Quickthorn

That sounds like what I was looking at..I wanted a Riko centre steer tractor to go on top of the trailer. The difficulty is getting enough work to service the finance and account for the depreciation. The problem round here is there are a few people running similar kit who are rich enough to buy stuff like this outright, so they can afford to run it for quite low rates. People like them tend to mop up most of the work.

Last year, I bought some firewood from the estate where I live. Straight off the forwarder, it was £20/tonne..I believe that's their roadside firewood price. I'd say that £20/t at roadside now is a minimum for firewood.

Make sure you're seated when they let you know how much. I looked into this when the forestry exemption only allowed 50 km from base. I was quoted around £700 for a landrover 110. One bloke thought it wasn't possible..he seemed to think that it had to be a digital tacho now, and didn't know how one could be fitted to a 20 year old vehicle. If that was the case, I suppose they'd expect me to replace the whole vehicle, and all for the sake of half a dozen trips per year into the next county!! I wouldn't mind filling in a logbook so much - I record all my mileage anyway - it's just the cost of the tacho that would knacker me. I'm hoping my work comes under the exemption..hedgelaying is agricultural work, woodland management is forestry, I'd have thought, as is planting (although I'm probably not allowed to do the latter until I get a gangmaster's licence). Jim, thanks for posting your info. I'm based near Horncastle/Spilsby, btw.

Jim, can you say where you heard this from? This seems to mean that a lot of people on here (eg Transit tipper towing anything) need a tacho regardless of how far they travel. To save derailing this thread, perhaps you could add to this one

Hi BigA. Just in case I've given the wrong idea, they're not all mine! Just the first and last ones, the Midland styles. Most people charge by the metre or yard. For a reasonable job, it can range between £7-15 / m - all depends on the size of it, how much other rubbish there is in there and how far away it is. When people quote much less, you find that you get a poor job, where it's just cut and flopped down on itself. The first one I posted, I'd price at about £10 / m incl. materials but excluding VAT. I offer to clear up the waste for an extra £1-2 /m, providing chipping onto the base of the hedge is ok and I can get my towable chipper in, although I always hope that the customer will sort that.! Farmers would rather sort it themselves, but a lot of people are happy to pay for me to do it. Personally, I normally cover Notts and Lincs, and I'm based near Boston, but I can go further, within reason, if I can park the caravan and stay overnight on site. Drop me a PM if you're interested

I think the first one was "The Pretenders" by The Pretenders. That was on vinyl. The last one, CD, was "In the Heart of the Moon" by Ali Farka Toure

This is some more of mine..not at the Nationals, but the last job I did. Midland style, before and after.

This is a Welsh style..flintshire, I believe. The stakes go in at a 30 degree angle. They're laid very dense, too, so even light can't get through them. The picture doesn't do this one justice, because all of these were immaculate.

Yorkshire..finished off by nailing a rail to the top, rather than using binders.They're often cut "thin", with a lot of stuff cut out. The idea is that they're not quite stockproof at first, but thicken out in time.

Westmoreland..another double brushed style. Hard to tell from this picture, but the stakes are almost on the outside, in two double staggered rows.

South of england..this one's double brushed, as each stem is laid alternately to one side, then the other, so that there is brushy stuff either side.

This one's Derbyshire..similar to the first, but without binding, more tightly woven at the top. Both of these are called single brushed, because the brushy, twiggy stuff is put on just one side, towards where the stock would be.

I got my prints back, so let's see if I can put some of them up.. ..this first one's Midland style..my effort, as it happens. I wasn't competing as such, just cutting for accreditation.

It doesn't give a spec on the website, but they did send some info. They do a fast tow version with overrun brakes, grosses at 3.2t. You don't need the tacho if you're doing forestry stuff within 100 km of your base. It still doesn't stack up, though..the payload can only be 2t or so, and It would cost me over 20p a mile just in fuel to drag it around.

And this link Changes toHabitat Regulations Bats and a few other species have increased protection now. If you damage their habitat, it is an offence full stop, whether you took reasonable precautions beforehand or not. You need a licence to handle bats, that much I know.

It's a bit late for me now, I think I'm too old, but if I'd known 10 years ago how this country was going to go, I'd have gone, probably to NZ. Now, in the UK, a lot of people have got a very bleak future unless they have money and connections.

At one point, I was thinking of getting one of these trailers You can get trailer mounted powerpacks, but hydraulics on the landrover would be better. OK, not as versatile in the woods with a landrover compared to a tractor, but as soon as you're out and onto the road, you can be straight up to 50 mph. Not so viable now when you consider the cost of it plus fuel at over £1/l

I don't fully agree with that either. It's more the design of the thing is very dated, and doesn't lend itself to modern assembly. They were designed more or less in the 50s and 60s, when complex machining time was expensive and manual labour time was cheap, so it's made up of many simple components. Nowadays, machine time is cheap and labour is expensive, so the LR design must be a total pain to assemble compare to something modern. That's good for us, though, cos they're like big meccano sets, you can bolt all sorts of stuff to them with relative ease.

Various home made crap really. I've got a few chipper roller motors that might make a capstan winch, I was also wondering if I could knock up some sort of log loader. Now I've seen your log splitter, I want one of those as well!

It's the fitting kit, and maybe the pump I'm interested in as well. Is it as simple as taking the pto cover off the transfer box and replacing with the fitting kit, or is it more involved?

I reckon you'd have trouble at the ends, because it's just crushed. You'd probably need to cut off 4-6" to get into sound wood.

That's pretty good..any more details on the PTO for the hydraulics? Is that something you bought in?

Very sorry to hear about this, and send our best wishes to your mate.. So we can all learn from this, do you know if your mate made a dog tooth cut (ie sink, bore in, release back strap), or did he make a straightforward cut from the back towards the hinge? It's a tough way to learn..you'd think a 10 degree lean wouldn't need special precautions, but crack willow (and some ash for that matter) are highly dangerous. I've seen near vertical ash start to split upwards on the way over. Have the HSE made an appearance yet?

Exactly. I know of at least one contractor who's been asked by the FC for his licence. The cost of it is ridiculous, so there's no way I can go for it, but if the FC and all local authorities start insisting on it to cover their arses, that's another chunk of work that will go west.

Does anyone know the ins and outs of this? GLA Forestry If I did some felling or took my chipper out subbing to another company, do I come under gangmaster licencing? What about if someone subbed to me on one of my jobs?