John Shutler

4 minutes ago, monkeybusiness said:

Depends what you are cutting for. If recovering firewood then I’d tend to agree, but if just stacking for skidding and/or chipping then you won’t get near a cut and hold shear for productivity (if it’s the right size for the job in hand). 

We don’t use a shear on the little Bobcat - my pic above was tongue in cheek as that TMK is too big for that digger (though it does actually handle it surprisingly well!). The Bobcat tends to work alongside someone with a chainsaw as it’s not usually sent to ‘volume’ jobs. However, the 6 tonner with that TMK300 clears and stacks a lot of material FAST, it’s a very productive combination. 

agreed, our little machine just goes to smaller cutting and stacking jobs where a chainsaw operator and digger driver can get through a lot of work. The shear beneath an engcon on our 7.5 tonne machine can get through a huge amount of 4-10 inch material in a day

if it’s timber going back to the yard we cut 2.5m lengths. we can get two bays of 3m on our timber trailer but loading can be awkward. 

some hauliers that buy our softwood want it in 3m lengths so we oblige if asked 

21 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

Can’t believe how tidy that finish is John.

 it’s good isn’t it. a job like that you’d usually have a truck load of shit to take away at the end and you always end up with bits left in front of the heizohack so for the sake of less than an hour with the mulcher it’s worth doing

we even tipped a truck load of rake up from another job on that site and mulched it with all the shit that was already there 

37 minutes ago, doobin said:

A flail mower is where I draw the limit at powered loader attachments. They are for lifting and grabbing, no replacement for a tractor pto. 

I had a flail mower on my old boxer

it was pretty pathetic

southern fried partridge sub 

it all depends on what work your doing. when i bought my boxer back in 2011 we were doing a lot of back garden jobs and moving the timber with a 3.5 tonne truck. you could sneak it though a garage or down the side of a house and remove decent sized chogs or rings. it worked particularly well for me as i’d not long bought a grcs so the size of stuff we were rigging had increased. 

fast forward 12 years and our work (and setup mog, tractors and merlo roto) has changed, we do a lot more clearance, woodland, estate, and local authority works. access is less of an issue and a 2 tonne digger with rotating grab is out most days of the week. i’ve got a 7.5tonne machine for larger jobs as well. the digger is great as imo it’s far better for stacking than a little skid steer and that means we can stack and leave or stack for the heizohack. we’ve a small timber trailer that goes behind it so if we can pull out a fence panel we can sneak into a garden if we need to. 

if i think about the last 4 or 5 years there’s only one or two jobs when a loader type machine has been better for that job and on those two occasions i’ve borrowed a mates avant. 

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owned one of these for the best part of 10 years.

never pulled a tree over with it or really skidded much with it either but used it a lot on technical rigging jobs back in the day to drift lowered sections over obstacles or back to a drop zone in conjunction with my grcs.

we mainly use it now when we have to winch stuff off islands in lakes to pull the 9 tonne winch cable back over to the island for the next pull  

been out with the mulcher a couple of times recently. don’t really like getting into heavy mulching jobs really but i don’t mind a bit of woodland rhody work if there’s space to get in without beating the tractor up. generally get in with a little 360 at the same time and windrow any stuff that i can’t easily get.

also it’s really handy to have just for a final tidy round on clearance type jobs as well 

11 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

I’ve been working on my own a lot more recently.

 

Thought I’d start this job reducing a line of sycamores and hawthorns down to 3’ and see how I got on.

Field behind has already been drilled, and there’s no headland, so nothing can go backwards.

70m drag to chipper.

 

Going ok so far.

 

 

 a rake would be invaluable on that job.

Ive got a brush that goes on either my 1.8 tonne or 8 tonne machine and its been a game changer

my mate bought a very similar house in the new forest, the guy who lived there approached my mate and said he didn't know what to to about the mess. my mate told him knock 20k off the asking price and you can walk away and leave it.

we were doing the site clearance  and the guy left the house immaculately presented, got into the cleanest Toyota Corolla I've ever seen with a suitcase and left the absolute disaster behind him

12 hours ago, Mike Hill said:

Those wires you are holding look like wires to the switch on the bonnet that should prevent it from starting with the bonnet up.

 

Anyhow if there was water in the box with the circuit board then it's fair to say that's where your problem is. My advice is to buy a new one and not bother with a reconditioned unit. You will have to learn the board but that's a 2 minute job.

 

Keep an eye on the circuit board box for condensation, it doesn't take much water to goose them.

i used to put one of those little bag silica bags in my old jensen 141 to deal with the condensation issue. just got to remember to change it regularly 

looking forward to a walk around tomorrow 

looks very much like lawson cypress to me 

1 hour ago, Stephen Blair said:

I stopped answering my phone about 17 years ago so I could remove that type of customer, the bolshy arrogant type.  Leave a long informative answer machine message stating how is the best way to get me to get in contact with them promptly.  The good people follow the instructions and send me a text or email and the more information they put on that text then that allows me to go on my phone and vet them and their location, so when I do get back to them I’m in a more knowledgeable position to give them answers.  If I see any red flags I’ll put more filters in place to see if I can draw out their true colours and the best way to do that is talk money straight off the bat, minimum price job, money up front and get them to send lots of pictures of the job, I usually never hear back from them and hopefully they go and annoy the opposition😂, but tbh I’d rather give a fellow tree guy a heads up of a bad customer and vice versa I’ll call them up asking about past experiences if I get told any tales of the other guy this or that.

  

This is one of the best bits of advice I ever took from you. My voicemail says for a prompt response please email or text, imo if people can't do that simple thing there we are not off to a great start. I generally listen to the voicemails then decide if il call them back and don't even get me started on the people that call from an unknown number 

7 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

Thanks Will, they’d be just the ticket.

 

Any advice on drilling/bolting to a light rsj?

Ideally I’d want to just pick it up with the grab rather than fannying around making a different headstock for it and swapping attachments.

just get an old RSJ and hold it in the webbing so that the lower edge sits lower than the grab, it'll naturally want to sit at a bit of an angle which is perfect for clearing up. if you go steady you'll be able to clear up pretty well without any tines on it. We did it with our digger for about 3 years until I bought a purpose made brush 

when I bought some earlier this year I asked the guy who was working on my neighbours paddock and he was more than happy to help. Dropped off a couple of stere's of probably the driest firewood I've ever seen

generally within 5 miles but we do go further for some customers like the national trust

1 minute ago, Will C said:

It’s mental prices at the moment, they will dip again a bit after the school holidays but evan so we’re almost trapped here! On the plus side it does keep most of the wrong uns out! 

I had to price some insurance work last week and it was going to cost £85 for me and the van for a morning

got sent some pictures instead

4 hours ago, doobin said:

The ferry is cheap in comparison to the fleet of £300k plus boats that sit in the marina at the Hamble and do nothing (and I mean nothing) other than cross the Solent for people to get lunch on the island. It's insane. It's like the M25 on a sunny Sunday.

I had a price recently to go from lymington to Yarmouth and back with the tractor and heizo that would make your eyes water. 

the NAAC rates schedule puts it at £47.95 plus vat per hour. you’ll usually find there will be a minimum charge of 2 hours at least and it really depends wether they are putting the hedge cutter on especially as a lot of guys like to put it on and all the flail work whilst it’s on as they can be a bit of a fag to put on and take off 

19 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

I have this in my kitchen. Best investment ever!

i was lucky that the one i bought was old enough that i could fit a back boiler to it like yours. apparently the newer ones can’t have boilers due to emissions. eventually i might add a boiler to

mone but that’s way down the line 

On 26/07/2023 at 12:16, Whoppa Choppa said:

Top of the pile IMO would be FaoFar - with Cranab Crane.

Also in the top makes would be Farmi, Kesla, Guerra, Kronos, FMV (long gone).

 

In the middle would be Palms, Mowi / Moheda.

 

Best budget machine would be Farma - but can't cope with the rigours of Flat Out Forestry.

 

Botex (and their dealer) are absolute shite. Anyone who promotes them must be in the same Lodge and feature in APF photoshoots 🤣.

i’ve only ever had good experiences with botex gear 

The Vendee, about 12k from Fontenay le Comte @Ty Korrigan

i bought a 2nd hand esse ironheart which i put into my place in france. very pleased with it. kicks out a nice amount of heat and the oven works well. overload it and you’ll have the top plate glowing red.