Charlieh

just got my tickets ordered, the work the childrens trust do is fantastic, a really worthy cause. Good work as well Steve organising it all

very sorry to hear that, especially at this time of year, our thoughts with you and your family

We have a Miele but the wife wants a dyson, asked a guy in the local electrical shop the other day about swapping to the dyson, and he said we would be very dissapointed after the miele which tbh still works well dispite being about 7years old, as they are really well built, so the miele will stay for now

we went for a week, stayed in one of the hotels, but they have log cabins around the area, this also gives you a chance to ski/walk to the hotel for full cooked breakfast! there is a village website something like www.yllas.fi there are a few hotel bars, a pizza place and one disco, although the hotels seem to have live music several nights a week as well. My internet is down at the moment so im doing this over my mobile so i cant give you links to where we stayed but its one that Inghams were dealing with, although i dont know if its still on their website

I went to finnish lapland, to a place called Yllas, then went with one of the guides, snow shoed out into the forest to a big open fire with warm drinks etc, sat round on reindeers furs watching the northern lights it was ace, we went out the last week in january a few years back. Yllas is a very small village really, but plenty to do like snow mobiles, ice fishing, a few ski runs and cross country, but a bit quiet on the evenings, if your after things like disco's then maybe not for you, but if your after a cabin on the edge of the forests then its ace I wouldnt go any earlier in the year than last week in Jan as it was still dark plenty early then, but im sure you can find something to do in the evenings

if you have the tractor, buy a winch for it, the atv will be ok, but you wont shift as much and i constantly keep wishing now i had a tractor and not an atv, especially if its sloping ground and very wet, and the atv is quite limiting in loads, although does have decent speed on longer dryer runs, the other option is just get a trailer for the tractor and use that as you will shift far more than you will with a quad.

I also would prefer it if you could get your supplies sorted to exisiting local suppliers rather than leaving those of us that do use it waiting for ages for orders both my local dealers have had to wait meaning swapping saws and kit back to normal mix and had supply chain issues since the supplier changed next time i have to swap back to normal 2stroke mix i wont bother swapping back again, and i have been a long term advocate of aspen, and honestly the situation seems to be getting worse not better.

£10k is a good budget, tbh i would be looking at something like a tidy case 956xl with an easily removable loader for that budget, would be easy to maintain, easy to source parts, you should get one 40kph, i would like to drop on an 844xln with the low profile cab, only stand less than 9ft tall so nice and compact for low barns and under branches

for the most part small to medium trees on river banks, smaller ones with a back lean, medium ones to add a degree of certainty, I should add im not always the person felling on several of the sites i work on, and well some peoples felling is erm well you get the idea also in many cases its narrow spaces felling up a bank where you cant get the vehicle directly in-front of the tree, so a redirect up an access path is required. (I will get some pics when im doing said work next) I am aware of the need to anchor the vehichle and i normally go to the tow bar, with a strap round a decent tree, but for the benefit of public safety and being a public forum i was playing devils advocate, as i know many on here dont advocate this technique, but i do fully understand your points and tbh its a technique i use a lot of the time, especially in woodlands etc when using the atv on smaller stuff. also i think if we are talking best practise i dont think it matters what the targets are, if it goes wrong it goes wrong, i know in a higher value situation like proximity to buildings different techniques would be used, also i full accept the limits of this equipment and have no issues getting bigger equipment in where needed. but like i said none of this is personal its just trying to stimulate some discussion and get people thinking i have only used either tirfors in the past or smaller electric winchs which have been ok for what they have had to help pull over, im not about to start trying to winch over back leaning 40" dbh willows with a elecy winch on my defender

hmm im not sure about the synthetic rope if im using it for skidding bits of timber about on river banks etc over stones, in mud and through the water surely the steel is better? if it was just for the application of felling then fine, but I have been warned off synthetic rope on this forum due to the other tasks the winch has to undertake

i though fixing the winch vehicle to another item eg tree to stop it sliding was a no no from other winching threads on here something to do with damage to the vehicle if to much pull is used eg double line

there are some ex mod steel ones on ebay that look much like the one Mr Monkey-D had in one of his pics recently, look nice and solid, with enough hight on them to be useful think some of the designs the winch would just pull the vehicle over them

cool cheers guys, its never been an issue using smaller winches as everything was well exceeding the winchs limits, also my old smaller winches had thermal cut outs on them so if they drew to much current they just stopped until they cooled enough. I will aim to find some bigger bow shackles and accessories. Also i know they winch could well shift the truck if not set up correctly, so was planning on using wheel chocks to help the situation many thanks C

just a quick question to those of you have done more of this than me, when using a vehicle winch for directional felling what should be your weakest link ie item with the lowest breaking strain also what should be the weakest point when using the winch through a re-directional pulley, i know ideally all points should be matched, but tbh i think its better to have an item you know is weaker than the others so if it does go, it allows for planning the risk better, in most cases i would say the strap on the tree should be the weakest point, but most straps are rated significantly higher than items such as bow shackles etc. all thoughts appreciated, as i want to be able to justify this on risk assessments

i had a grand vitara, but got a defender 130 twin cab about 3years ago, its ace for moving 4 people and loads of kit, i can get 6' fence posts in the back and a pole saw, also its good if you need to move more people off road, most i have had in mine was 8 people a boat, generator and electrofishing kit.

local big utility company have everything loler'd even the handles to get into their tractors they dont have their winches loler'd as its not required,

yes but i have the limited edition modern warfare 2 xbox, which looks very cool (if now somewhat out of date)

im on xbox not Pisstation3

ok you've sold it to me, but not till next week so i can get some work done over the weekend

supposed to be waiting for christmas, walked past it today as i know i will get nothing done if i get it

24" on my 372xp and its a great saw, balances pretty well with that length bar as well

cheers, how are you bearing up now?

cheers guys, anyway the police were pretty good really, SOC came out and dusted everything for prints but they were wearing gloves so no prints, and they had tried to force their way in before screw drivering the locks everything that was alarmed was stayed away from, oh well sorted out some more proximity alarms Matty got the mill cheers, will meet up for a beer in a few weeks when im down, much appreciated tied texting but my phone is pratting about,

well true to form, 6 weeks after i was broken into and nothing stolen due to an alarm system last night they came back and went through my truck, I lost an 020T and some other small hand tools, and some nice finnish hunting knives looks like i will need to review the security to encompass the whole property now including PIRS and break beam across the entries to the property I called the police about 1.5hrs ago and im still waiting for the patrol to come out. recon the break in was between 4am and 8am woe betide you if i catch you

did my brush guards today on mine, nice and quick to put on and off in about 30 seconds, just got to get the winch wired in on sunday