Chris Sheppard

Here's one for the books - the trailer has surfaced and is in the process of being returned to it's owner! Got a phonecall to say someone had heard about a trailer that seemed a bit different and thought it might be one of ours so wanted to know a bit more about them - asked him a bit more about it and straight away I knew it had to be the missing one as there were a few bits that we one offs for the guy. Cutomer went down with the police a couple of hours later, I.d'd it on the serial numbers for the powerpack engine, trailer hitch, crane and grab - no escape! Oh, and get this - it was found less than 30 miles away from where it was taken. As it is though I don't think anyone is going to be prosecuted over it as mysteriously, when asked, no one knows anything about it or how it cmae to be where it was. A happy ending in one respect but still no justice!

I'm fairly sure I've seen it at Howarth Timber near us - if you haven't already spoke to them, try Welcome to Howarth Timber - Howarth Timber & Building Supplies

We've brought a few over from another manufacturer in the past which were similar - they're never going to be as good at lifting as a "proper" crane or as good at digging as a "proper" backhoe but as a dual purpose item they're pretty good. We had a fransguard just like that at Birdsall - was a craking little wich and worked well behind our old 3000 as it was light too.

my one and only ever job for the council - one windy night a not particularly big roadside Oak lost pretty much all its canopy partly into a road and partly into a field. Council couldn't get hold of usual contractor and through a friend of a friend I ended up getting asked to go out - was all set to go straight to it but the council managed to get the road open again using a JCB to push it out the way so all I had to do was make it safe - take one branch off about 6ft off the ground and fell the 12ft tall pole onto the verge - £200 and I was back home within an hour and a half.

We have an RM one (R.M.INTERNATIONAL d.d. traktorski priklju?ki, Schlepperanschlussen, Tractor attachments) sat in out yard - brand new and unused but we've taken it round the shows so technically ex demo - 1.6m opening, weighs 280kg is free swinging and self centralising and gives 5000kg gripping force. PM me if your interested and I'll sort some pics out.

Cheers guys, Yes we are difficult to get hold of at the moment with it being show season and also being short staffed. I can promise that within a couple of weeks things should get back to some sort of normality as we all return to our various offices. I know the answerfone is a pain in the ass but if people leave us a message (or even email at [email protected] ) we will always get back to you as soon as we can Cranes wise, JMS no longer exist but the company who bought them out do still produce the cranes and now do a version of the one in the photos as a 360 degree slew too - we've 2 of them and bigger one waiting to be sent across as we speak.

as above, but they can be fast on big rings and work well with crane feeding if you are careful.

Seen it all today - was setting up at the Yorkshire show and there was a valmet and roof mount from one of the local arb companies there moving some timber around in the forestry arena - HMRC took a proper interest in him and are currently deliberating over whether or not he should be on white as it was for hire and reward and they tried to say it wasn't forestry usage slight aside, I stopped off for some breakfast at Mcd's on the way this morning and that's where all the HMRC lot had met up too and it seemed from their not so quiet banter that they were going to be on a proper scalp hunting mission at the show - even heard them going on about dipping a landy the day before just after it had crashed

I was on the stoves online suppliers list but found it quite good, especially for picking up customers in town where they were prepared to pay for smaller loads.

One of our customers has had their Fast Tow Forwarding trailer stolen last night from the Lymington area in Hampshire - details are still a bit sketchy but there was a black landrover discovery acting suspiciously around the time it went missing. This should be fairly easy to spot as they are all one offs and there are only a relatively small number in the UK. The crane on this one is one of only two in the UK at the moment also. The trailer is fully galvanised and has only the timber body for it and has a sliding axle set up - this one has the hycraulic bed operated by a changeover valve to run off the right hand leg pipes and has the mudguards permamanently attached rather than removable as per most of them. The crane is an RM international 4.2m with gull wing legs, is grey with a red grab. It's a long kingpost model and is fitted with a linkage between the main arm and dipper. These are very easy to spot on the road as they are so unusual with being towed behind a road vehicle - if anyone has any info or is offered something similar to the above then PM me and I will pass it on (I'll try and organise a police contact number in the meantime)

I've had the milner heavy duty ones in the past on a landcruiser and a hilux - well priced but I did have one that bent after less than a month properly put a crease in it and the truck sat wonky (front passenger side) They were dead good and replaced it saying it must have been a bad one but I'd still consider paying a bit more especially for heavy load carrying. Though they may have swapped suppliers since as ir was a good 4 years ago now.

We were going to be there with some kit but have been let down by the haulage company coming in from Europe so won't have enough spare machines. Sounds like a useful day out and from what they said, if this one goes well they could run others.

It was lovely on thrusday when we were setting up (I ended up sunburnt!), Friday wasn't bad from memory but Saturday was very wet early on. Sunday was the better day and definitely the most busiest. Nice to catch up with likeminded folk again.

We're there too, got a decent sized demo plot and should have a selection of splitters upto 18 tonne to play with, a couple of alpines and all being well a trailer or two. See you all there, Chris

I like that - fast and easy to use. HSE wouldn't like it though and if it was available it wouldn't be CE approved - not a mojor issue unless there was ever an accident

We're on the list - just confirming the paper work this week - never been myself but sounds a good show.

I used to have a hakiki pilke hawk, which I think was 5.5 tonne pressure and that did most stuff on 4 way at about 8 inch long. There was a 6 way knife available for it but it had to be really straight grained for it to do 6 way. Ditto the striaight wood being best - branch wood can be a pig.

Got up in good time thinking I'd do a few jobs around the house and on the disco - didn't get very far though, still sat in front of the telly watching Scrapheap challenge and eating my way through sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs and black pudding - yum! Really going to have to go and do some work though

I qutie like the look of the 2nd pair - has a kind of haix tibet look about it.

We used to have a 13mm wire winch rope with a loop on each end and a decent chain to go around the tree - never managed to snap it, even with the county yoked onto it so never really tried anythign else. Downside I suppose is that it was a "one length fits all" kind of set up.

I had a site similar and ended up just going in the water as I was - the cold wears off pretty quick and boots and leggings dry out eventually - couldn't stand the thought of waders AND chainsaw kecks. a little skidding arch would take some of the stress off the back of the chipper and help to keep the ends of the timber off the ground - there's a few companies make them but most are american/canadian and chances of finding one in stock over here are slim - (it'd be around 6-8 weeks if we brought one over) - wouldn't be hard to make one.

and it depends how roughly you load it - if you place them all nicely then you'll get a lot more in - if you throw them in/drop them off an elevator theres usually more gaps too - so many variables you'll never, ever get two loads exactly the same. Weights and measures act has a lot to answer for - sell it by the loose "load" and explain that the volume figure is the volume of the size of the container it's being delivered in if need be.

Very, very loosely speaking we used to work on 1 tonne straight from the woods creating enough logs to fill 2 1m cube boxes - did depend on type of timber and whether it was winter or summer felled etc etc......

I like the little yellow truck but the crew cab multicar would be my choice - didn't know they did crew cabs

I think your local Ifor man must be short of work Tom Not sure about the tipping trailer - first thing I'd do would be check the oil level/consistency and also for leaks.