detritus21

Sell the softwood loads. It all burns well. Tell them its softwood and offer it cheaper it will soon fly out the yard. Once people realise seasoned softwood is good they will come back time and time again.

I'm burning poplar tonight and its not splitting or popping. Never had any problems with it doing that though.

Its very clever advertising is what that is. They don't claim it to be a stihl saw but the use of stihl to describe the bar and chain draws you in. Interesting how they don't actually mention what "one the largest and best respected tool manufacturers are".

The one on ebay is a plie of horse manure. I actually have a 6.5hp version It is POOOOOOO!!!!!!! The chipper section will manage 2 inches if you are lucky and requires you to force feed it. The shredder section actually isn't that bad but will only take up to 15mm. Its ok for shredding hedge clippings but anything else don't bother. Quality wise, quality doesn't come into it other than the engine which is a good copy of the Honda version. It will vibrate itself to pieces after about 10 hours work and you will find that you have to make new parts for it as the likes of the shoot are made from very thin metal. What ever you do don't entertain the one on ebay. (Disclaimer - These are my thoughts and not those of arbtalk. If anyone wishes to sue me for my words then I will take the chipper to court with me and the judge will throw the case out and put me in prison for buying such an utter piece of tripe )

Just another thought its not that easy to build a client base. From a log point of view it can be difficult to break into the market place if you have other competitors nearby. There is one near me that is mass production on the firewood front and it doesn't matter that my prices are 20% or more lower than them, it is difficult to gain custum. The appropriate advertising should work but finding what is appropriate is the hard part. Good luck.

There are at least 5 of us in our row of houses that burn wood in a smokeless zone. No complaints yet other than my neighbours fire as she was burning house coal and probably the cheapest stuff you can get. Burn it till the council threaten you. It took over 10 years for the local hospital to lose its coal boiler once an abatement order was placed.

Been burning kiln dried offcuts that are too big or knotty too process into sticks. My customers don't want to buy them for some stupid reason think they will burn too quick more heat for me it is.

I work quite closely with a coal merchant supplying him with sticks and logs. You need a proper set-up if you are going to look at selling coal loose and bagging yourself. Weights and Measures become involved as coal is sold by the kg having previously been sold by hundred weight. You don't want to get on the worng side of weights and measures that would be a bad move. You could try contacting the likes of Maxibrite uk they do a range of coals which I know you can buy prepacked. Supertherm also do prepacked and you can get normal house coal prepacked but unsure where from

Only way to find out is to split it and periodically test it. I have had sycamore that has dried to below 25% in about 2 months then I've also some that has been sat for over a year that is reading over this.

Coal isn't cheap if you are expecting it to be. Wholesale cheap house coal is £120 ish a tonne. Your smokeless coals are getting on for £200+ per tonne. Bags from places like CPL are often 25kg bags which are perfect. For a 25kg bag of smokeless coal such as maxibrite or supertherm expect anything for retail at £7-£10 per bag. Wholesale will of course be cheaper.

Not yet but planning on it. Going to take a few rough mushroom carvings as well see what I can get. Take along 50 bags of sticks logs and kiln dried blocks and see what goes. Even just selling 25 bags of each in a morning wouldn't be a bad return

Its not far from me that. Never seen it driving about my local area

Kiln dried logs if they have been left out for any length of time will have some moisture content there is no way that it will be 0% moisture content. I buy in Kiln Dried off cuts for making kindling and firewood blocks. These read anywhere between 5 and 15% moisture depending on how long they have sat in the open. The glass on an airwash stove will still soot up regardless of what you burn. The harder you burn the logs the less soot you get to the point where when you burn it hot enough it will start to burn the deposits off the glass quicker than they are formed. On a better stove what you should find is you only need a damp cloth to wipe the soot away when it is cool. On our cheapo stove in the front room we require proper nasty glass cleaner. On an aside no one will buy my kiln dried blocks because they burn to quick apparently. No one has ever burnt them but they burn to quick Wait till firewood supplies start getting low and I'll charge an arm and a leg for the blocks.

I'll have a look.

Anyone able to advise me on any good companies close to wigan for hire of a grinder in particular but also chippers till the right one come for purchase?

I've burnt a fair bit of poplar. The only problem you may have is people moaning it doesn't weighh much as once most of the moisture is gone it weighs very little.

You mean thats a tree in the middle. I knew I must be doing something wrong. Job was not to touch the tree not even to tidy up the bushy bit on it.

Before and after of a job I've just finished. I could now be in the market for a small tow along chipper having struggled with a poxy little shredder chipper If anyone knows of anything I'd be pleased to here. Nice job took about half a day longer than anticipated but I live and learn. Before After

We were there saturday. The noise was superb. Couldn't believe the speed that they can carve at and the detail is amazing.

I'd be going blue and getting a makita. Cheaper than the equivilant sthil or husq but work very very well particularly for logging. Go for one in the 50-70cc range and you should have few problems. I've got a 40cc and a 90. The 40cc will do stuff up to bar length no problems and its currently running an 18" bar. Gets a bit slow on seasoned hard wood but a few more cc would sort that out.

Common problem on disco 2's and 1's for brake pipe corrosion at the back end. Land rover seem to think using steel pipes is a good thing

I'd agree with that

I've got a small 6.5hp engine on a small garden shredder. Its a copy of the OHV engine to be honest its pretty good once you sort out the way the governer springs and that are on or not. Revs well and seems to have lasted well so far. The other engine I have that I'm going to be using to make a log splitter is a Lister 2 cylinder LV engine 18hp if I am correct. Just need a big pump and big ram and I'm laughing. Seriously though alot of the chinese copy engines are very good once you give it a bit of an initial service. Then again you pay your money and all that.

It was the fighting cock. Best pub I've ever frequented. Found it in second year at uni and that was it. I think they thought it was odd that me and my wife (girlfriend at the time) would be in there. At the time I was 19 and thought I should have been supping lager rather than the delights they served in there. They also did the best ever pork scratchings. Brings back happy memories. Shame the course I did I'm going to "waste" and do more and more tree work instead but needs must and all that. Some happy and rather blurred memories of that pub.