Danny Graham: Our young forester finally ties the knot

NOTHING seems to happen with any urgency these days – not in Northumberland, at least! But then perhaps it never did. Your equipment breaks down – as it invariably does – and then, unless you can fix it yourself, it sits in a corner of the workshop for a fortnight before anyone gets round to inspecting it. You ring a supplier or a tradesman and you’re lucky if they return your call the same month. As for legal departments or anything to do with local authorities and permission, you may as well pencil in a response from them around your retirement! Most aspects associated with planning are genuinely unique and require some form of personal communication, all of which now seem increasingly difficult. I recently heard of someone ‘working from home’ in Azerbaijan.

While the rest of the population appears afflicted by inertia, I seem to be one of a dwindling group determined to do things faster. I’m not a mechanic, plasterer or solicitor, but I do cut wood, making large pieces smaller as efficiently as I can, aided and abetted by a team of like-minded mavericks.

To assist me in this quest has been the recent acquisition of a Fuelwood Splitter 400 processor. I ordered this piece of kit over a year ago with high hopes of some kind of small rural grant. How often do we hear the great and good promising to promote the growth of small rural enterprises which in turn provide employment to local people? But alas, no such joy, and after several grant application rejections I had no other option but to man up and throw all my hard-earned savings into what is the biggest financial investment of my life thus far. I may now be very poor, but I owe no-one anything. I’ve got the machine I want and even at this early stage we’re knocking doors out of windows.

I don’t sell firewood. I simply process it for other people. The raw materials are usually the oversized timber and arb waste acquired by firewood dealers, tree surgeons and anyone else. In other words, ‘mopping up the crap’ that no-one else wants. What’s not to like? I actually love it as we get to go to new places every week.

We work in an area roughly covering the Scottish Borders in the north, down to Lancashire in the south and we get to see every kind of set-up, from a tree in the middle of a field to coal yards to the most state-of-the-art timber yards. Last year we produced just under 2,000 m³ of firewood using four petrol-powered log splitters – all by hand. This year, with the introduction of the new shiny, fabulous processor for fuel-wood I’m looking to triple production.

Naturally, there have been obstacles to overcome. To start with, the machine was probably not designed to be mobile and operated from a trailer driven around the north of England. Adaptations had to be made and so, to the horror of the salesman, we set about the machine with angle grinder and welder. Not in a hectic fashion, I hasten to add! I have several close friends who are very skilled engineers who did a tremendous job of standing around, drinking coffee and contemplating adaptations.

Two kilos of coffee beans later I had the portable machine I had always envisaged and, to date, it does not disappoint. For anyone contemplating buying one you will not be disappointed – once you’ve got past the price tag. Fuelwood has done a great job of designing this piece of equipment and the big challenge is to keep ahead of the cutting. We are comfortably producing 50 m³ of firewood per day compared to 20 m3 per day last year with the same number of staff.

Initially I had real fears the machine wouldn’t be able to cope with the large amounts of rough timber it was likely to digest; big butt ends with twisted grain and heavily knotted. However, I needn’t have worried as the set-up seems unconcerned and relentlessly requests more, more! Stanley-knife-sharp blades and a 15-tonne ram driven by a 25-hp petrol engine make quick work of knotted wood, crunching through it like a hungry collie dog crunches through dead ket. I haven’t tried, but I’m quite confident you could put timber in sideways and it would still emerge at the other end half resembling a log. The machine has been extremely well designed, robustly manufactured and – can you believe – it’s actually made in the UK with a dealership less than an hour away! It’s a miracle!

Not only is the Splitta 400 setting a new standard in mobile firewood processing generally, but it has revolutionised my own approach to producing kindling. For the last eight years I’ve run a Kindlet 200 (the smallest kindling processor on the market) and it has the reliability of a Swiss watch as it just keeps ticking over and producing sticks. On a good day with a fair wind and the best quality larch sawlogs I can source, I can produce about 40 nets an hour. The best we’ve had so far on the new machine (without even trying) and with some fairly average Scots pine was 94 nets. Back at base I’ve got some three-metre larch logs I felled and processed myself, specifically chosen for kindling due to being branchless with an open grain like a gun barrel. With these I’m sure we’ll break the 100 nets per hour barrier (‘tonning up’, as we call it in the sheep-shearing world).

As well as stockpiling sticks, this month I had to take a few days away from work for the final wedding of the year – my own! I have been legally married for over a year now after a short private ceremony and so all that remained was to have a more ‘public’ event involving friends and family. The whole wedding industry can be one ginormous money pit if you allow it to be and so, having spent all my savings on a firewood processor, we were in no position to go crazy. 

The event was very much a tongue-in-cheek collaboration between friends and family and so many ‘formal’ elements of a traditional ceremony were ditched in preference for fun and a whoopee time. As all the formal elements like the registrar and church were already concluded, a mate of mine dressed as a man of the cloth (although looking more like Father Time) conducted the ‘ceremony’ in the village hall which we’d managed to book for the princely sum of £15. 

WANT MORE FROM DANNY?

• 'I heard him squeal': Step felling job nearly goes horribly wrong
• Our young forester finally takes a break ... but it doesn't last for long

Feeding a large group of people can also be quite a costly affair, especially when all of your friends are timber and agricultural workers and strictly non-vegan.

Fortunately I’ve been slowly expanding a small flock of Hebridean sheep over the last few years which, after a short visit to the butcher, kindly provided a feast of organic Northumbrian mutton to the assembled throng.

Although it was unintended, the theme of ‘wood’ was the order of the day. Having access to unlimited quantities meant our creativity ran riot with cake stands, candle holders and picture frames rolling off the production line. It’s amazing what you can create with a chainsaw! I even managed to include orange netting kindling bags, deployed to hide a large gap in the stage. The best visual aspect of the event (after my wife, bridesmaids and mother in law whom tradition obliges me to mention) was the bar – a 12-ft long, two-inch thick piece of Northumbrian oak from Wingates Sawmill, resting on palettes and clad with larch and Sitka boards gathered from Coquetdale Timber’s off-cut pile. Hastened together in under an hour with a DeWalt impact driver and a 500i – and aptly titled ‘Danny’s Bar’ – it was a wonder to behold.

Serving cloudy ale (from a cask which had no time to settle) it quickly became the ‘go-to’ destination.

As an act of true love I gave my lovely wife a choice of honeymoon: (A) Standing at the spout of the kindling processor, filling bags, or (B) A short holiday in Italy. Much to my surprise she chose B! Never ones to waste time, we jetted off later that day to enjoy fine wines, fresh fish, preserved meats and numerous messages over delayed kindling deliveries. I’m so pleased the weddings for this year are finally out of the

way – seven weddings, seven stag nights and 14 hangovers!
Recently I managed to work my first Sunday in months – just me, a couple of saws and a pile of timber. I was very happy in my own company and found it a productive way to set up the week.