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[HellomynameisJ]

Hi all, I've been contacted by a clubmate who has 8 to 9 English Willow trees that are coming up on 20 years old and he is looking to fell them and get them processed. The issue is, short or Lachlan Fisher, who has apparently seen pictures and said the trees are usable (but doesn't seem willing to take them on) I'm lost for ideas on who to contact that would be interested and capable of helping process the trees. Willow Blue don't seem to reply to emails on good days and from experience with them in the past, I'm not sure theyd be the easiest to deal with, so I'm not sure they are in the picture at the moment.

The trees are located about an hour south east of Melbourne. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Six Sixes Cricket]

Is this too far for @Hoover ?

[Hoover]

Thanks for thinking of me. This is a 5 hour plane journey plus a couple of hours in a car from us. Will give it some thought.

[HellomynameisJ]

Even some insight on the process and what to expect would be greatly appreciated, if I remember correctly, there is an extremely detailed post on the forum somewhere which I will find after work today and give a good read through.

[Komdotkom]

I'd try Ian Callen, he's growing some at the moment in Healsville so I assume he has the means to dry and process them.
He was pretty easy to deal with in the 90's when he sponsored a few of us but I haven't dealt with him since.

[Chompy9760]

I guess you've seen this Kippax vid?  Shows most things except the felling, which is pretty straightforward.  Look for part 2 as well, which has something about the drying at the start. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chw2_Utiwqc

Apart from the drying It looks pretty straightforward.  I have a chainsaw and log splitter, but no saw big enough, and I'm 15hrs drive away too

[JK Lewis]

Ian Callen is probably the only person in Australia with the skills, experience and equipment to do the job properly, so you might want to take some photos and get them over to him. Hopefully the trees have been well maintained over 20 years, if not their values will be limited. But of course, Ian's got a whole plantation of his own trees so the economics of taking yours may not stack up.

If you fancy giving it a go yourself, do. It's fun and lots of cricket people will be interested to support. I strongly recommend you just start with 1 tree, in order to work out the steps and avoid wasting too much wood. Felling and splitting are straightforward, sawing to shape can be done by a local sawmill. I can get you the dimensions if you need. The most difficult bit is accurate drying, unless you can find someone with a decent kiln. The clefts will air dry in 6 to 8 months, but the bats are likely to be quite heavy as it's hard to get the moisture out from the middle.

There's some posts in here detailing my amateur efforts and more photos and stuff in my Facebook page if you're interested.

Best of luck. Let me know if you have questions and I'll do my best to help.

[Komdotkom]

Are the trees Salix Alba or the more common willow that you find around Australia?
I had one of Callens Australian willow bats a while back and it lasted well but never really pinged well.
I know a bloke who kiln dries furniture timber.

[HellomynameisJ]

Thanks for all the replies so far,
As far as im aware, the saplings were purchased from England as cricket bat Willow producing trees, but this was over 20 years ago now so I can't entirely confirm.

I've heard mixed things about the Willow Blue Australian grown stuff bats as well, but I was always under the impression that the stuff Callen was growing was Salix Alba?

At the very least it would be a great experience and a sensational learning curve.

[JK Lewis]

Thanks for all the replies so far,
As far as im aware, the saplings were purchased from England as cricket bat Willow producing trees, but this was over 20 years ago now so I can't entirely confirm.

I've heard mixed things about the Willow Blue Australian grown stuff bats as well, but I was always under the impression that the stuff Callen was growing was Salix Alba?

At the very least it would be a great experience and a sensational learning curve.

What's the size of the trees - measure the circumference of the trunk at around chest height. Needs to be about 60 inches around, or more of course. Also, have the trunks been pruned carefully over the years, to prevent shoots growing out?  Hopefully they've been pruned up to at least 120 inches height, then you'll get 4 rounds from each tree.