Brushcutter

A trip to an auction can lad you to a bargain. Or if you fancy a trip out used 90-00 tractors are not as silly in price in Northern Ireland. Just don't head south of the boarder as tractor prices are silly.

I remember driving new A and N series valtras that cost 28 to 40k. Now people want the pre electrics tractors that they can repair themselves. Hence the prices so do command more than others. I saw a 2001 valtra valmet with front linkage some 8k houds get 28k plus vat and auction tax. I remember when that would be 15k.

12 miles in any tractor is a long time. At the legal 40kph of course. Most 100hp tractor will be rated to tow a 10 tonne trailer on hydraulic brakes. A loader is tough on the front axel so something to note when looking. Cost a lot now for a new loader and subframe. Second hand tractors cost a lot at the moment. An early 2000 Valmet with 10k plus hours on can be £30k. Have a look at 6800 John Deeres 6 cylinder power house. Lovely drive and not so many gadgets to go wrong. The early 2000 4555 Massey's are ok start of drop bonets for loading. Not silly money but can be expensive if the tiny spring goes in the gearbox. A 90s dynashift Massey again powerful and good on a loder.

Pro points of the 75 is cutting arc. The down side is the long blade on thicker stuff that it is a big wear on the end. I also find it's a bit big for some hedges I do.

I have the Husky 522ihd75 which is really good. Already in the Husky battery system so it made sense. Does a good job on shaping up tatty hedges. I wish I'd got the 60cm rather than the 70. I'm sure I will end up with the 60cm trimmer blade machine soon i like the 5 position rear handle. The new 22 hedgecutters finally have proper scabbards.

Minimum wage is £11.44 an hour.which is £91.52 a day. So anybody turning up to work has to get that as a minimum. In short we all price ourselves too low.

A540 tracked is 1400kg.

The sensible thing to do would be to fit scales to every truck so you wouldn't have to worry. Each time I fill a grain lorry I get a weight ticket. In a more practical cost effective way. You need a 1 litre jug and a set of kitchen scales. Weigh 1 litre of material and times in my 1000. You now know the bulk density per M3 of your product. Weight it in kg. So if 1 litre of of woodchip weighted 0.3kg a M3 would be 300kg give or take. Not 100% given air spaces different wood leaf content but would give you an idea. If you weight a log and then estimate the cylinder size you can do the same. I know wheat weights roughly 750kg m3 so I need roughly 16 buckets to the lorry.

Bigger is always better as they don't require you to move them. Jenson 540t old but gold their pivoting geared rollers are good on big and little as well as nasty forks Greenmech 165 evo. The chute folds down nicely. Chips like it's a bigger chipper than it is. Well built. Greenmech 205 Evo. Big opening good feed speed. My favourite of the bunch. Bit thirsty. Timberwolf 280 is quick on the track faster than the rest and chips much better than the smaller wolfs. Not had much to do with the variable with track TW. I really like the Greenmech would be worth a demo or hire if you haven't experienced the Evo chipper.

592. Amazing saw not sure what it would be like on the mill as I've not tried. If I could choose 1 it would be the 592. But and it's a big but the choice between a 395 and a 592 would be a lot harder. You can still get them from overseas if you look hard enough.

Let's be proper tree people and use the polesaw from the mewp to get up to the hard to reach bits.

In the manual there is a crudely drawn picture of all the angles. I think you get 15 to 20mm of wear

550xpg mk2 or a 261 will cover you for training and working. Not much you won't be able to do.

If you want upto a 28" bar and you want to use it all day everyday. Then you want a 70cc saw with a skip chain. I use a 572 on a 24" with husky c85 chain and it's a beast. Being a 70cc saw it comes out a lot more than my bigger saws. Get an 20 24 and 28 and your covered for most stuff. If you want to go bigger or at least sensible big then your choices are 500i 661 and the husky 592. Realistically a 500i paired with a 261 and a good top handle will cover most if not all common treework. I do like the 500i and it's a beast on a 25 inch bar, almost as good as a 661 but then 500 is a bit lazy on a 36. The 592 on a 28 is great i really like it and prefer it to my 660 and the 661. Just a beast that is half 660 and half 500. I've. Not run it on anything longer than a 28. My 660 runs a 42 on 3/8 full skip and it's a bit lazy. Drop to a 36 and it picks up a bit. Above that are the forbidden saws. The 881 and the older 880 and 3120. The 881 is amazing and goes like knife through butter on a 48 inch bar. Downside the noise and vibes. If rather not get it out to be fair. In order of preference: Work hard with 70cc saw on a 24 Tolerate the noise of the 592. Dust off the spud ported 660 for fun hoping a youngling will get excited and use it rather than me Get out the 881.

Ive only ever had to pick off a little bits as the skins had been off for so long the UV hot and cold had got rid of it. I'd imagine that a brass brush would shift it without shifting the galvo. On the advice side. Put the skin on the hottest day with as many people as you can find to help you.

Have you gone for the big gauge. 325 or the little one.

I tend to pick up my 542 more than the 540. If that is a better answer.

540i tends to bog when you lean on it and if you want to bore with it, it's not happy about it. It runs .325 .043 out the box. The 542i you get the clutch which takes a second to spun up but because of the clutch it's much more like a regular saw. You can push it a bit harder than the 540i. Most 542 come with .325 .050 and can do it too. I've not put the smaller guage on the 542 yet. If your cutting up to.4 inches I'm not totally sure you will notice much difference. Over that the clutched one all day long.

Anti vibration gloves aren't all that. I've found the arbortec chainsaw gloves with the little pads on to be the best gloves for chainsawing for soaking up some vibrations. Things to check on your saws is it sharp is the bar worn and is the sprocket worn. All of these worn cutting components can cause excess vibration. So can using cheap and nasty bars and chains. If the saw is old then AV rubbers and springs might be worn out. My 266 had a tiny crack in a spring changing it dropped the vibes massively. If the vibration is bothing you HAVS is chronic is only going to get worse. So get a better saw with lower vibration to reduce the problem.

Do the level 4 and 5 and 6 if you can. Tree life and a few colleges offer it. The reality of doing surveys is that the fun bit is in the field. The hard work is writing it all up so you.might as well do the academic side. Look up the PTI book list. Read it get out and look at trees. You need to be good at tree ID, being excellent helps. You need to know your common decay fungi. Spent your free time learning. Spend your work time learning. If you have the level 2 Arb then then ISA exam is the same level. But more info in it than a city and guilds qualification. Exams are a few times a year Book yourself a lantra basic trees inspection and go from there. To this day the PTI is the hardest course I've done.

All those bars are very good. I do like my sugi bars but I'm liking tsumura bars at the moment. I've got some GB bars but In my experience they chip a bit. Run some Oregon 73jxl on it. I've never gone down to .50 on 3/8 so I can't tell you if it is any good. I run a 24 on my 572 and it's great.

Does it have an emergency stop button. One of the locking ones. If I does look at that.was.working with a 280 last week that if you used one of the 3 it didn't work properly. Had a fault in the box wiggle the estop and it worked properly

Another vote for theR tech 181. Lovely little welders.

I've struggled to get parts for old isekis before. Newer ones were easy but the one I wanted bits for was 90s vintage and the dealership couldn't get the OEM parts. With the bits you require there. Bearings and seals can be measured and picked up from a supplier. If you're not confident with that take them into your dealership and a good parts desk worker should be able to sort you out. Your bevel gears might be a generic gear especially if iseki buy their axels in. If you can't get them a small machine shop would most likely be able make them up.