Tom D

Forst backup is pretty good. any issues we have had have been dealt with pretty promptly. I think the ST8 is an awesome machine for its size/weight. The bandit 75 which I also demoed is a well built machine but the feed rollers are painfully slow. I love bandits, I just bought a 250 pto machine, but I wouldn't have a 75, it must be about 3'longer than the forst and probably 500kg heavier, and the rollers are too slow. Awesome crushing power, but then the crushing on the forst is pretty good and it really pulls the stuff through quickly. I'm really surprised bandit haven't put faster roller motors on the 75, the one I demoed was years ago and it sounds like they haven't changed. With faster infeed that machine would be a big seller. I've got a ducker / tp200 on the mog now though and that seems pretty good.... I have a forst ST8 for sale if anyone hadn't noticed. 6 chippers is too many, the yard is starting to look like Alan masons.

Some of my guys might be interested. We have a couple of big shots.. we're pretty busy at the moment though... pm me..

For a hydrostatic drive I'd use HV46 but it would be worth checking with the manufacturer.

do you get much interest in it?

Sorry Dean, I see it now.

Yep it's the same one. Did you work out the price for the winch kit?

I've just bought a bandit 250 pto machine, it's a big beast of a thing. I got it to get us through a busy spell but I'm thinking of keeping it afterwards to hire out, then if we get this busy again we'll have it available. Does anyone know what the going rate for hiring a machine this size is? I was thinking 300-400 per week... but nowhere round here hires them so I'm not sure. Also just to gauge interest would any of you think about hiring a machine like this? It's a 12" x 19" infeed. If you don't have a tractor they cost between 300 and 500 per week to hire....

The whole tax system is a mess at the moment, the economy has moved on and the gov has failed to keep up. When the employers contribution rate hits 3% it will be costing me £5k a year. Meanwhile I'm loosing work to small outfits who employ "self employed" staff to avoid all this hassle. This is why the numbers of self employed people are going up and up. The government needs to find a way to tax these people otherwise as the economy grows tax receipts won't, and lets face it they need to. With the deficit approaching £2,000,000,000,000 they need to start paying it off, the problem they have is they are pushing people into self employment so they can pay less tax, and pushing employers into using self employed subbies. This pension thing is just another reason not to create jobs.

TBH all the options I'm looking at are forestry spec, I'm just debating wether to go for the radials over the crossplys..

Yep it's redpaths who I use, Neil gave me the prices. It's the forestry spec that makes them so pricey. Problem with the Agni ones is the weak sidewalls. With all the site work that I do they need to be tough.

I do lots of road work so duals are out, the radials will be better on the road too. We are only occasionally on wet sites but when we are she soon makes a mess.

Pricing up tyres for the Valtra roof mount. Normal forestry crossplys work out about £900 a corner, they are quite narrow and wear quickly. There are forestry radials that will fit but they work out about £1500 a corner. The radials are 600 mm wide and should solve my sinking problems, the tractor weighs 9.5 ton so she's not great on soft ground. But £6k is a huge amount to spend on a set of tyres. Anyone got any thoughts?

Funnily enough, another Edinburgh tree surgeon has stolen one of my pics and put it on his website, its actually of me too!... not sure where to go with that one..

I like your vids tim, big crew!

Prop-shaft nuts loose...

One big gust can do that. When we had the storms in Edinburgh a few years back there was one gust which blew down trees all over the city.

You must have missed my message Steve, I'll donate a £50 fr jones voucher.

One white glove.

We're using tree smart Arb, it's good but it's 2.5k per year. Backup is good though..

Get a heizohack instead....

How much was the wee mulcher?

Spud did an 034 for us, it was good......

Yep that was the second last pic and was just under 2 ton, the last one was just over... its 11 feet long.

Was using my spud ported 254 on the ground for a crane dismantle today, it was awesome as usual. Of all my ported saws this one is the most remarkable.

A wee upload experiment This is a 2 ton lump, looks small as its so high...