As Nige (Ali's Dad) would tell you, he has had his retirement, and he's back with a full time job now, aged 72! It's good for him though; he has lost loads of weight! He has always loved working with wood, and now he gets to do it all day! Matt's job is to cut down the trees and haul them out of the forest (not easy because of the steep slopes and overgrown forest; access is difficult).
Matt brings the trees to Nige, and he attaches the one he wants to the gantry, which allows him to winch the tree on to the band saw. He can then make the planks, lintels or whatever is needed, and then stack them for drying. The lintels are going in green, but flooring etc needs to be dry so Matt is in the process of designing a drying room for wood to speed the process along. We don't want to be buying any wood!
Any off-cuts can be then loaded on to the cross-cut saw and chopped for firewood. Nige built this saw too.
Nige made the logging trailer (see below). The boys use the old Defender to go into the forest and winch out the wood, along with the tractor. On the first trip out, Nige dropped a tree on the front bumper and on the second trip out he drove in to a tree, so along with a smashed windscreen, the old Landy is definitely demoted to farm vehicle only!
Quick update Nov 2015;
The wood drying room is now half built, and we have a shelter over the mechanical side of the saw. This is to get it out of the weather and to extend it's life, and same goes for Nige when he's working there!
