Quickthorn

Cheers..it's Midland style..I'd not put the binders on at that stage. It's very hard to find decent coppice round here. What there is is mainly hazel, and the "good" stuff is not as good as down south. I don't know of any sweet chestnut coppice round here at all..I wish there was some, because it seems like you can make a decent living out of it. Sorry to derail the thread, catweazle..I don't know if you've seen this, or whether it helps..Tate fencing, Fencing supplies and installation. They've got a few sections dealing with chestnut products, which give an idea of what prices they retail at.

You could try CPL. I don't know what sort of wholesale price you'd get, but their online retail prices seem a bit steep. The local coal merchant is often worth checking out.

Has anyone used WRC as kindling on a large scale? I've found it pretty good for my own use (it can spit a bit, but it was from a hedge), but I was wondering whether it would scale up commercially. More important, would it go through something like a Kindlett machine?

That doesn't seem too bad, considering your main tool would probably cost about £40, makes no noise, needs no fuel and next to no maintenance.!

Digga, agree with what you're saying there. I'd be interested to know: what were they paying per pale, and how long ago? How many could you do in a day?

Have you tried Woodlots? I can't see anything that exactly matches what you are after, but you might find a contact. I'm not exactly sure if such a thing exists, to be honest. It may still be done by hand. Anyway, there are a few facts and figures about chestnut paling manufacture in this paper (it's a pdf file).

I spoke to the sales bloke a few months ago - he did a demo for us. I think they hire anywhere in the UK. £300 pw, but delivery might be the killer.

Cheers, I'll try it in a while. No point now, as I've just put it back together, and it'll come off easily.

Thanks for the help. If you take the starter cover off, there's a nut in the middle of the flywheel..can that be used to hold it all still without breaking anything?

The way I've always done this is to take out the spark plug, put in a plastic piston stop to stop the crank rotating, then undo the clutch by putting a suitable punch into the notch provided on the clutch and giving the punch a whack with a hammer. Now, I've just asked my local Husky dealer if there's a special tool or something for this - he says use a punch, but he also says "never use a piston stop" ! Does anyone agree with this? Surely, the thing will just turn over when you whack it and you'll get nowhere. He seems to think that a sharp enough tap will get the clutch off... If he's right, what are you supposed to do with something like a 254 xp? That has a hex head you can get a socket on, but no notches.

I think it depends who you are dealing with..Gibbon's T&C might look a bit intimidating to a domestic customer, but a commercial customer or local authority would probably expect T&Cs like this. I don't have T&Cs myself, other than putting a few conditions in the quote letter, but it's something i ought to do. I think it's a wise move to have them, just for those small minority of jobs where a little dispute can give a bloody minded customer an excuse to hold back payment.

Red band needle blight?

I'm in the process of doing something similar myself in Notts. How far have you got? Have you passed the expression of interest stage? I get the feeling that you might stand more chance if you can truthfully claim that you're in farming and seeking to diversify. Also, can you claim it's more than just firewood? The number of people who have got into firewood over the past year or so is truly staggering, so I'm sure there will have been plenty of those applying for grant aid, if it's the same in your area as it is here. They won't fund every budding firewood business, so if you have another string to your bow...

I've only got the lawn rake - which is very good for scraping up leaves and twigs on grass. I'd say the same as some of the others - not quite professional standard, but very close.

Isn't there 2 ways of quoting moisture? This seems to be where a bit of confusion's come in. There's "wet" basis, where the weight of water is the % of the total weight of the log (wood + water). That's what i thought the OP meant. For "wet" basis, 100 % moisture content is pure water, and you can't have it higher than 100 %. A fresh log half water by weight would be 50% MC (wet). There's also "dry" basis, where the weight of water is the % of the wood only weight (ie a totally dry log). This way, you can have a moisture content higher than 100 %. A fresh log half water by weight would be 100% MC (dry).

I'll check that out, thanks..although this is a slow death rather than sudden..and if you let go quick enough, it will drop to idle without cutting out.

I've got an MS260 a bit like that..it idles ok, you get full revs for a few seconds then dies. I think it might be the diaphragm.

Titchmarsh & Goodwin used to buy in walnut. Their spec was min. girth 80" and butt length 6'.

I'm guessing it used to average 300 miles a week, even using a caravan to stop over in the week. I've moved nearer the work now, so should cut that down a bit.

To be honest, I don't think these grants are here to help people who can't afford stuff. They're really handed out to keep production costs down in whatever target area is the order of the day. In the case of forestry supply chains, I'll bet that most of the benefit eventually ends up in the pockets of the land owners.

Yeowww!!! If it's going to cost me that much per year for a set of accounts, it'll cost me £6k...I might as well rip up the grant form now..I'm only putting in for 5 grand !!

I'm not sure if they enforce this for everyone, but another requirement I saw was that they wanted 3 years audited accounts,to go in with your application. A larger business or a company will probably have these, but if you're a small business, your accounts are going to be fairly simple, so you're more likely to be able to do your own. I know I do. So, if you've got to get your last 3 years accounts made up and audited, how much is that going to cost? Last time I used an accountant, it cost £250 for a year's unaudited accounts, and that was 5 years ago. I'd suppose that for 3 years, that would be a grand..

My thoughts, too. On the surface, the match funding is the killer..and some of these schemes have lower limits of something like £28k..so you need to find finance for £14k at least. However, it is worth making contact with people who administer it, as the local arrangement might have some sort of loophole that's not made clear. For example, the scheme minimum here was advertised at £28k, but on phoning the local council, it seems that there is a slot for "micro-businesses" that has a minimum of £3,500..so the match funding is much more feasible. The irony is that some people near me - who gained from very generous funding scheme a few years back - cost their kit out at very low rates..so the only way I can justify buying anything is if I can get funding!!

Charlie, the ATV thing is something I'm looking into. If it's not a rude question, what did they quote, and how much is the ATV worth? Cheers,

Good post. If you're getting through a lot of materials specific to the job, it's important to understand the difference between gross profit and net profit. Gross profit is sales minus cost of sales (ie. all the materials that you use directly for the job..turf, plants, slabs, whatever). Net profit is sales minus all the indirect expenses (ie stuff mentioned already, plus vehicle expenses, paper clips, phone bills etc..everything). I find it's helpful to take gross profit as the starting point rather than sales, because it irons out the ups and downs when the amount of material you use varies. Margins are one useful thing to look at; another good measure only shows up on the balance sheet, and that's owner's equity. How much of your business do you actually own, and is that figure going up or down? If you follow this year on year, you get your return on capital employed. It's worth comparing this to what you would get if you cashed in everything and stuck it in the bank.