Ty Korrigan

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nHA_K0XZ2Hc I thought the Little Britain sketch inappropriate today.

I have observed that the French are no longer focused on handwashing and have returned to their former insalubrious ways. We have had our first bouts of 'norovirus' since before Covid. My son likely brought it home from the afterschool centre then a few days later it hit me hard. So hard that the strain of chundering strained my chest muscles. I went back to work after 3 days but on easier jobs that I still struggled on. It took me over a week to regain my form. I have sworn never again to shake hands in this country. Stuart

A detail here is the mill is a Peterson with a 23hp Honda twin. Alot faster and less instrusive than an 880. Still, takes a day to load, transport, set up, packup, go home, unload. The trunks would be 2 half days. I love milling, it isn't mine but I get Tom Jenkins out whenever I can. If the trunk can be moved to his yard, we move it. I also proposed that the client engage Tom direct and make use of the sawn lumber himself as he has a building project. The client did contact Tom but was put off by the cost of milling, 2 guys 2 days and by his carpenter who poured water on the idea for reasons of timing. The wood won't be sufficiently seasoned in time for his use. I was going to use the wood for my own project, building Mrs Lee a kitchen extension.

I crown lifted an oak pollard back in November. It has a very busy crown due to being a traditional Breton pollard. I noticed today that over half the buds have browned off just as the leaves started emerging but there are still a few stems with green leaves towards the top. It doesn't have signs of Phytophthrora ramorum on the bark but has always a Fistulina that appears each year. What pathogen might be the cause of death here? Have I carried something on my saw? This is worrying for me because of just who the owner is and his position in our local community. In tandem with this oak, a line of century old council oaks which we work on is also showing the same symptoms. Co-incidence or are my team vectors for something? Stuart

This is the problem with milling. Few want the continued noise and mess and as Mick say's client's don't like the idea of you profiting from 'their' wood in front of their eyes.

I've a signed quote for the takedown starting Monday, stem down Tuesday afternoon. I'll tell him to put the wood on Le Bon Coin (Gumtree) See what genre of neer-do-wells he has to deal with crawling over his neighbours property, tyre kicking the rounds and asking if he will deliver or "nice wood, not sure about the colour"

Thanks for replying. I originally offered the client a discount off the felling for the crown wood which I think is no more than 5m3 but was looking for opinions on that, and another more generous one for the stem which was easy to calculate. I planned to cut the stem into two 3m sections and mill it for my future house extension. Annoyingly, despite me proving the volume using math and showing him the current price of oak on a forestry website, he still believes there is far more wood that I say there is and wants eyewatering sums for it, seeing only the retail price of firewood and the value of forest grown oaks destined for Notre Dame in Paris. So I've dropped the idea and wish I had never offered in the first place as it has really muddied the waters. The client seems to now think I badly want the wood and is hoping to off set the removal cost. I don't 'badly' want it, I simply knew the client had no use for firewood, no savoir faire or time for dealing with this amount of wood and wanted to make a mutually beneficial deal. Instead, I have been treated with suspicion, almost to the level of "obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception" I've good money on this job though and it is still going ahead despite the clients recent weirdness towards me. I think this is brought on by stressing over the massive price increase in building costs and an expensive tree removal is an unwelcome addition. I've taken the precaution of photographing the broken concrete palisade surrounding the garden in case he claims we broke it and tries to sting us with 'betterment' So, instead of a convivial buy back deal, I have just I given him a cheeky price for moving the 90cm x 50cm rounds of cross cut stem plus crown from his neighbours future building plot around to his building plot using my wee Solis and truck. I used www.timberpolis.co.uk to calculate the weight of the millable stem and was surprised, 6m x 90cm = 4m3 thus 3250kg fresh sawn, divided by 12 = 270kg per round. Wrestling those rounds onto any splitter isn't something I can see my client doing and even better, he runs a pellet stove at home! Stuart

Off to the Youtube college of further education... Thanks for that Ian

This oak is coming down Monday. I've got the trunk sized up. 90cm dbh and 6m+to the first large pruning wounds. 4m3 The stem has a slight kink halfway up, an ideal place to crosscut as moving that lump so we can build the Peterson around it would be a struggle. Estimating the wood volume of the crown is just that, an estimation. I've stared at it from all angles before leaf burst and think around 5m3+ if we don't chip any thing much over 10cm. Any opinions? Also, just for curiosity, how much might this stem fetch in the UK? I may yet get to mill it in situ, either for the client or for me as part of a buy back deal. My client thinks it is worth a fortune and only yesterday was convinced he could sell it for parquet flooring for €2k My other question is again out of curiousity, how much does unsplit oak destined for firewood fetch in the UK? Cheers. Stuart

Hello, Our wee chippette has developed an oil leak which seems to be around the drive side of the engine judging from the dirt it attracts in that area. It isn't from the oil drain plug. Any ideas? The kitchen roll is there absorbing oil. Stuart

The 23hp Vanguard is as disposable as wet wipes. It was built with congenital asthma as a feature and no amount of early oil changes can save it from an early death.

Similar thickness to the armour to the T72 tanks falling like flies in Donbas. The battle of the 750kg...

This lip prevented wood from being reversed out as any 'pegs' or irregularities would get caught on it, torment.

Our 150, the bottom of the infeed chute deformed creating a lip. Nothing to do with feeding it over size wood. Just insufficient welding adding to the perfect storm of faults. GM replaced it amongst other things when I took it back to the UK.

Time to side hustle and break out the meth lab then...

A fresh sunny day subbing, truck n chipper, for one of my climbers. €2400 for two. I'm very happy he is making good coin on this job. Money is a great motivation. He can then buy a better purity of meth and a clean whore for the weekend.

9+10 May I've a large oak to takedown in a local town North of Rennes It was due to be given a protection order but money passed under the table in a nice restaurant (winked the developer) First, I was contacted and asked if I'd buy it. Then, if I'd do it for the wood. I sent the owner a quote for €10k with options including a buy back option of €600 as it is a nice stem for milling and the crown will heat my house for a year. Shortly after I received a call from the owner which was a bit tense but I held my ground. I firmly told him to get other quotes for the removal and to call sawmills himself if he truly thought the stem was valuable enough and that I was playing him for a fool. Weeks went by and I was invited to a site visit with representatives from the town hall, architects, notaires, adjacent plot owners and so forth. Amazingly, several of them assumed I would be doing it alone, others imagined me felling it despite the small area. A few images shared and I basked in all round admiration. I didn't have the heart to tell them I wasn't the one climbing, stolen valour me... I think I know why I won it because the owner was reffered to larger landscape companies by his architect. I know they certainly sub these jobs out to larger arb outfits so basically more than my healthy price plus a fat commission. I've even ordered fresh Bear Valley t'shirts for the job.

For us over La Manche, road closures and traffic management are free at least in my area (for now) This Monday, the commune (council) threw in a policeman and two commune workers to open and close for the buses (couldn't divert those) and to prevent pedestrians entering the felling zone. Also traffic light control and all your 'chapter 8' supplied for free on route nationals and departmental roads, A and B road equivalent. Often the set up crew stay with us if they have nothing else pressing.

I'm not upset, far from it. Puzzled about being misunderstood though. Maybe my English isn't what it used to be.

It was a rainy half term day and I would have otherwise been knocking out the old toilets in our new renovation. I did enjoy the day out though. Time enough for lunch and a beer near the river.

If you bothered to read my post, it is because although I don't win many British clients, the ones I do are generally larger jobs making it worthwhile pursuing. My point, seemingly lost for my usual band of critics, is that the client is equating tree work rates from 15 years ago to todays, for pines which have grown significantly since.

Jeepers, you people are making more if it than I. I went there not expecting to win it as the client is British. Throwing out your day rate without a solid indication of what can be achieved is both lazy and bizzare. If that tactic actually worked then none of us would need to leave the house to quote at all.

I'velong found that Brits here focus only on day rate not what you bring to the job or can achieve. This is confirmed by reading any ex-pat FB group on life in France. They will then look for the lowest day rate and as I'm far more than the 'day rate' of several other Brits working here I'd likely be laughed at for quoting telephone figures, something a British mill owner actually did respond. A face to face meeting is far more likely to secure the work and avoid any under pricing issues. To be fair, I have successfully quoted for single or lone trees by images alone but a quote of the size I was faced with requires more than a telephone figure banded over the telephone. I have not seriously underpriced a single job in long time now, preffering to price high and lose than fill my agenda with conifer flavoured headaches.

What thread is that?

How? What fool quotes for 10 days work from a few images?