the 'todays job' thread

[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. 

 

[doobin]

22 hours ago, Stephen Blair said:

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. 

 

Glad its finding work. Are you replacing the Avant with something larger?

[Stephen Blair]

17 minutes ago, doobin said:

Glad its finding work. Are you replacing the Avant with something larger?

Not replacing the Avant, there’s now 3 in my network I can get anytime within a 30 minute radius with operators.  Tbh my back can’t take the bouncing about, I can only manage about 3-4 hours on the digger now!  So walking and Flailbotting it is.  

[Doug Tait]

Bit more of the same from the site up Yarrow Valley, there all week felling Ash and really enjoying it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Was really humid with the heat today so a team dip of the skinny variety in St Mary's Loch on way back to base was called for!

 

 

[s o c]

On 06/09/2023 at 19:26, Stephen Blair said:

Not replacing the Avant, there’s now 3 in my network I can get anytime within a 30 minute radius with operators.  Tbh my back can’t take the bouncing about, I can only manage about 3-4 hours on the digger now!  So walking and Flailbotting it is.  

I  used to get a lot of back pain from operating mini digger until one day I put the safety belt on because I was moving fairly big lumps and getting bounced around a lot.(I suppose I should always have worn anyway)

I find a huge difference and now wear it fairly snugly all the time, bit of a pain if I’m on and off a lot but beats having a sore back.

 

[Stephen Blair]

6 minutes ago, s o c said:

I  used to get a lot of back pain from operating mini digger until one day I put the safety belt on because I was moving fairly big lumps and getting bounced around a lot.(I suppose I should always have worn anyway)

I find a huge difference and now wear it fairly snugly all the time, bit of a pain if I’m on and off a lot but beats having a sore back.

 

I agree the belt helps but I’ve too many years of abuse working for it to be a simple fix. 

[Slicer Dicer]

1 hour ago, s o c said:

I  used to get a lot of back pain from operating mini digger until one day I put the safety belt on because I was moving fairly big lumps and getting bounced around a lot.(I suppose I should always have worn anyway)

I find a huge difference and now wear it fairly snugly all the time, bit of a pain if I’m on and off a lot but beats having a sore back.

 

Oh you mean seat belt. Sometimes I wear a weightlifters belt which keeps pressure on the lower back. It's no substitute for using your back carefully but does help a bit. My back isn't great, regular chiropractor trips help as do pilate style exercises and good posture. TBh anything over 20kg and I get the machine to lift it if poss- try and preserve what I have...

[AHPP]

1 hour ago, s o c said:

I  used to get a lot of back pain from operating mini digger until one day I put the safety belt on because I was moving fairly big lumps and getting bounced around a lot.(I suppose I should always have worn anyway)

I find a huge difference and now wear it fairly snugly all the time, bit of a pain if I’m on and off a lot but beats having a sore back.

 

I love the seatbelt on a digger. Comfortable like you say and way more productive on energetic work like wrestling stumps out.