MattyF

I would go diesel over petrol any day of the week, they just chip better, petrol seems to lack torque. as said you can’t go wrong with the kubota v1505 in most chippers and pretty bomb proof.. only problem I’ve ever had with one and I’ve had 8 machines with them in is once had to do the crank seals on one machine.

That would be my choice for a small tow behind , would not go back to Timberwolf… I dragged out our old tw 150 the other week that we kept as a back up , we have owned since new in 2002… would let it go for £2800 very tough paint wise but had a new chassis in 2016, no stress works but clocks stopped , it had 1200 hours on before I leant it to an ex employer to get on his feet for a year with his new business … clock came back broken but I doubt he put more than 400hrs on it and it had just had a full rebuild before it went by one of the best TW mechanics in the north east .. saying that I would say 150’s need new bearings every 400-600 hrs.

Aye your right mate … you can make £200 a day a Tesco … I’m starting to question why I’m doing this , if there was a way out of the industry for me I’d probably take it.

There is that Mike but also most 22 year olds haven’t got a days graft in them or think they are some super star climber wanting more money than you have on the job for wages. I think if your the hard working farm type you will probably be sought after by any employer wanting stable reliable staff.

Modern drill will be fine,you can’t push them any harder than a petrol driven stihl drill I’ve found anyway…it’s all about using decent augers

TEUFELBERGER HIPSTAR FLEX has been my go too with the positioner for the last 10 years , I’ll cut a 10 meter in two as 5 m is long enough for a work position lanyard length then keep the other hank for a spare.

phytophthora or honey fungus at a guess .. was there big black rhizomorphs boot laces running under the bark around the base ?

Is it running all drive belts ? I’ve had mine performing badly and realised the original drive belts had started to break. is the drive belt tensioner stuck ? The tension is basically the engine weight but the rod it sits on should be greased occasionally and if it isn’t it’s known to get stuck… . The anvil and blades I would not of thought would have made that much difference although there should be a 1mm gap and blades set to that when changed… anvil is easy to change or turn.. personally not a massive fan of the whisper cut, my old 220 with two blades was easier to maintain and chipped better…the whisper cut has to be kept sharp and has a habit of very occasionally getting bits wedged between anvil and v on start up. is the hydraulic clutch starting to fail… this is the machines only week point, overland told me to change the oil every two blade changes but mines still got coming up to 2k hours on original clutch but I’m expecting to change it soon….it will out last another on the market and keep up with others for chipping. Personally I would not look at another chipper.. all of them have weak points but the Schliesing is very agricultural and easy to work on and rarely will it fail..that being said if I was looking for a machine to replace every 3 years the new 280 Timberwolf looks good.

Another thing we used to do for young tree maintenance was use two stakes , then take off one then on the final year take the last stake and cut it in half and stake it lower

Some times they do benefit from being re staked , I’ve bought back quite a few trees that my late father planted that out grew there guards and fell over , re staked and 4-5 years later they are standing up fine.

Looks more like phytopthora to me..

Thing is the stihl combo is marked at 5l so if you do a shot for 5 l and use that mark it’s pretty much bang on, despite what the pumps telling you … alternately shoot up a 20 litre can fill it up and poor it in the combi when needed, this usually happens if we are doing forestry as two hand cutters will easily use 5 l a day and quick fill nozzles are just easy.. I really don’t see a better alternative.

Vertical cracking is the stems drying out after they have died..it would not be the root cause so obviously something has killed them ! is the whole plantation dead or just odd trees , is there deer damage or rodent damage on surviving trees?

I use one for milling chains. I want the chains the same so you don’t get a bad cut with loads of cutter marks on boards. They work well , I usually brush a bit of oil on each cutter to keep them cooler and don’t go heavy pulling it in to the cutter and back it off two three times.. it’s worth the effort for milling but not faster sharpening and not as good for getting a fast cutting chain with deep gullets for felling and cross cutting work.

As best as possible .. I will get a feeler gauge next time I’m in town. Just used an old logging tape cut twice and doubled up as a gauge… I didn’t think it would be that out though.