Pete Mctree

Where are you based Aaron?

I will have been climbing and falling for 30 in May and I am having to adapt. At 53 I have changed my goals and expectations of myself, but I still need to be fit enough to grind another week out. i use more contractor climbers, mechanise when I can and exercise three times a week if I am not too beat up. Changing what I expect of myself is the hardest bit

You use a feather file to sharpen handsaws. if the saw blade is impulse hardened you can’t do it, as the teeth are tempered as part of the finishing process - check before you try otherwise you will kill your file with zero results

Jensen and TP machines are getting some good reviews- not many bad chippers about these days and a lot is down to budget and preference

Larger trees are seeming to retain better vigour and react positively to pruning, but only in the early stages. at best I am buying a relatively short reprieve for any ash I am working on and am very wary of customers feeling like they have wasted money retaining them for only a couple or so years

Check that the fuel tank is not full of crap as the poor starting may be due to settlement- Dirty fuel filter may be an indicator

@Mark_Skyland did you manage to sort the issue out?

The swivel is a replaceable part - you really don’t like this do you? like hating your morning wood before it arrives- might be more than you think….

The needle bearing could be damaged- had similar before and took me a while to work it out

@Steve Bullmanit works srt and double rope

Hap Johnson

You can make a plunge cut into the stem in the direction of fell (90 degrees to the hinge) to assess the condition of the timber. The resistance and sawdust produced tell the story On such a tree I would have done it prior to the decision to fell. You might have discovered better wood higher up the stem

Is that heather you are mulching?

People get obsessed with rigging gear and forget what can be achieved with a single rope and some imagination. I can rig large limbs easily by adding friction in the tree, same with timber and often only use pulleys etc on a stem. We often show up other crews with speed and efficiency doing this. Go learn the basics Kram and then the logic of everything else will drop into place- I can’t decide if you are looking for solutions to problems that don’t exist or if you are simply trolling?