MattyF

Didn’t Tony Blaire ban hunting with dogs ! What has got the antis backs up and done no other Feild sports favours is most hunts have carried on and openly killed foxes regardless .. the terrier boys have been illegal for years but still carried on. I’m in no way anti hunting with dogs and would completely turn a blind eye to any hunts in my area as I feel it’s the most effective way of controlling foxes and keeping there population healthy... but most of the hate for fox hunting in general is a class war thing and has nothing to do with animal welfare.

Personally from a production point of view I think it’s mentally ill to use old saws... as well as being worse on emissions that damage your health and the anti vibrations being less efficient which again damage your health especially so on a worn saw or ones with non factory cheap parts fitted they are in no way as productive... buy a new saw if you have a lot of felling and replace it after a year if it’s your livelihood and keep the other for spares that are readily available ! If your really tight then sell the old one as used saws seem to make stupid money !! but I’d rather have the spares to keep a saw going in an emergency.. if you can’t do this your not charging enough. On another note I’ve not had much of any auto tune saws go wrong apart from the usual wear and they are still easy enough to change cylinders and pistons on if they do go.

40k box is all your gonna get unless you find an old fast trac ... which I would not touch with a barge pole! Just need to keep your eyes open for any well looked after 40k tractor would be all I could advise.

2511 echo 550 husky 500i stihl

But it’s not two ropes it’s three if we follow your other guidelines of having a rescue line installed as well ... if I was continue working SRT with retrievable anchors which I feel is the safest way to work on a average large tree of say around 22 metres that would mean around 150 metres of rope is needed.... that’s a 150 m of rope to manage... Put that along side conditions, rigging , woodchippers and groundsmen with saws I think I’ve pretty much trebbled my chances of some one cutting my rope or it getting damaged by rigging , being ripped out the tree by getting caught on machines.. all of these concern me greater as they are risks I can not control as a climber and VERY REAL ones I have personally witnessed.

Can any one confirm that the guy originally from HSE who prompted this walked out after two months and his name please ?

Kesla are generally considered the rolls Royce of cranes with a price tag to match.. lot of good cranes out there though .. and good trailers but I would look at these “ guerra “ as they have hydraulic drive instead of those dodge cage drive wheels for the ultimate tractor set up .. some pics here December 2019 - WWW.FORESTMACHINESERVICES.COM

I’ve never heard of any one having issues with the 500i ! only issue Or niggle I have is the air filter needs cleaning twice or at least once a day... I know guys who use them on big outside Sitka and will kill a saw a year but have not had an issue with the 500i and he said it was the first saw he’s owned that hasn’t needed a rebuild in 12 months! Any ways 462 is a great saw , light, very responsive and handles nice in hand although the trigger and handle bother me as they feel like they may fall apart and some thing is not quite right there but 20” is what it feels best on to me and is a great saw. 572 is more of a 24”saw , definitely feels like it’s made to carry a 24” but is a heavier than the 462 and you can feel it in the handling.

Also gives you an mechanical advantage pre tensioning Mick , I’ve seen it lift some canny bits in the demo vids , have rigged wrenches up so you can pull people in to trees so can say it works well in trial.

On another note Americans do get a bit more hyped up on topping trees , but the oldest trees in England are usually pollards or lapsed pollards so I would not get too worked up, there are plenty of topped trees in Europe that have survived centuries!

Can you put any more photos up of where the primary limbs join the stem at around fence height ? It looks to me that the tree may have been pollarded to that height in previous years ..well say maybe 30 or so years back as the whole tree crown is coming from that area ... you say it dropped limbs ? This could be an indicator the tree is already infected with ash die back so it’s a catch ... on one hand if it wasn’t re pollarded or heavily pruned it would of continued to drop limbs on the other any new growth from epicormic water shoots will be more susceptible to infection as the barks thinner.... personally I would take it down to a metre or so above the old pollard points on the fence so it’s easy to mange and can be kept on a manageable rotation , say every 5+ years as that looks like to me how it was originally managed and hope for the best, what’s left now is an embarrassment an insult to nature and the tree.... but if it’s not infected with ash die back it will grow back!

Shame they can’t still develop a decent 3.5 t 4x4 transit

I had a g66 or what ever it is as I fancied a Christmas holiday project , you can do a self build so replaced the crank seals /bearings and a few other bits for genuine but the saw was incontinent and leaked fuel every where , the fuel lines ,caps where junk so was most of the quality of the other bits ...wasn’t a bad saw in timber mind but I would not want it in the front line.

Couple of brades 7lb axes I found ... put one in brick acid to get the deep pitted rust off and it came out a bit bright though.

How much for the D ??

Fair enough, I’ve been cutting racks of soft wood and a rack a head by lunch , swapped saws and the other guy took the 560 and was nearly caught up by home time... that’s why I like them , it keeps you alert I find and more productive, you have to move with the speed of the saw... now in hard woods it is slightly more different and the control of the 400 is noticeable as you say with chain skip and it has plenty of torque but again chain speed is not a bad thing depending on the operator.

Hmm I’ve cut quite a bit with 50’s and 60’s and it’s never bothered me , as forestry production saws I don’t think they can be faulted, never really liked the 361’s or 34’s but did miss the 262xp but not the 266xp .. any way I guess it’s a personnel thing .. I miss that scream on the 400 to the point I thought an exhaust mod might let me like it a bit more but on opening it up there was nothing in the exhaust to mod ! Glad I gave you some happy memories Steve! I don’t think you where that happy to get a 372 in bits that I’d tried to rebuild [emoji23]

Had one for a while as my woods saw, it is good in hardwood haven’t really worked in any soft wood plantations to give a verdict this year ,but plenty of torque more than the 560xp , Bill Pearce had a brief go and thought it like a ms440 in terms of power ... it feels more like a traditional stihl though like the 440 more so than the 462 which feels like it could of been a husky. With the magnesium piston I was expecting quicker pick up or I guess more of a husky type raspy Rev. It picks up very nice but doesn’t seem to really scream like a 560xp. Vibrations seem very good though.

Never liked the 372 , mine always Constantly broke, it did have better vibes than the stihls of the period though but and the 365 was a bargain for what it was, not as highly strung ... can’t fault the 400 though but the jury is still out.

1 .... who goes on a cruise!

1 .... who goes on a cruise!

Wrong thread !

Another for the courant bags , Had mine 4 years and it’s not fallen to bits yet!

Have you mounted the winch on the loader mike ?

You do what you gotta do dude, if your cut for it you will be hobbling around still going with two fuct hips and arthritic hands when your 70 and loving it. I would say though I have been in the industry since I was 16, I grew up in it too and at 42 now have seen many arbs come and go , many people seem to have some sort of mid life crises and decide they have a calling to work with trees, be a climber and be out side and I don’t recal many if any of the later cutting it at all and on average lasting around 5years before having enough and walking away regretting the day they spent 1000’s on training and giving up there cushty jobs. If you can get level 3 certs,great but it really sums up the industry in my view , folks with virtually zero experience in jobs on trees, dealing with trees and watching them for years getting the jobs for the boys because they couldn’t or can’t cut hard work and weather and that’s all this job is , a relentless battle against things that have full on potential to kill you in stupid heats , freezing or soaking weather, machines that break down and dealing with absolute dick heads in the general public , apart from that it’s mint and I would never do any thing else [emoji38] You see you kind of get institutionalised and addicted in some sadomasochistic way to it, im convinced also there is some kind of chemical imbalance in good climbers who need a fix of adrenaline to even lead a normal life... they can’t go on holiday , they can’t spend time out side of trees with out the urge to get up work hard , get stuck in and go for it ,basically it some kind of ptsd .....like Charlie sheen said in apocalypse now about getting back in the jungle and all you can think about when your there is coming home.. well any way , best of luck[emoji1303][emoji1303]