the 'todays job' thread

[openspaceman]

24 minutes ago, doobin said:

What are they trying to achieve there? Removal of pine regen?

More likely spruce regen removal as non native on a Caledonian site but am interested in the real answer

[Mick Dempsey]

3 hours ago, Stephen Blair said:

Out with the Flailbot yesterday doing a demo for an estate and land agents.  Horrible ground, peat with ditches and rocks.  
 

Not sure that was showing the machine in the best light.

 

What would the alternative method be, clearing saws and blades?

 

[doobin]

22 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Not sure that was showing the machine in the best light.

 

What would the alternative method be, clearing saws and blades?

 

That's one way. You can also pull out with grabs etc.

 

Not to shit on Steven's new machine, but usage of a flailbot for this sort of work in the name of 'safety' (although hardly a steep site) really gets on my tits. The powers that be claim to be all about preserving heathland and then go and shit all over it by mulching everything and enriching the soil rather than take a surgical approach and remove the offending isolated vegetation.

 

An alpine with crane trailer or LogBullet with a grapple with pinch bars would be quicker, neater and remove the waste to a dump site. As well as pulling out the roots for a bit of bare ground for young heather plus no chance of regen (especially a problem with birch). But no, it's 'safety first- remote controlled flail' 🙄

 

The other major problem is that the people writing the specs for the grants have no clue. And the landowner wants to meet the spec in it's most basic form (ie, no more trees) as quickly and cheaply as possible in order to pocket the rest of the grant. Which no doubt is why Stephen was demoing to land agents.

Edited August 19, 2023 by doobin

[Mick Dempsey]

The other aspect of the job I noticed was the machine was flattening the trees, flailing it a bit but perhaps not killing it.

The uneven nature of the terrain would not have helped.

IME with my flail on thin stuff you have to really be sure to get to where it comes out of the ground otherwise you just strip the upper side.

[5thelement]

8 hours ago, doobin said:

That's one way. You can also pull out with grabs etc.

 

Not to shit on Steven's new machine, but usage of a flailbot for this sort of work in the name of 'safety' (although hardly a steep site) really gets on my tits. The powers that be claim to be all about preserving heathland and then go and shit all over it by mulching everything and enriching the soil rather than take a surgical approach and remove the offending isolated vegetation.

 

An alpine with crane trailer or LogBullet with a grapple with pinch bars would be quicker, neater and remove the waste to a dump site. As well as pulling out the roots for a bit of bare ground for young heather plus no chance of regen (especially a problem with birch). But no, it's 'safety first- remote controlled flail' 🙄

 

The other major problem is that the people writing the specs for the grants have no clue. And the landowner wants to meet the spec in it's most basic form (ie, no more trees) as quickly and cheaply as possible in order to pocket the rest of the grant. Which no doubt is why Stephen was demoing to land agents.

I regularly did Winter work on the Ashdown Forest with a team clearing regen, mainly Birch and Scots  Pine. 
The terrain looked quite similar, wet, uneven, deep soft pockets and tough grassy sods with Heather growing out of it, not great for showing off the capabilities of a machine like that.

We used to stamp the grass low around the tree base, cut with the chainsaw, spray the stump then make stacks for the tractor and grab and bundle up to take off site to burn. 
 

Time consuming, pretty boring, but fantastic landscape to work in, we could clear a fair area over the season.

[Mark Bolam]

@bigtreedon slotted this one through today and thought of you.

50’, but straight and vertical, pulled by hand.

462 with 20”, 550 bar wouldn’t extend the cut, and I didn’t want to mess around with both sides.

Hinge was much more respectable than it looks from this angle!

[Mark Bolam]

Day 2 of connie kills, mainly taking panels out and firing between concrete posts.

Twins joined me on site briefly yesterday.

 

 

[bigtreedon]

9 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

@bigtreedon slotted this one through today and thought of you.

50’, but straight and vertical, pulled by hand.

462 with 20”, 550 bar wouldn’t extend the cut, and I didn’t want to mess around with both sides.

Hinge was much more respectable than it looks from this angle!

Laying them to rest 👌

[Doug Tait]

Nothing dramatic but really good to be away from hedges and pruning!

Winch assisted Ash felling out of a small domestic woodland up Yarrow Valley. All arisings taken off site at the end of the day's work in one grain trailer of chip and a decent load on timber trailer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stephen Blair]

On 19/08/2023 at 12:18, doobin said:

That's one way. You can also pull out with grabs etc.

 

Not to shit on Steven's new machine, but usage of a flailbot for this sort of work in the name of 'safety' (although hardly a steep site) really gets on my tits. The powers that be claim to be all about preserving heathland and then go and shit all over it by mulching everything and enriching the soil rather than take a surgical approach and remove the offending isolated vegetation.

 

An alpine with crane trailer or LogBullet with a grapple with pinch bars would be quicker, neater and remove the waste to a dump site. As well as pulling out the roots for a bit of bare ground for young heather plus no chance of regen (especially a problem with birch). But no, it's 'safety first- remote controlled flail' 🙄

 

The other major problem is that the people writing the specs for the grants have no clue. And the landowner wants to meet the spec in it's most basic form (ie, no more trees) as quickly and cheaply as possible in order to pocket the rest of the grant. Which no doubt is why Stephen was demoing to land agents.

Evening gents, apologies for late reply to Flailbot questions.  
  This was a 60HA regen site on top of peatland that’s due restoration work next year.  The foresters and land managers had never seen a Flailbot working so we’re curious to see if 1 man could do it all with this machine.  The answer was very obviously no upon the site visit.  But while I was there why not have a demo anyway.  Where I was parked was on the road at a big turning area so as you can imagine the ground either side of the road was rocky and like the moon with 10 years of regen!  So I picked the biggest trees I felt were within the machines capabilities growing in the worst bits.  The video doesn’t show how uneven the ground was.  Anyhoo, after 10 minutes I put the machine back in the trailer and the powers above got a mental picture of what the machine can do, these guys manage millions of HA of land and there parting words were ‘ very impressed ‘ within 5 days I had a call to ask to quote the rd verges to that site.  So a worthwhile visit and the start of hopefully a new adventure.