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Chris Sheppard

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Everything posted by Chris Sheppard

  1. Chris Sheppard
    Doncaster might be the one at Armthorpe - haven't been for a long long time but it used to be pretty good - fast and smooth with some huge tabletops. think they still do open practce days too.
  2. Chris Sheppard
    After a lot of deliberating we've now got a new addition. Only got her yesterday but she's settling in pretty well so far.
  3. Chris Sheppard
    They're usually enduro type terrain but shortish laps (maybe 20 min or so per lap) and you don't have timecards. Usually about 3 hour or so race with a lemans style start where you all have to run and jump onto your bike - be a good intro into enduro from MX. have a look at for some dates in the north east NEEC - NORTH OF ENGLAND ENDURO CHAMPIONSHIP- Events Calendar Camphill was last weekend and that was always a nice easyish course.
  4. Chris Sheppard
    If it's a fairly level site that you can ride round well enough on the tractor, taking into account you're doing it all by hand, I'd be cutting to approx 1m lengths, splitting down into billets with a wedge and sledge hammer (sycamore really isnt bad to do that with) and then lead them out of the wood either on a trailer or on a linkage mounted rack. Can either dry in the wood or on a stack elsewhere but then can be sat into a rack (like a buckingham type thing) and crosscut with the chainsaw when dry (or drier anyway).
  5. Chris Sheppard
    I used to do a bit when I was still at school but was never fast enough to be any good. Got into hare and hounds and some proper enduros and then foot and mouth came along and I got rid of my bike then. Just recently decided to get back into bikes again after 12 years or so and really want to get my test passed so I can get a half decent machine for on the trails too. Hopefully get CBT done in the nextcouple of weeks and can let my firebreathing 12hp DR 125 loose
  6. Chris Sheppard
    That's where you've been hiding - playing with the new truck When's the demount camper body getting put on
  7. Chris Sheppard
    Simple answer regarding brash - do as little as possible! Your time's better spent on other things. If you're clearfelling there's half a chance you can fell it in such a way the brash is already mostly in rows so any extra tidying needed prior to planting would be minimal.
  8. Chris Sheppard
    I agree, birch is definitely underated - we ended up with several hundred tonne to fell last year and it was nice stuff to handle and the brash rots away to nothing in no time. Always surprises me how many people turn their nose up at it.
  9. Chris Sheppard
    One Estate I worked on used to plant a lot of southern beech - it does grow fast but it doesn't like the wind. We used to end up clearing loads of blown ones but to be fair it was nicely processor sized when it blew. Gairly hairy branch wise though so not the nicest stuff to do a lot of.
  10. Chris Sheppard
    There were blocks planted in a few places round us - results were a bit sporadic though. Some blocks pretty much all died off within a year or two and some did really quite well. My thoughts are if it was that easy there would be a lot more of it going on.
  11. Chris Sheppard
    t we need is a nice big block of hairy spruce to get stuck into
  12. Chris Sheppard
    Can't help with prices particularly but we found that generally anything over 18" TD will be a few quid per tonne less as not many places want bigger stuff. Am sure the douglas could be a bit more desirable though.
  13. Chris Sheppard
    keep up - we've gone off on a tangent
  14. Chris Sheppard
    I couldn't possibly comment on hangers Though it's how you deal with them that counts (that's my excuse nd I'm standing by it!) This is what we should all be aspiring to speed wise to make a proper wage i the woods [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEZV7WtK4Cw&feature=watch_response]??????? ??????. ????????? ???????. (2010-09-15) - YouTube[/ame]
  15. Chris Sheppard
    If you want a tipperr then it's really only worth looking at 110 or 130. 130 double cab would be versatile bu not mega carrying capacity. Mega money to buy though and really quite a barge to drive round town. If you could stretch to a 110 hd @ 3500kg gvw then you'd have a good base to start from
  16. Chris Sheppard
    As chilli's been taken, I'd go curry of some sort for simplicity with loads of rice.
  17. Chris Sheppard
    That's what we do too, the stuff the harvesters can't or won't. Other than one job recently we've had an unusually long run of flat sites too
  18. Chris Sheppard
    I like that
  19. Chris Sheppard
    Can't see why not, though losing the auto return might make it slower to use. If it's got auto return, it should have anti crush, which means it should be fairly straight forward to stop it mid stroke if that helped any? Would need some more pics though.
  20. Chris Sheppard
    Absolutely - but it comes back to these college qualifications that are supposedly forestry and arb but they don't get taught any practical hands on forestry. Does seem that we've gone a bit off topic though
  21. Chris Sheppard
    Phew, I did half wonder if I was a bit harsh - least it's not just me Poor stacks - don't get me started
  22. Chris Sheppard
    I did 30 and 31 in 2002 and as yet have never had any problems with how long ago it was. What worries me more is the standard of cutting that they now feel is acceptable as competant. I realise every trainer or assessor is going to be a bit different but we still had to keep stumps low, cut toes off, sned cleanly and cross cut squarely before they were happy. The number of newly trained operators that also have saw cuts in their trousers properly scares me.
  23. Chris Sheppard
  24. Chris Sheppard
    One of the disadvantages that I could see over an alaskan was that you had to use the same size bar each time - if you wanted to use a smaller bar any time you couldn't.
  25. Chris Sheppard
    Used to drive a 14C50 which was the 140hp 5 tonner (though ours was downplated to 3.5t) and it was a nice thing to drive when loaded and towed really well. MPG was low 20's and the tank was pretty small - it was the high roof MWB van so don't know if the tipper would be a bit different on fuel. We did once put a 2.5T mini digger in the back - which would have only just been over weigth on the 5t GVW if it was still plated that way (didn't drive it on the road though) and the suspension hardly moved - am sure it would have took it quite well. edit - our van weighed about 2750kg with a driver and full tank of fuel

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