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My mentor told me how to get the burrs off the sides of the chain bar with a flat file. He also showed how o level out the two sides at 90 degrees. I see on the many videos of maintaining a worn chainsaw bar that a tool is recommended. See the image below. Question 1 Is this what professionals use? I have never seen the three guys I know use one. Question 2 If so what is recommended model or make? Stihl, Husqi etc whack them out at over £30 but the one below is under £10 Seems a no brainer to go cheaper IF (and I suspect it is not) recommended by the professionals Chris

I think the Milwaukee can do this too. At least, I'm sure ours has instructions on how to fill from a grease bucket in the manual.

Hi Zac-1 There are different styles of cleaving brake, but they effectively do the same thing. Your best bet is to try and get hold of any of the Ray Tabor books. Traditional woodland crafts, The encyclopedia of green woodworking or Green woodworking pattern book. The latter one is probably the most useful imho. I use one on a very regular basis when splitting chestnut poles into 1/16ths for making gate hurdles. Mine’s made from some bits of old telegraph poles with half round chestnut cross rails bolted on. I would send you a photo, but it ain’t pretty. But it works! The reason I did mine the way I have is that I often need to take it to shows so needed something that is transportable and also will sit happily on tarmac surfaces. If you struggle to get hold of a copy of any of the books, let me know and I’ll photograph the relevant pages from my copy. Whereabouts in the country are you? I’m in mid-Wilts, so if you’re near by you’re welcome to swing by and have a look at/ have a go at using mine. Might make it easier to understand the concept.

I saw the penguin thing, surprised me since the whole population are wearing the correct clothes, white shirts, black jackets, how can you get angry about that?

Has anyone got a diagrams/picture of the frame system built and used by paling makers for splitting wood with a froe? I’d like to have a go at building one.

Wordle 1,384 4/6 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

With the Makita one the grease cylinder unscrews and can be refilled direct from a bucket of grease. Reduces the amount of plastic, and cheaper.

https://www.google.com/search?q=rowan timber uses&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-m It's reassuring to see the number of times that Arbtalk comes up on Google for things like this.

Apparently, I could qualify for a free gas boiler replacement. I could qualify as I got a health issue according to the door to door sales fellow. He is the third this week! Are they doing the rounds by you and what exactly is the deal? Who is paying for this? I did enquire during covid as I'm on stored hot water and there is two live here and we have an electric show so stored water seems a waste. I got told then that a new boiler would be a right chunk of money for very long payback time!

Hi my little reverse drive tractor has lost its drive and it’s traced to hydrostatic drive unit the parts are available but bill for fixing could be 3000 to 5000 £ any ideas what I might get for it as a non runner ? where best to find a replacement or just give the go ahead to get it fixed I don’t have the time to or really knowledge to buy a better one in the sub £7 or £8 thousand bracket Whats the way forward ? thsnks david

Yes I know all of them. Your name is also on my little list. * sound of pencil breaking*

I can confirm that.

Some light relief from the doom and gloom. Island home only to penguins hit by tariffs - and other things you may have missed on 'Liberation Day' NEWS.SKY.COM The EU hates "beautiful" American beef, Donald Trump won't stand for plastic eggs and penguins face higher costs to sell...

Maybe. It's hard to imagine that there can be any kind of Kompromat strong enough to make a difference now though. If all the shenanigans over the last couple of months, (not to mention all his previous misdemeanours), still haven't made hardcore Trump defenders renounced him, then probably nothing will. He can literally do no wrong in the eyes of a few. And even he probably realises it. Take Signal Gate for instance. That would, (and rightly so), have been enough to take down or at least seriously damage any other administration. Not this one though. They just went into full on denial, and then attack mode, and then just carried on with business as usual. The supporters lapped it up without batting an eye lid. Weird times we live in.

How about a simple question I repeatedly ask you SP ?? This depth of knowledge on a wide range of topics 🤷‍♂️yet silent on one particular detail 😂 Your logic on car prices in the US shows the same level of ignorance you display in much of your comments on day rates, tax business etc.

Slabs are a funny thing. "Special" ones fetch great money. Sadly they're not all special. Properly dried and planed to thickness with stunning grain and a few features in the right places and you can name your price. Plain and boring straight off the mill 40-50 quid per board foot. Then you've people that want to see the one at the back of the stack, right down the bottom, then the first one again, then maybe a different species, then they hum and haw is it better than the imaginary one in another yard the far side of the country before asking could you deliver it to their yurt on a mountain surrounded by bog with acces only by helicopter or yak before haggling to no avail, only then remembering they're broke, have no woodworking skills and no tools, tell you they'll take it so you leave it out you then refuse to sell it to the next customer,(who really happens to want just that particular slab, no other)just in case yurt guy and hairy armpit girl were actually going to do something more than smoke weed and talk about composting toilets. Maybe they actually do things in their mountainside yurt. After a year you come to realise they are never coming back so you run the slab through the kindling machine because youre sick of moving it.

Simple maths is simple to understand. Luxury goods or the perception of luxury, will just get more expensive, the rich will just pay more, the poorest might not buy or will sacrifice something else to 'keep up with the Jonses'. A good thing taxing the rich and highest paid more. Not such a good thing that I doubt that revenue will filter down to the poorest, just be a redistribution of tax the rich pay. For the near future prices will rise, cannot ramp up say, steel production over night, goods prices will rise to counter the tariffs... and history tells us that they never really fall again. All good if tax increases are your thing, a slight of hand, akin to Starmer in the UK saying no income tax rises, like Trump did, so the tax increases are taken from elsewhere. My prediction is that the richest will just keep on as they always do, but the lowest paid will suffer disproportionally. A good example is in the cheapest new cars in the US. Apart from an odd exception depending on the list you read all are imports. Add 25% extra tax on top they are all still the cheapest (depending on the list), just 25% more expensive. The richest could laugh off 20 or 30k extra tax for a top model, the middle ground could go down a level but the poorest don't have that option, if they need a car they have to pay a good portion of their income as an extra tax. Noting my point here that sales taxes are indiscriminate, we all pay at the same rate, poorest or richest. If the competition suddenly becomes more expensive there is no incentive to keep home grown prices keen to compete... US made cars will creep up in price to match. Watch this space for me to say "told you so"

Ello, Tiny, tiny little thing, but is there a way of having ignored users not show up in other user's quotes? It's still harshing my mellow, y'dig?

Still using a manual grease gun myself, but thinking about it, everyone I know with a battery greaser is using milwaukee. Noticed you can get an adaptor to use 500g cartridges for the milwaukee now too, I prefer them to the smaller ones you've to insert tha springy thingy into.

Fwiw I got tired of buying 20 ltr drums a good few years ago. There's a company a few villages over that import and mix oils of all types for nationwide distribution, they drop me a 200 ltr barrel every 18 months or so. 150 grade. Never had a problem with it. A few folk drop in saws for sharpening, sometimes they go home with a refill of chain oil too. Never had any complaints there either. It works out at about €1.80 per litre. Last time I ordered one o checked the price of 1000lyrs in an ibc. 1.60 ltr. Thought about it, but wasn't worth the hassle of storing that much (barrels fit through door of small shed, ibc wouldn't). Tried veggie oil once. It was shite. Ok in a topper maybe, but useless on longer bars. If we have work on a site that requires bio oil I just bend over and get whatever is available locally at the time.

Trump’s tariff math is crazy, says ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ author – POLITICO WWW.POLITICO.EU James Surowiecki challenges the White House’s rationale for punishing Europe, China, India and Japan with reciprocal tariffs.

Yep still gets delivered in sacks south wales

Bit of diversion there SP 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️come on surely its not that hard to put up what you do it might go a long way to explain your dumb arse take on things

Dog and Man.