Another New Member

[Peach James]

I guess these go here... :D

I'm James, from Shirley, BC.  (near Victoria).  Mostly, I got to here from an interest in old iron, and having played in the trees out back a little bit.  I started in ~1990 or so, with electric chain saw, and then advanced back to a bow saw for a while.   Current, I've a 353 Husky, and a near total inability to sharpen it right.  (which would be funny, if I hadn't spent enough time sharpening lathe bits and drills...)
I'm a Marine Engineer in the Canadian Forces as a full time job, have two sons (5 years & 9 months old), wife, and play with steam for fun.  For those of you who are fellow islanders, I'm heavily involved at Vancouver Island Model Engineers. 

My buddy out here used to make his beer money by doing firewood amongst other stuff, so I get/got roped in to some extent.  (chainsaw, splitting maul, pickup truck kind of logging...).  Mechanically, well...it's fun to toy with kit.  I'm interested in high line, having some understanding of its limits.  If I wanted to be practical, there's lots of tracked & wheeled hydraulic equipment around here.  I have use of a Fordson Major fitted with a JCB style conversion to bucket & hoe, as long as I fix it when I break it, and there is lots of other stuff around...but it isn't quite the same if  you are doing it for firewood & booze money, to be using modern kit seems to be kind of a cheat to me...otherwise, I'd be buying my firewood for $150/cord, split & delivered.

Since I'm busy as a 1 armed paperhanger with full time work & two sons, I haven't had a lot of time to do "fun" things.  I've got a little more than 5 years to go before I retire from the CF, so...(and then Daniel, the older boy, will be old enough to be useful, not a hinderance).

I have been asked about my traction engine for logging- it would work well for winching, if it wasn't as dense as it is.  I've a web site with photos on it- (but understand linking is a bit forbidden here)  One of the plans is to use the winch on it for moving wire based logging system stuff- the "better" plan might be to build a donkey engine in a similar size & use the tractor's boiler to provide steam.  A couple advantages to that sort of setup, given where access around here is, that it doesn't use hydraulic oil, and that it has similar torque numbers.  (massive...3" LP cylinder, 20:1 reduction...), and officially, I can run in a carbon neutral footprint.  (burn the wood...but not pellet sized or smaller...that goes in fine, and comes out the stack on fire, then lands on the operator (me!).

I know which end of the chainsaw to hold, but am not by any means a professional logger, or mill owner.  Really, to me, it's a interesting sideline.  Living out here on the west coast of the island, there is a deep logging history, and it touches everything out here. 

James Powell

[Bibbyman]

Welcome to the Fourm...  First new member of 2011.. I guess.!

[D Hagens]

Hey James, welcome

Would like to see your pics, sounds very interesting. 8)

Been up and down the island many times, lived and worked on most of the Gulf Islands, have a cabin on Mayne.

Now here's the question I have to ask. Where the heck is Shirley ??? I've never heard of it :D