Chris Sheppard

I was lucky enough to get invited along on a short trip to Swedish Lappland last week and even luckier to get the chance to spend few hours in one of the workshops knife making (well, the handles anyway). Time was against us so no one got as far as the sheath, but everyone's came out better than they were expecting (unfortunately I've not got photos of everyone else's though). Mine was a mixture of Reindeer antler, leather, aluminium, birch and buffalo horn but there were other woods and other papers/leathers and metals we could use if we wanted. Dead simple to do, pretty much a case of making a hole through the middle of each piece to match the tang of the knife blade, and then glue it all together with epoxy and clamp it together over night before roughing it out with a bandsaw, roughing out the shape on the belt sander and then lots and lots of sanding by hand, starting with 80 grit and finishing with 600, before oiling it with whatever you fancy (worktop oil, veggy oil it makes no odds apparently). It's a bit rough in places and there's a couple of cracks in the buffalo horn but it's come out better than I ever hoped it might. Was only there a few days but got treated to the Northern Lights a couple of nights, these were just outside where we were staying in town.

I had Koni Heavy Tracks on my 130 and then also on a 90 a few years later and they lasted very well. Quite expensive but well worth it as they were fit and forget.

They're a lot more flexi than a sword and a lot thinner too - never had a go at shaping the christmas trees but have seen it done. It's not uncommon to snap the blades though, but they do then come in handy for stuff like opening bags and cutting baler band etc without worrying about losing/blunting a decent knife.

Dragged the XR out at the weekend for a shake down before the big two day Vinduro later in the month. It's 33 years old now but still rides nice.

We've been using plain old rapeseed oil in the saws (not just the 150) for a year or so now with no problems. The 150 does occasionally stop oiling but only because the bar seems to clog easy on some woods (Ash seems t be the worst). Definitely think the thin oil can't hurt.

242 too.

I quite like the look of that. It's not trying to pretend to be anything it isn't and looks to be quite quick for a budget/part time use machine. I don't like the big guard, but from the looks of the way the log is presented to the splitter, it doesn't look like the guard would need lifting much. I couldn't see if there was a log gripper, but it didn't look as though the last log was ever a problem, even short ones. It would be interesting to see how it stacked up againts a farmi price wise as they appear to be similar in spec. Regarding the Hawk. I owned one for a couple of years (admittedly an early one as it was one of the first road tow ones in the uk) and it was ok. The new ones look to be an improvement over the early models in that you don't need to unhitch and remove the drawbar before you set up (which then made manhandling it a pig), but it looks as though they are still manual feed and don't have a log lift.

Same here.

Just curious; what would you do in that situation?

Our local Asda's had those signs for a few years now and no one's ever stopped us filling any number or any type of cans yet.

I know what you mean, I was skeptical about the 150 to begin with but the tophandle really impressed me with how it copes. Probably Jon, but I've not realy looked that much into them at the mo.

Stihl 150 back handle or Echo 280wes. Think either can come with a 10" bar. When I last looked, I'd seen the echos for as little as £231 all in online. I'm still torn which one I'm going for myself.

That's far too much like common sense to ever happen

We must just be really lucky round us as I can't ever remember having a probllem in any of the garages I've filled cans up, even as many as 6 of the 5l plastic ones at the same time.

I don't know the figures, but we had a 454 and it ran a small forwarder crane off the hydraulics really well at not much above tickover. Was really quick and would easily cope with several movements at the same time so must be fairly high flow.

Can you not fell them back into the wood rather than onto the rides so there's no brash on the rides? Otherwise, could you not just blade it back into the edges with the winch? Unless you're geared up for handling brash (tractor with front loader and muck grab is quickest IME but forwarder is better than nowt) then burning is a ballache.

I nearly added a bit like that before, not so much from the insurance side of things but more what sort of finish they may leave. I've been out on forestry sites where training providers had been beforehand and it wasn't good. I know that may have just been isolated instances but it still happened - what the landowner was expecting and what was left were two totally different things.

If by charging the landowner less because the operators are all inexperienced and also then being able to use that to help reduce the costs of the training to make it more affordable for those wantng to undertake training then that's a great idea. If the landowner are paying full whack for the work being done and the trainees paying full whack then it sits less well, maybe it's just me but it just feels wrong.

Is that the 125 Josh? Looks ace

I'm going to buck the trend and say my gut feeling was fir of some sort. The way the bark's come off, it's texture where it's torn, the darker middle, the texture/colouring of the bark and the open rings reminds me of a big silver fir we dealt with a couple of years ago.

Not had many real bad ones but usually grab a shovel and start making a pile somewhere noticable but out of our way - most of the time they'll get embarrassed and take over. One guy once came out with a hose pipe and started blasting them into the grass with it Great, it's still there just harder to see and spread over a biger area

They are Ben. They're so easy to ride it's almost like cheating One of the things I like most about mine is that when I bought it 18 months old with less than 400 miles on the clock it was the same money as a 10-15 year old KTM.

Finally got round to doing an event on the little AJP - Buzzsurgeon and I rode Ryedale Rally last weekend and it was ace. We've ridden it the previous two years but this year was by far the best yet. Got eaten alive down the fireroads again (topped out at 63mph - feel the power!) but made the most of it in the woods, especially after the thunderstorms we had at 4am the saturday morning. Unlike many of the "proper" bikes, mine's got built in traction control. Well I think it must do as you can ride it flat out everywhere and it never seems to get out of shape Might be somethign to do with the fire breathing 200 aircooled 4 stroke lump.... Battery mysteriously decided to stop holding charge part way through saturday and finally died on the lead up to the final special test but managed to blag a lithium battery off another rider ready for Sunday and other than falling off in the last test, it all went well. Buzzsurgeon managed 54th out of 204 overall on his 390 husaberg, my dropping a test put me miles behind, but (yeah yeah, I know if's and but's don't count) even with crashing mid test, if I'd got that final test in on saturday and been no quicker than previous I'd have taken third in the trail class and about 60th overall No action shots as yet so this'll have to do for the mo

Only used one briefly a few times myself, but a guy I work with has had one for a few months now and it's proven to be a cracking little saw. Was a bit dubious of the tiny chain to start with but found it's fine, just doesn't need to be too tight or sharpened too agressively. It's original use was for pruning and on finer branched removals, but it tends to be his go to tophandle unless it's all big limbs or needs a bit more chain speed. Only thing we've found is that you need to keep the bar rails very clean as it doesn't take a lot to stop it oiling, but other than that it's been faultless.

Depends what she's going to use it for and how often I reckon. What about something like a backhandle MS 150?