santacruz

Did a season on planting so probably 80-100 thousand, but then did a year on a harvester so probably cancelled that out.

Yep cab is your rops etc. Trick is to make the gaurding heavy enough so that you can tip her or have a tree over the cab without damaging the cab. If the cab is damaged it must be inspected and probably replaced. Build it tough, and while your at it I think its worth adding heavy steel from where the pick up hitch would be mounted all the way to the front if the engine is a stressed member. This takes the stress off the bolts that hold the engine and gearbox together for when you crash down off stumps or when the front comes down heavy after a hard pull. For ideas look at a big agg tractor that has a front linkage they all have heavy reinforcing front to back. You can really get stuck in with your blade then without fear of your tractor snapping in half.

I am sorry but I cannot sign. My opinion is that the government has to raise x amount of money and they do it by taxing income and then by taxing other things like petrol. Take away one source of income and it has to be raised elsewhere for example tax on income. Making certain things exempt in my opinion just creates incredibly complicated rules that need costly enforcing. Take red diesel as an example, its use has to be policed and enforced at a certain cost, would it not be better to just have white diesel for all therefore increasing the total revenue from diesel taxation. Food cost would increase but taxation on income could also be reduced and there would be no need to enforce the rules on usage and no revenue loss from misuse. Reducing tax on things that we pay for and having to make up the shortfall elsewhere only benefits those people who do not pay tax on their income i.e. those on benefits. Sorry to rant but I feel quite strongly about this and get a bit cross when I see fuel protesters. If I was in power I would level the playing field and reduce the amount of rules around exemptions, stamp out misuse and all these grants for this and that. L believe that a product or business should be able to stand on its own two feet and if it needs a grant or exemption then it is simply not viable as a product or business

I am not quite catching the drift of this. Are we talking domestic RHI or commercial because I was planning on just using waste which is obviously not compliant with the regs

I have been considering a hiab trailer, but the nose weight issue concerns me. The couplings tend to be rated at 100kg nose weight so 275 is almost 3 times over surely its likely to fail. The only practical solution I can see is mid mount a folding model right over the axels and then put tank and pump at the front. possibly a tri axel might be better with the crane on the draw bar and travel empty with it extended out over the back

Talking to a few people recently I feel that there are some people being exploited in arb and especially forestry maybe its not through malicous exploitation by employers but by lack of understanding of the law. But when I work for someone on a self emlployed basis that is fine as long as they understand that I will work for other people as well and am free to choose who for and when I work. If you want someone to do exactly as they are told you need an employee along with all the associated costs, self employed is cheaper and more flexible for both "employer" and "employee". That is how I understand it and it right winds me up when people get the hump when I say I am busy next week and cannot come and work for you or my wrist id bad so I am having a couple of days off. I am self employed and can do what I want thanks very much.

All of the injuries I have seen are from cutting and holding on the ground or cutting whilst in a confined space with the saw too close to the body in a tree, eg in a leylandai hedge. I dont believe that cutting and holding is especially dangerous, its just when you see arms crossed or cutting and holding limbs above shoulder height near your rope.

I believe that the low kick back chain does solve a lot of the problems. The chain with the raised bumper drive links is very difficult to make it kick, it also cuts slower especially when the nose is in the wood, its a compromise. I dont understand how a ban will work, what will happen if you are caught surely you wont get arrested. Its like log splitters with one handed controls are "banned" but everyone still makes, buys and uses them.

Having filled lots of different double cab pickups I would say that the only one so far to hold a cubic meter is the newer navaras and then it is heaped. So a level load in anything smaller I would say is not a cubic meter. Any way all you need to do is measure the thing then take away the space taken by the wheel arches.

As a cord is a measure of volume of firewood used in the states and as we have generally accepted the cubic meter then should we not call it cubic meter wood.

Unfortunately the firewood market is so insignificantly small and full of hassle for forestry business that you are lucky if you can reliably buy timber. hauliers hate carrying stuff to firewood guys they want to run from forest to mill no hassles as many times a day as they can then go home. You may think you are big time when you take 500t a year but you are playing in the forestry game where a harvester can chuck out 100-150t every day and is probably working in a 5000t clearfell. The best you can do is make it as easy as possible for wagons, dont ask them to put half the load in one place and half in another, clear any low branches, remember the loader goes a lot higher than the cab, and can knock branches down onto the cab. Pay up when asked to and dont wind anybody up.

To determine its value as firewood answer these two questions 1 is it wood 2 is it dry If the answer to both of the above are yes then it is good firewood.

Remember that people wouldn't seem to waste material if we as firewood merchants made it economical for them to be extracted from harvesting sites by paying more for it at roadside. Its only wasted because its not economical to extract. Remember on a clearfell of 10,000 tons someone phoning up looking for 25t of chipwood isn't going to exite you that much. If you want something you have to pay enough for it so that the owner of that material is making enough profit to think that its worth doing. At the moment the price of chipwood is lowish compared to the cost of extracting it so a lot goes under the wheels of the harvester. Then the area gets ground prepped and this material becomes more obvious as it sticks out of the raked up brash. Its the same with the FC firewood framework contract where you bid on left overs from harvesting. The FC obviously doesn't make a lot of money on this and therefore the organisation is crap, and they don't care. I think that the reason we struggle to reliably and consistently purchase timber because we are such tiny players in the massive forestry game. And many firewood merchants aren't from a forestry background. Therefore we are seen as more hassle that its worth.

Anyone recently found any of the following for sale at dealers. A friend of mine recently found a husky 346 at an agricultural supplies place. Very jealous. Would like to find Husky 346, 372 pre xtorq, or Stihl 361. I consider those to be the best ever made and a real shame they are no longer in production.

Hi Markus. Good idea I would pay £45/ton in Liverpool. The haulier I use would only go if you could guarantee speedy loading and no hold ups.

Have you factored in the cost of the wire they are expensive, a new one comes with a full drum and three chains and sliders. All it takes is for the wire to have been abused and it will just keep getting shorter and shorter then its a few hundred quid to fill the drum back up.

The general rule for yorkshire boarding any farm shed is the gap is the thickness of the board so you use a board offcut to space the boards. Plenty of air and no rain

I have a pallet weigher and use the 1 cube vented sacks. I fill them over full to allow for shrinkage and settling. I weigh them every now and again and it is rare that they weigh more than 500kgs fresh. Therefore I work on 1t = 2cube of 11inch logs. Or if the wagon brings 25-26t I want at least 50cube from it.

22.4t

A few thousand tons on a boat designed for stone or coal as a return load would be a serious option if it could be shared out between a few firewood guys local to the port. Get every haulier in the area on it for a couple of days should see the boat turned round fast enough. Get an import export specialist company to handle the paper work loading unloading and the risk. At the right price it would be a serious two fingers up to the estates and management companies thinking their hardwood firewood is worth £55 at roadside. In my opinion its not worth that much you just cant make money buying in at that price, maybe importing is the way forward, but I dont think filling a container is the way forward its just not practical to load unload a container with roundwood.

Does the fuel for the kiln not have to be purchased from an approved accreditted source to qualify?.

Depends on time of year as well spring summer felled wood is significantly heavier than winter felled. A wagon "load" is a subjective measurement based on the what the driver feels is a load my advice would be never accept a load unless hes been to the weigh bridge.

I have a weigher and weigh the cube bags every now and again and only oak in summer cut into small logs ever weighs over 500kgs and even then its only just.

Just something I noticed from the guys selling logs around my area. My understanding of it is that you cannot advertise your logs as FSC unless you are FSC certified yourself as every step in the chain of custody to the consumer has to be certified which is an expensive and drawn out process. Even the haulier has to be FSC certified in order to deliver FSC certified timber. I could be wrong or the rules may have changed, what do you guys do / think?.

My advice would be load up a typical load then go to the public weigh bridge. £5 later you will have a good idea of your vans capacity.