Month: May 2018

Making trees into wood

At LWBD, weekends usually involve doing stuff on the farm.

Sunday’s job was to complete a track through the Christmas Tree forest, to get better access:

 Ready to work.
At this point, there was a HUGE thunderstorm, and suddenly being in an all-metal digger didn’t seem like such a great plan.

Have coffee and think.
New plan needed.

How about processing some of the blown-down timber? And make the trees into wood.

This is a lovely bit of Elm, which came down in a storm a few winters back, and has been sitting in the yard waiting for something to happen.Just small enough to get into onto the sawmill by hand. Any bigger, and I need the digger, but I’m not going out in that rain…

First cut makes a flat surface. (Not always the deepest)

Once there are two flats, the rest is simple: just keep slicing.

…and slicing…

Done!

Some excellent slabs, ready to be dried a bit more. For the nerdy, these were about 14% moisture on the surface, but nearer 22% on the fresh cuts, and that would warp terribly if I started to make anything from it. So it’s into the office plant room, which is a dry 25-30 degrees, for a few weeks, to get it down to <10 %, which should make it stable for a life indoors.

If you feel like making some trees into wood, then pop over and help out.

And you can take home what you mill.

We’re Ready

After a busy month of moving, painting and cleaning, the Like Work But Different office is now ready for our beta testers.

Here are some pictures of the office. And yes, we are about to get some professional shots done!

This is the main office, set out in ‘boardroom’ style.

Theater-style, it can take up to 20, boardroom-style, up to 12 people. See here ready for an 8-person meeting)

If you’d like a personal desk, here’s one set-up in the sunny corner:

..and here’s the view:

And when you really need a coffee, or just somewhere else to sit, there’s the kitchen:

 Enough space for a meeting/workshop for up to 8 people.

And finally, for the indoors bit, the conservatory, currently setup just as a setting room:

So that’s it – ready to start adding more information to the website!