… unless it’s too big to handle in which case it if  you don’t have the gear to quarter it or lift it to transport it to a big saw mill you may as I have in the past er passed on it!

Anyway, the one I’m going to talk about today was too heavy at about 2 tons for my tractor and little sawmill so ended up at my mate Ant’s yard. Getting it on the sawmill with his 1970s road digger and good quality lifting strops was the easy bit. Another tip is to pick a beautiful Spring day – makes a lot of difference to the energy and enjoyment levels.

At 32″ diameter it was about 3″ too  …

… wide for the bandsaw throat to cut so we knew there would be some fettling ie trimming one side. We had a look to see if it could sit better and decided that Ant had it in the premier position first time and that the best and in fact only solution was to chainsaw a slab off the side facing in the picture.

This is a lot harder than it looks, it’s very easy to catch a bit of the metal so I delegated it to Ant and poured a cup of tea and took a picture … well  I’m older than him and I’m paying – albeit mate’s rates!

Tiring and time consuming though it was …

… it was exactly the right thing to do and once done it was just a question of reading the log and getting the best sized planks and as many book matched pairs as possible. I sell more 1.25″/30mm planks than anything so apart from a couple of pairs of 40mm that’s what we did.

We, well to be fair Ant gave a bit of thought to off loading the sawn planks the most efficient way so the trailer was positioned on the other side and I was able to lift and stack on my own.

As soon as the log reduces in size it …

… becomes obvious with experience to work out how to get the best quarter sawn boards without the aggro of true quartering which isn’t worth the waste and effort. Despite having many more years practice Ant is a much better sawyer than me and pays attention to the quality of the cut by placing a spirit level in several places during each cut. As it happened one resharpened blade did the whole log.

We’re about 60% through it on the above image …

… I ended up with about 12 pairs of book matched boards and a number of singles that I know will fly out the door when fully seasoned in about 18 months – especially with my prices! They are now neatly stacked by my bottom gate in my premier drying slot so you can have a sniff of them when you visit.

regards

Paul Goulden April 2023

My father Tony aka OAG bought the Woods …

… in a pub as you do in the mid 1980s as a retirement project and had many happy years planting trees and using knackered old machinery like an Austin Gipsy with an adapted old missile launcher as a crane.

Gradually, he got into selling timber and in 1998 bought himself his first new bit of kit a Lumbermate diesel bandsaw to enable him to cut his own timber. Unfortunately, within a few months he had to retire suddenly due to being dead!

It must have been annoying for him …

… not to get full use out of the saw but more by accident than design I did.

The first 10 years were a steep learning curve as living in London and working full time I wasn’t there much. Gradually I got the hang of  finding what people want and most importantly developed a group of helpers all more skilled than me. More of the team later but first below by popular request here’s a picture of me with no clothes on.

Don’t worry I wouldn’t do that to you … you’re going to suffer enough with my timber!

So, senior in years and length of service …

… i.e. the one who has had to put up with me the longest – nearly 15 years is Thursday Dave. Back when he was just Dave he came to buy wood and having just sold his company was worried about being bored in retirement. I offered to help with this and he’s been coming every week since. He’s an engineer and can turn his hand to anything.  As well as sawyering he’s built me two woodland toilets, both quite posh and made a beautiful oak 5 bar gate that will outlive us all and loads of other stuff.

Dave created the kids camp drawbridge – works a treat!

When Tuesday Dave came along about 8 years ago …

… we had to name them on the days they come each week – especially as there were several other Daves around.

Tuesday Dave is ex long serving Army, a very useful geezer and he gets things done. Before he came along we had no tea room or anything much and within no time we had casualty evac grid refs and all manner of handy things. Like Thursday he can mend most things but I’d say he’s particularly good at load management – moving timber and logs with Doris the tractor. When we need to turn a big log with straps we shout “DAVE”!

Mike is also a Tuesday man. Mike and Tuesday Dave luckily get on and are something of a team. Whilst Dave also likes woodland stuff and tree felling Mike, a retired Woodwork Teacher is the real expert in wood and what is best so he’s usually the one who reads the log and gets the best boards out of it.

Dave left as you look and Mike right do the majority of the sawyering now

These volunteers are why I can …

… sell timber at a reasonable price and I’d be cattle trucked without them. There are a few other people who come and help for a small fee or a bit of firewood like Smackers and my mate Martin is is currently a super sub but will have a growing role if I’m fortunate enough to be able to carry on for a few years.

If you really have no life or like reading rubbish you can go back over 15 years through my old rather knackered website

Come and meet us … bring all your money or someone elses, we don’t mind!

rgs Paul Goulden

… many woodworkers due it its figure, colour and the finish. I also like it a lot as it’s a good earner and I can pretty much sell every bit unlike other woods.

So selling is a doddle, the hard bit …

… is finding it. If you’ve been reading my blogs for the 20 years apart from needing medical help you’ll have seen the many and various places we have extracted it from. Often in back gardens the only way is to chainsaw mill it and lug it out in slabs. The other issue with garden trees is they often have had nails from long forgotten bird boxes and the like

The one pictured below went on a trailer but was too heavy for my old tractor to lift it off so it went to my mate Ant’s yard

I had to buy myself these chains

Ant’s 1970s digger and top quality chains …

… had it lifted and placed gently on the bandsaw with no effort from us. If you’d struggled with winches, bars and crap cranes as often as I had you’d enjoy watching it happen!

There’s a bit of fettling before milling

Once on the saw it’s a question …

… of what sizes and often I’ll go for a mix of 1, 2 and maybe a 3″ slab but on this occasion I went for all 2″.  The 2″ are cut a quarter of an inch thicker than that or if you aren’t a dinosaur like me and have converted to metric 54mm. A log like this takes a couple of hours from start to finish allowing for offloading on to the trailer and a slurp or two of tea

It’s better when the sun comes out!

Watching the saw auto feed through …

… the logs is the easy bit, a little harder lifting them on to the trailer below. A lot harder but important is to stack them correctly at the woods with the right amount of stickers and covered to allow air flow for the next couple of years but keep rain and destructive sunlight which causes checking on most hardwoods

Someone is going take these off my hands in a year or two – they will be lighter then!