Polelathe - The Wood from the Tree

Enjoying my new polelathe took my thoughts back to last January and an ancient oak tree on the boundary of Lynchmere common at lower brookham farm.

One stormy night a bough, almost half the tree, split off and crashed across the boundary into the field. The old tree is massive, the fallen boughs were as big as three normal sized oaks. It took me the best part of two weeks work to clear it up and yielded a couple of cords of branch wood as well as new chopping blocks, some assorted seats and some reasonable lengths for planking up.


The new polelathe is made from planked offcuts and branchwood taken from the oak boughs.

The weight of the wood was the last straw for the landrover suspension which needed a rebuild, and so this tree is also the cause of most of the metal parts in the lathe.

Some of the shorter lengths have been cleft but I used the chainsaw mills for most of the timber worth planking.




I can't justify the capital outlay of a mobile bandsaw timber mill and I have nowhere for secure parking. So I have gradually invested in a range of chainsaw milling equipment, which is in my price range and very versatile.

I chose the Logosol equipment because of the ease of use, easy attachment, good results and ability to upgrade to more capability. But there are several on the market that do a good job.

For logs too large or too short to manhandle onto the chainsaw mill I use the bigmill which which is a guide rail that attaches to both ends of the log.

The polelathe rails and wedges came from offcuts on the bigmill. Some of the lengths were long enougth to be planked on the logosol M7 chainsaw mill which is my most recent upgrade and which makes the job a lot quicker and easier as well as being more accurate.

For the chainsawheads out there the saw is a Stihl MS660 fitted with PMX chain and a logosol ripping bar. The saw carriage has a magnetic tip to hold the bar straight in the cut.




Together with John we did what we could for the tree, but it's such a large wound that it is unlikely to fully recover, although it will be around for while yet.

Meanwhilst I am thankful to the tree for bounty of wood it provided and intend to find a lot of uses for the timber.