Advice for saw please!

[Stere]

Quote

We're making a market garden to grow veg for the local community

Hope the soil ain't a heavy clay. 😬

 

Very hard work to make a go of market gardening and labour intensive for little return as food is so cheap.

 

Only places i know who do it manage to get by by running courses and free labour from woofers etc.

[Peasgood]

I think market gardening has huge potential if you can grow for the consumer rather than the market. Retail prices against wholesale prices is the key imo. You need a good location for easy access close to a reasonably densely populated inhabited by people who care about their food and where it comes from. (ie. rich) Less well off people can of course care but finances take a lot of choice away from them.

Sales through well run farm shop or alternatively a home delivered box scheme can be lucrative and rewarding.

Poor soils don't help but not so difficult to improve them over time and no reason why raised beds, soilless growing media, hydroponics, poly tunnels etc can't be utilised. A good friend of mine has a multi million pound business growing crops in the UK and I doubt you can see his soil at all as it is likely under concrete.

[Ren]

Yeep! There is a lot that can be done to regenerate soil. We're aiming for a small-direct-to-veg-boxes type affair. No till and a few tunnels. This area has records of farming back around a thousand years... probably people have been farming for much longer. 

 

Thanks to all who responded, this has been really useful. A friend of a friend is a pro, who is willing to spend a day with me going over the main ideas and safety aspects, will also visit the site and have a poke about. I'll be sure to not die.

[Mother Theresa]

The best advice I got (and I am in the same boat as you - keen amateur with 4.5 acres of ancient woodland) was to begin with only go with one tank of fuel as you make mistakes when you are tired and you shouldn't get too tired with just that. I now go with three saws but no extra fuel for them. I don't earn doing this so when tired I can just go home and come back another day - all limbs intact.

 

Second hand MS 261 is my main saw and it's fab and does 80% of the work.

[Ren]

Names are powerful things for the imagination. I can't help but picture Mother T in a Suffolk wood with a unnecessarily large saw and huge biceps. 

Great advice though, cheers. 

[SteveW1000]

I would suggest you take things slowly.  Wear PPE, tackle the easy stuff first, learn to read how the timber is going to move as you cut it.  Watching YouTube videos can inform including some of the idiots with chainsaws ones you soon start to think why would anyone think that was safe to do.  I'm retired and spend my time on a number of volunteer projects.  I'm not keen on spending money on getting a CS30 / 31 although I would like to get one.  Started cutting some small dead Wych Elms, removed some small ash stems and learnt to plunge cut on that one.  Managed to get the bar stuck a few times failing to read how timber would twist.  My collection of saws has now reached three.  And yesterday was cutting a 24" stem hung up across a brook.  Don't think I'm invincible and keep a very close eye and ear on movement and sound while cutting things under tension.  Good luck with your endeavours and keep safe.

[drinksloe]

To be honest long term it sounds like ud be better with 2 saws a 45 50cc size then likely a larger 70 to 80cc or get ur pro mate in for the big stuff.

 

1 tip get ur mix right for mixing 2 stroke ( or use Aspen) and don't mix too much it I'll go off if ur mixing large quantities

 

I'm not into coarses but the saw coarses are really worth it, esp if u have and experienced trainer.

 

Some of wot ur talking about is the most dangerous stuff u can do, dead trees possible hung up widow makers, ivy hiding defects in trees etc.

Be worth buying a few plastic wedges too, not dear but a lifesaver hen u need them

 

 

Ps it doesn't actually usually kill the trees itself it may out shade/compete when it gets right out to the branch tips and does make them more prone to wind blow.

Good habits for meeting birds thou

[Witterings]

I starting using chainsaws a lot more recently which gave me an interest in learning more so started googling and it made me realise how dangerous and unaware I was as a novice and could easily have had a nasty accident if I hadn't of found out a bit more about what I was about to do.

Whilst he's a little monotone there's a link here to the 1st in his series with the rest in a scroll down list on the right hand side and there's some very informative information throughout

 

 

I'd also google felling leaners / tree barber chairs and felling hung trees or Widow Makers as these seem to have the most potential for things to go horribly wrong along with felling a back leaner although the series in the link covers that and explains how much force there is in the direction it's leaning which could very easily be underestimated by a newbie.

 

Also worth googling Cross Cutting or the American term for the same is bucking logs mainly to find out about compression and tension and how to avoid getting your chainsaw stuck ..... probably worth buying some wedges as well to help prise apart the wood if you do and you'll probably need them for felling anyway.

 

Because I thought I'm going to keep it for years I bought a Stihl MS 261 and figured over time the extra money spent on a pro saw would probably be saved in repairs to a home saw getting quite a bit of use over time

 

If you want some reasonable budget boots I got these, they do a slightly cheaper pair as well with orange trim but I don't think they're water proof so I went for these

Treehog Extreme Waterproof Chainsaw Boots Class 2 - Radmore & Tucker

WWW.RADMORETUCKER.CO.UK

 

Think all my research did was make me aware of how much the Pros know and how skilled a job it actually is, if you can afford it I'd maybe look at doing a course although your friends mate offering to help you out for a day is totally invaluable .... grab a pen and paper and make notes as you'll forget half of it and make sure you buy him a huge crate of beer to say thanks 😁.

Edited April 21, 2021 by Witterings

[Silverhooker]

The best advice i got was "if you are about to cut something and the little voice in your head says this is an accident waiting to happen " then listen and walk away. Its not worth the risk.

Chainsaws and hung up trees are a potent mix and can go wrong in a heart beat. Get your pro chum in and learn as much as you can from him, nothing beats on the job teaching.

[agg221]

I would echo a lot of the comment made so far. Learning by watching someone and ideally having a go while they watch you is the best way to make sure you are doing things right. That could be a course, or it could be someone on your site who is prepared to show you.

 

One thing to bear in mind is that you are probably going to be strictly ground-based. That opens up a few options. I would suggest going as big as you can afford on the saw - 60ish cc would be good but probably outside your price range new, which will probably be the limiting factor. The old Stihl Farm Boss range would probably be a good choice - renumbered as the 291 or if you could run to it the 391 would cover the bar range you need nicely. These saws are more sloggers than racers and a bit heavier but solid with it. I do buy secondhand as I can fix the basics fairly easily if needed, and secondhand can be quite old as the well built professional saws do keep going a very long time and it isn't an issue if a saw is out of action for a few weeks while it gets fixed, unlike if you are earning your living from it. Check parts availability if not buying a current model but for example you can still get pretty much everything to keep a 1980s Stihl 039 Farm Boss running.

 

PPE - chainsaw protective boots, a hard had with ear defenders and a mesh visor, and leg protection are the essentials. Most go with chainsaw trousers but I prefer chaps. This is because I am often going to do a lot more than use the saw. If I put chaps on over a pair of jeans just when cutting I can avoid snagging them on brambles or ripping them when reaching. They are also a lot lighter and more comfortable when carrying around whatever you have cut up afterwards. Boots - again, being ground-based, I prefer Wellingtons. A bit clunky but waterproof and last very well. My chaps have so far lasted 23yrs and my boots lasted 15 before they cracked. The hard hats go out of date - bear in mind that dead branches have a nasty habit of dropping off when you start cutting so an in-date hard hat is a must for me. Gloves - I originally had chainsaw gloves but realised that if you are holding the saw properly it is virtually impossible to cut your hands with it. I now use AV gloves instead, but I am using very old, heavy saws (1960s/70s design at over 100cc) with bad AV protection built in. A pair of gloves of some kind is a good idea to keep your hands warm when cutting.

 

One thing nobody has mentioned - I would also buy a Silky handsaw, probably about 30cm blade. My preference is a Gomtaro but others have different preferences. They are all good. These are extremely fast cutting high quality Japanese hand saws and for small quantities of cutting in hedgerows etc. it takes a whole lot of the hassle away. You can walk down a hedge line and take out anything up to around 6" (so long as there isn't too much of it) with no noise and no PPE required other than to avoid the brambles and nettles. I have dismantled whole fallen goat willows along my boundary in less time than it would have taken me to go and get the saw, fill it up, put on the PPE, cut it, take off the PPE and put the saw away again.

 

Alec

Edited April 22, 2021 by agg221