MattyF

Not sure ... I brought a cobra blower after leaving mine at home and fancied a cheap second back pack incase we had two teams going out and quite honestly the small stihls just don’t cut it, used it loads until daily until I got a bigger echo ... I run it on the same XP mix I put in my huskies stihls and echoes and it starts first time all the time even if been sat up for 6 months or more... it’s not bad gear from my experience... only problem I’ve had is the fuel caps breaking but the echo ones are a straight swap.

I don’t remember signing on being an option when I started up ,took my holiday pay I never took off my last job to make sure I had public liability insurance and ate road kill/beating spoils and did gardening taking bounty’s and three days a week doing shite free lance work in London with an never ending drive and finish times and trashing my 020 on the private jobs I got in between smashing down brash in the ancient ford transit ! Wish I had known I could of signed on too!

If it was NHDC I am surprised you haven’t come across this already. Only bother I ever had was when they decided I could not reduced 35% off 5-6 previously hat racked birch, they said it was too much foliage and also was not a figure for height... my argument was that I’m well aware of the percentage of foliage to be left but they all had large cavity’s at the base of the old topping cuts that had no line or level and gave each primary limb a different percentage for every cut but all within 35% so that was a good starting point and better than listing every cut to be made... they still said just tell us how much you will be taking off in metres, my lesson learnt was just do that!

Aye but there it’s a different story if your paye and are as good as any freelancer you get coming in and get no rewards no bonus for the crane job you have done in half the time quoted or are running your own saws to get the job done smoothly and on time, no thanks for finishing a job early so they can send you out again .. there are very very few firms I would go paye for and hence why most of who have replied are freelancers now or getting on with running are own firms.

Metal is a bit soft imo , but I had modified the grab I brought so could of well put stresses on bits it’s was not designed for , it still works though and does the job !

Some crackers there !! Pike looks a lot bigger than 25!? Where are you fishing??

Sea trout and a salmon pics from this year , salmon was from late June and first off the beat I fish but this week has got to be the hardest fishing I’ve done yet in these conditions! Having taken the last week off as the end of July is the usually a great month for sea trout a few salmon and loosing 5 over the last week and one first thing this morning and resisting the urge to snap the rod and hoy it in the river this kind sea trout had the decentency to stick and it made a good lunch cooked in butter with some garden veg!

Isn’t it against the law to haul livestock with out sawdust ? Stops all the shite and pish slopping all over the road , apparently there’s big fines if they get caught with out it in the trailer.

Aye this is an ox track the one I’ve seen.

You would be looking at over 60 k for a decent head and digger I would of thought ... price of timber is on the up .. I know as we can’t get any !! And we usually buy in 300 tonne a year so if timber is fetching stupid money you can’t loose .. I’ve heard of a stand fetching £60 a tonne standing locally that is stupid ! I’m not sure what lads are charging per tonne to harvest but they all have machines they need to pay for and work, sadly they are the link in the chain that’s not reaping the current timber price boom speaking to them or they are keeping there cards to there chests .. if they were doing it for £30 per tonne road side last year for Sitka I seriously doubt they are charging any more than £20 a tonne to harvest ,so even if you only get £50 a tonne road side for it your doubling your money.. where in the country are you ?? Pm me if you don’t want to say ...I know a couple of big outfits that harvest and I will admit I’m dealing in Arb more than forestry so my advice is limited... but could pass numbers on to you ...nothing worse than an expert that has no idea !! If you can afford to buy woodland at that cost you can not go wrong ! Price of timber is going up and land value is going up... wish I could.

Are they based on a yanmar ? I do like the idea of a tracked forwarder with winches for thinning work.

You would be better off putting it out to contractors and paying them a tonnage than investing in the equipment would be my view .. a decent second hand harvester will cost you between 200,000 30,000 then you need a forwarder then the running costs and wages for the machines ... you would cut your 250 acres then have the machines sitting up for ten years before the next block is ready.

I’m not sure about the linkage but it has winches already built to in ,not huge ones I think they are only 2 tonne ?? I I’ve a small alpine with 2 tonne igland so it would not fill the gap but in that set up I run but with a 3 tonne trailer and grab it looks an amazing little set up and is probably a better alternative and a lot more versatile .. just can’t justify the cost after already getting a new tractor and winch this year.

Depends if you have independent rear brakes , not sure if that is a feature on modern 2wd tractors it is certainly what makes the old fordsons and the like great skidding machines. Never had the 6400 up in the air skidding as it’s used for felling or winching on to a landing but it can get itself in better positions to winch that’s probably more important , the reality is advoid skidding and winch as little as possible .... dirt and saws don’t mix plus if you have saw logs it devalues them.

I know where there’s one of these for sale around 7k I think he wanted For smaller scale extraction it looks ideal but the guy said he has used it for big hardwoods.

Not sure swinny it’s been a long time since I used the Sanderson... it’s belonged to an estate I worked on... was a good tool until you accidentally selected crab steer and it would get stuck in that gear!

This was what the case was pulling being stacked on the landing , definitely a bit more than the old international would pull!

Skidding out beech on the brakes This case wasn’t a bad skidding/winch tractor either but I would rather have the 6400 4x4 I’m using now for sure !

I think honeys do , or they sell some thing virtually identical.

Steve’s XT works well , also I would try and get your hands on some armour prus for cordage .... if your on the wrench it’s pretty tempting to do bomb out descents , never burnt out AP but liros is very easy in one descent Ocean poly I’ve never got on with it either binds or slips.

Can recommend the posch 9t -10t splitters for a small tractor , does all our oversized wood ours is 20 years old and still keeps going, I would not like to guess how many tons it split!

The stumps at the end show he could of taken all the time in the world it still would of wielded the same results .. shame he can’t admit he didn’t know what he was doing and still can’t make the connection.. we forwarded out a load of timber this week off an estate felled by farmers and looking at the stems I was thinking these guys where lucky to have walked out. I think the NFU should push this point a little more as nearly every serious woodland accident I’ve known has involved a farm worker who has used a saw all his life so apparently that makes them competent but never been assessed to forestry industry standards.

Pfanner arborist type a ... even vents for your legs ! Tick guards , you get what you pay for. I’d rather spend a bit more and be comfy in some thing I’m gonna wear every day in any conditions and not get ticks up trouser legs!

Cheap tractor , cheap forestry winch.. should allow you to deal with any future problem, I would very rarely do Wood land work with out one. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F283058101893

Usually I’ll just tie off a bow line with a couple of foot in the tail for retrieval and grab the tail when climbing past or around it...just climb like ddrt strop around the trunk and throw with a monkeys fist to next branch ,isolate with a bowline and repeat until the TIP is reached. Obviously if you intend on climbing well above the temporary anchors you have to remember the bowline tail or you will have to go back for it.. but then if your following industry guidelines you should not be climbing above your tip any way.