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Opportunities for small scale forestry on the west coast of Scotland?


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Hi all.

 For personal reasons I am looking to relocate my work from Sussex to the West coast of Scotland.

 I have been a chainsaw operator for the past 14 years. Mostly chestnut coppicing, but I have done all manner of work, hardwood thinning, felling softwood for a skyline winch, brashing, mechanical weeding and scrub and vegetation clearance.

 Four years ago, I went from purely being a self employed cutter, to coppicing my own bits of chestnut on small local estates. I bought an alpine tractor, small forwarding trailer and winch.

 Overall, I would regard it as a success, although good quality sweet chestnut is hard to come by these days.

Now to the point, for personal reasons I am looking to relocate to the isle of mull, on the west coast of Scotland. I have worked in that region previously cutting and chokering for a skyline winch, but I am interested to hear people's opinions on wether I will find any work for my tractor up there. 

 I don't think there will be much, if any forwarding work as it is just too small and fragile for commercial softwood, so I am thinking more about getting a variety of other implements, probably starting with a flail and possibly log splitter and looking for contracting opportunities.

 If anyone has any ideas on how viable this may be I would love to hear some opinions.

 Would look to work not just on mull but the mainland probably from Oban up to fort William depending on the job.

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Another West Sussex resident here too and a Scot by birth but I'm sorry John I can't help with your query however I do suspect your thinking is good.

 I have a very similar set up to yourself.  Carrera tractor with a Vaha Jussi trailer with winch and 4WD.

 If it's not too much trouble I'd love to see more photos of the rack over your tractor bonnet as I really need to build something similar.

 Good luck with your move to Scotland.

 

Alan

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1 hour ago, Alan Smith said:

Another West Sussex resident here too and a Scot by birth but I'm sorry John I can't help with your query however I do suspect your thinking is good.

 I have a very similar set up to yourself.  Carrera tractor with a Vaha Jussi trailer with winch and 4WD.

 If it's not too much trouble I'd love to see more photos of the rack over your tractor bonnet as I really need to build something similar.

 Good luck with your move to Scotland.

 

Alan

No worries, I will send you some more pictures over sometime in the next week, working on a different site for the next few days

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Not a huge amount of small scale forestry around here, all the estates forestry interests are in Sitka. You might get a job that would require a machine like that for a few days once or twice a year? Maybe in 30 years once the native woodlands being planted need thinned it would be the machine to have ! You would have more luck Perthshire or Aberdeenshire way for that kind of work. Give me a shout, I'm based up near Mull

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Looking at the amount of forestry on Mull, if you was the only one there with kit i would say you would be laughing, but you wont be and believe me your kit will never compete with the big out fits, i have a simulare set up to yours and find a bit of work for it (South lakes, North Yorkshire and in Lancashire) most jobs the tractor and trailer go on are our own jobs where we have bought standing timber, the plus point of small kit is it dont make much of a mess, 

I think if i was you i would spend a bit of time up there doing some home work, asking a few questions, checking firewood suppliers out and a bit of door knocking dont cost owt but you could learn a lot by this,, there probably not much hard wood on Mull but i do know there is a lot of badly managed birch and oak around loch Awe,,

I wish you well with your venture and like i said above if you dont ask you dont get,,

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