was thinking giving him 250 or so for the lot - a useful chunk of change and a great help to me (and he kindly admits that he had no idea when he was going to get round to processing it, and that it was going to start going off soon. I wonder what sort of percentage of the finished timber value is the typical raw material cost for a commercial sawmill - 20%? 50%? I have no idea. The arch is made by Irish Forestry Products in Limerick - they've got them on special for €600 or €700 now, but I paid a bit more. As to legality, the route I went is only half a mile on the equivalent of an A-road, the rest of the way is on single-tracks where it'll be the most legal thing on the road! I did somewhere find an exemption from mudguards for timber vehicles, but I'm not going to look again: "only slightly illegal" is a reasonable description.

That’s a good idea for starters, but it wouldn’t be much - the timberpolis calculator says 30 metres at 30 cm width makes a bit over 2 m3 and Coford tells me that air dry alder is about 500kg per m3. so that only makes a ton - it looks more than that!

Can you all give some advice? So my mate - a new friend but a true friend - has about 33 usable metres (minimum straight lengths of 2 metres) of one [?] year felled Alder stems. The first one I’ve sliced looks like it’s at a good state of colour and no rot - one little pocket the size of a 50p coin on this first cut. I want to use it for floorboards by the way, and we’re very happy with wild colours - this house is going to be rustic in every way - and are also happy with the relative softness of the timber - it’s for domestic use in a small house. I’m collecting them - from just a few miles away- and cutting them, but without him having hoarded them I’d be in a pickle for this project. The question is, what should I pay him for them? There doesn’t seem to be any commercial market to judge by. And any tips on milling them woold be appreciated muchly. I’m cutting to 28 mm to finish to 22. They’re between 21 & 29% humidity now and I’m knocking up a little dehumidifier kiln over Christmas to gently get them down further, once cut.

Was that after you compensated for the sawdust? 🤤 well done.

275 kilos including the sawdust.

Can you show us detail of the seat joining to the uprights? We have quite a lot of super wobbly black locust which lasts well and has an ultra rural look to it and I’d like to have a go at using some in a bench like that.

You’re doomed if you cut down an isolated hawthorn tree. Or blackthorn? Anyway very witchy places.

All trees in Ireland (as everywhere I suppose) have legend about them, and I seem to remember that their fresh-cut red-ness reminds us of the wounds of Christ. Or something similar.

Oh, and agreed about the knots 100%.

Ah, thanks for that. I'm not doing the carpentering myself so will take advice - the only such project I've been involved with was using reclaimed pitchpine, where they were secret nailed as well as T&Gd to avoid cupping and suchlike

Oo, that is nice. I'm going to enjoy this. I see you're not bothered about knots. May I ask how dry you got it before fitting? And did you tongue and groove it? I was hoping we'd get something a bit wilder out of them, along these lines, but maybe I should be careful what I wish for.

Oo, that is nice. I'm going to enjoy this. I see you're not bothered about knots. May I ask how dry you got it before fitting? And did you tongue and groove it?

Hi Paul Did you do this in the end, and did it work out - I have a similar plan for bedroom flooring in our rebuild. I'm unclear also about how persistent the orange colour will be - I have cut one stem which has been down for only a couple of months but the ones I'm proposing have probably been down for some time (a year or two?) - I've only seem them from fresh cut ends, which don't seem overly punky but do promise some wild colouring. If they're not rotten but turn out to be too wild we can always just paint them. And it's known as Irish mahogany here, not Scotch! E

That's lovely. Herself has taken to turning bowls, and we got lucky with some holly that was at a lovely stage of decomposition - this is it before finishing: it actually sanded very well

We had bats flying at noon yesterday - is that normal?

What size are they? They might be best as a bit of wall art.

Wow! Can I buy one? My brainbox wife is a neuroscientist and they look a bit like brain cells. Where are you?