MattyF

I haven’t! Because again the price… but I’ve spent a lot of time on the Hobbs style device. there’s a hundred different posts about them on here from the last decade or so and every one who has bought one said they would not go back.. but after watching reg coats on why he chose the Hobbs I would happily take his opinion as to the one I’d listen too and why I choose and have been happy with what I’ve had… I can count on one hand the amount of times I thought one would of made the job easy.

For lifting stuff fast I’ve not found anything faster than a groundie pulling small bits off with a pulley tip roped. Pretensioning works for me with the Hobbs style devices when I’ve needed it , especially on big stem negative rigging, just never been able to justify the price of a GRCS to pull large bits around when you can work most limbs pretensioned.

Put me off any need for a GRCS when the Hobbs pretensioned to that!

Crown appears healthy , I would say that was about 5 years worth of regrowth, you could spend a fortune on root mapping and decay detection… but in my opinion if it was mine I would retrench the crown again and leave alone , shame any regrowth had been removed from the stem as it could of been retrenched significantly lower.

Just looking and it’s already jumped and killed four seals off Norfolk.. wonder when we start getting our bird flu jabs 😂

I see bird flu is in the news again , so any one else predict and it’s an obvious one that by the end of 2025 keeping your own hens and any out door livestock to be restricted or outlawed due to contamination..

To be fair 4 mix engines are from my experience absolute rubbish and I can’t get my head head around why stihl make them.

I was reading reports that the Ukrainians can’t be trained in NATO tactics and insist on reverting back too soviet ones.. we have given them all our N laws which cost 20k a time and they where using them RPGS or worse abandoning them , there is now a thought the Russians now have more than we do… there was that whole brigade who where trained by the French who deserted , they had been given a lot of advanced weapon systems and AFV’s and they just walked away.. I think the soviet donkeys will be matching in to Kiev soon!

Crack pipe ? Weed pipe ?? Opium ?? I’m intrigued! I know a lad in the village who bought a wood for camping in, didn’t go to it over lock down and when he finally got there it has been dug up and turned in to a mountain bike run.. unless it was on my door step I would not be interested tbh.

Personally I would not prune anything until after 2-3 years of being planted , they are still finding there feet and adapting to change in the growing environment.

That’s an impressive feat , I’ve never seen a bar snap ! Bend in half almost but never snap!

I would not put a solid nose bar on it… even the big GB on my 88 has a sprocket but I think it would very noticeably sap power out the 500i

Edit

Having been on site witnessing 4 major saw cut accidents all but this one where on the ground within 20 seconds , young lad only stayed there in the tree as he thought I was going to shout at him because he was doing the exact opposite of what I told him to do as soon as my back was turned… I would estimate that at only about 30 -40 seconds… Guy I’ve seen put an old metal 020 when I first started in his face was on the ground from 14 meters in about 5 seconds ! The only people I’ve ever seen need to be aerial rescued have been stuck new climbers.

Change down a rope diameter or miss a hole Joe.. older dirty wet ropes it will give it a lot more friction too. I find you have to be pretty consistent with it loading and it can catch you out either way with not enough or too much if you have not picked it up for a while or your ropes soaking wet.

I disagree mate , I’ve done some proper stretchy trees that would have ripped the rigging points out with out the safe block a lot and that is coming in to play a lot more dismantling half dead ash trees over targets.. also a lot of stuff that has required pre tensioning and lifting, mostly because I only get the jobs others would walk away from and never the easy cream as there are probably more chainsaw operators per square mile in the county around keilder so the easy stuff is dealt with usually for firewood but both devices are a must have for me but most take downs could be done with out either and basic crotch rigging.

Two climbers in one tree, as you talked about earlier most will thin their climbing route , come back in 3- 5 years and you will see massive reactive growth poking out of the areas that have been thinned a lot more than the areas that have not. This is a birch I reduced in 2014 , not thinned at the time but there is minimum reactive growth ,10 years worth of regrowth at a max of 3ft maybe 1ft in areas that had not been hit harder.. I know if it had been thinned there would have been a lot stronger regrowth and epicormic now dominating its current shape. I actually talked him out of rereducing it now and retaining its dead wood for his garden birds… and only reducing the one he wanted doing on the end… I’ll come back in another ten years and give you an update 😂

I can imagine Stuart , used to frequent the American forums before at arb talk and that was there view too. i think dan Maynards last post proves the point im trying to make.

Our 45hp AGT has front linkage and PTO although currently bypassed as it hydraulic and leaking and is 1000rpm so not suitable for a winch… I’m pretty sure it was fitted for a front mower. Im sure they will do a slower hydraulic pto though but I think ultimately I would replace the whole lot with a hydraulic winch, the other thing is towing a chipper you are still limited as the wheels are too narrow for proper off road work.

Runners and cyclist, babes…folk who have been walking the same path for the last 50years and won’t deviate straight through the work zone are another. I find doing TM jobs the worse though , for abuse and threats, I had one tracksuit wearing knacker light up his BMW tyres when the light went green and the car went side ways past us in the working lane , I’d just come out the tree a gave him the hand wank signal , he stops , gets out and gets right in my face yelling do you know who i am , a babe ? Is my reply and I unclip my topper off the belt waiting for him to go, he looks at me and says what you gong to do with that hit me with it? … I just looked at him and said nothing but was expecting to have have to crank it and wave it around raving furiously reving but luckily I think he realised the predicament of fighting a chainsaw and went back to his drug dealer bmw and went away … which is probably fr the best as it probably would not of fired up anyway being a husky.

Gotta be honest I don’t thin my climbing routes for all the reasons why I don’t agree with thinning. French and any one else can crack on but that’s not what I’m telling my clients to do to trees unless they specifically want it, after watching the trees my self and father have worked on ,that’s 40+ years of being able to see results of thinning and different types of pruning and seeing how they react has drawn me to that conclusion. That is a very nice reduction, just over thinned in my view.

Where are you Lewis in the country

I’ll see what yew there is mate

That’s the winner I think.

I seem to remember there was a buyer wanting sawn timber on the forum ages ago but can’t find the post… does any one have any idea who it was? I have a large collection of timber that has been air drying for 5+ years mostly oak , some band sawn ,some Alaskan but the roof of the barn has collapsed and it needs to go asap! Brown oak, burr oak , spalted beech, olive ash, yew, burr maple.. I can move in to one side of a log barn but will need to be gone in the next month or two as next years firewood needs to be in there. Any pointers would be much appreciated!