Tom D

Demand has got to play a huge part, look in the shops these days, I often see timber products and wonder how they ever did it for that price, the answer is very cheap foreign labour. So as a saw miller your customers are themselves having to compete with very cheap imported products that they have no chance of beating on price. I have never been to Oak Furniture Land but I'll bet its not all hand crafted in the UK from UK grown oak, how could it be at that price? Woodworkers are therefore only able to sell niche products to a small but discerning customer base who have the money to spend on something local, there just aren't that many of these people. I have seen chopping boards etc in garden centres for £10 or less. No uk woodworker could possibly compete with that kind of price unless he was doing it for fun. Find ways of adding value to your products or reach new markets, selling to the diy hobbyist who only wants 1 board for a wee project may be a pain in the ____, but if you find new ways of reaching these people and make sure that you are not unduly inconvenienced by them then they could be a real money spinner There used to be an Edinburgh wood festival where you could sell stuff direct to the public, that kind of thing would be a good way to go.

Stick it on arbtrader.

I have an aarow stratford I think, its a boiler stove, wider than it is deep so it takes a long log and you see a lot of the fire. Esse do one with a wide door too.

That would be APR.

Fair enough.. I'm happy with it, I had just thought that it would go further.

I doubt belts are slipping, the load sensor kicks in quick enough so can't be that much slip. She chucks it between 4 and 8m Ian. THe 1928 will do twice that easy,

Thanks stubby but thats not it, the machine is reconditioned and has not been used until today. It pulls the stuff in well but just doesn't eject the chip with the same force as other machines that I have used. Maybe thats just how they are.

I just bought a Jensen 530 tracked chipper it doesn't throw the chip very far. Is this normal? If not what's wrong with it?.... http://www.tdtrees.co.uk

Interesting, how old is it? how many hours?

Thats the 4 blade one, I'm doing brash so Ideally I'd like the 6 blade version. May have to settle for the 4 though.

Anyone know of a hiezohack 6-300 for sale? Looking for one, 3pl or towed considered. Thanks in advance.

Its the way to go, very few companies have the cash to buy big kit outright, I have been getting quotes this week for a new tractor, best so far is around 6%. I am hoping for better though. The disadvantage with a bank loan is that it may be secured against your own assets like your house, finance is secured against the machine.

95-100 hp john.

Going on Arbtrader later, I am needing something bigger… Great machine..

Find something specialist to do, run of the mill contracting is done at ridiculously cheap rates. I considered getting a side arm flail when I bought my tractor, then I discovered what the going rate was…. I was chatting to a farmer friend a couple of hours ago, he got his sowing done for £16 an acre, thats a £120k tractor and a £60k combination unit for £16 an acre!

Just make your own up, use either rigging line or I used some climbing line, figure 8 either end, one end has a large loop to allow a 6 wrap prussic to be tied to the main rigging line, you then slide this up and down to get the right shape for the limb that you are cutting.

link?

Plus you can break down a branch in the tree on several slings and still lower the whole lot as one, this makes life much easier for the ground staff in tight spots.

Arm protection is a seriously stupid idea, its fine to one hand a topper when reaching out, its one handing whilst close to your other hand thats dodgy Arm injuries are the least of your problems, if the saw catches your sleeve, or even worse an arm protector, it instantly runs up the arm and into the chest / neck area. A chest wound could be sore, a neck wound could be fatal, I saw a picture of a chest wound caused in exactly this way only a few days ago. An arm protector is just an encouragement to cut in a more dangerous fashion. I often cut one handed and very occasionally cut and hold, but tbh its easy to use step cuts and cut and snap or undercut with the saw and top cut and hold with a silky….

Slings are even quicker… You have to watch side loading karabiners when rigging with them.

Amazing what alpines will pull, this was on tarmac so traction was good but even so still impressive.

I have dead lifted some massive lumps with the 560, and wrestled on some even bigger stuff. The issue with the 580 is the lack of pulling power in terms of dragging stuff close enough to lift. Other makes of crane may be way better in the woods bit they lack dead lifting power. Dead lifting power is important in arb work because you don't want to skid stuff if you can help it and you often need to lift over obstacles like fences or walls. I will probably end up with the 570, but 8m reach would have been nice.

Spoke to John Wilson this morning and I am now leaning away from the 580 as the extension lacks power compared with my current 560, so dragging a big log towards the machine with the extension is not really possible apparently, it is with the 560/70.. so now its a question of wether I want the reach and fast handling for brash and feeding the chipper or power for the timber… I am leaning towards the N series however tractor wise.

Thanks for the detailed reply, I had thought T series and then this week we were working on an LA job on some allotments and space was tight, the 6400 was great and all I really wanted was a little more reach on the crane. This tight spot made me think I wouldn't want a bigger tractor in here, but maybe I could have got a 6cylinder in…. Are you putting a big chipper on it?

If it wasn't for the fact that the picture is not orkney that would be pretty convincing.