Catweazle
-
Posts
290 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Classifieds
Tip Site Directory
Blogs
Articles
News
Arborist Reviews
Arbtalk Knot Guide
Gallery
Store
Calendar
Freelancers directory
Everything posted by Catweazle
-
Nice common, that's just the kind of lake you want to find in the middle of a big wood
-
Ah, chestnut palings. What's the rotation time ? 12 years or so ? I'm curious because I have loads of chestnut, although it's all a lot older than that.
-
What are you going to do with that wood ? I'm curious as it looks quite small.
-
eBay has a few people advertising in the Workshop Machinery sections, for deliveries of lathes and milling machines. If you had a bit of manual handling gear as well, heavy duty skates and winches, you could be onto an earner. If you had a tracked skate, that could get a heavy machine over a lawn to someones garden workshop, you might have an edge.
-
Damn, that's impressive Wish I could split them like that.
-
There are grants available in some areas to help change the status of an SSSI, for example from "unfavourable unchanged" to "unfavourable recovering". Talk to Natural England, they're very helpful and realistic about the commercial possibilities and how they will benefit woodlands.
-
Does the report take into consideration that when the bio-mass ( I'll call it firewood ) is harvested the trees busily replace it ? I can't see how a coppiced woodland can be anything but very close to carbon neutral. The only carbon "losses" I can see are those involved in processing and transporting the firewood. Firewood takes carbon from the air, uses energy from sunlight, and stores it for me to burn later. The carbon came from the air and is released to the air. Coal releases carbon that was stored in an age when levels were much higher than we can tolerate, when we burn it we add to the net carbon in the air, because coal isn't being formed at anywhere near the rate that we burn it at.
-
Good effort Mick, might I suggest you clean a bit more rust off first ? It makes a difference.
-
It's worked well for me as an investment, but I paid cash, if there was interest to pay then I'd have to make an effort to sell some produce. It seems like a fairly safe place to put some money, and there are tax advantages to be explored.
-
I have a Dunsley Yorkshire, it works very well, hot and clean. But, I have nothing to compare it to, it's the only stove I've had. It is DEFRA approved to burn wood in a smoke control area. They are available with or witout boilers, mine has the boiler and easily heats a 170 litre water tank and 8 radiators. When it's wide open it can make 17KW with wood, which is too much for 8 rads and could benefit from a large heat store tank. Normally I use the built in thermostat to regulate it, the stat controls the air input.
-
That saw looks like an accident waiting to happen. I'm no H&S nut, but I wouldn't touch it. By the time you've bought a bar and chain and covers you'll be halfway to buying something more modern, and if that old saw has a knackered oil pump you'll wreck the chain and bar anyway. Have a look on eBay.
-
Top ten firewood stoves.. allegedly
Catweazle replied to redmoosefaction's topic in Log burning stoves and fireplaces
No Dunsley Yorkshire there either - a very clean and efficient stove that is DEFRA approved to burn wood in smoke control areas. -
I posted about this a while ago and got various suggestions, some people thought from my description that it was bat guano. I've got some pictures now, it looks like what the Yanks call Slime Flux, not sure what that is in English. Any advice on how to deal with it would be much appreciated, it seems to seep from cracks in the trunk. The old Hornbeam that was next to it cracked down the middle and had to be felled last year, I'm hoping this isn't infectious as I've got some lovely, very old Hornbeam pollards along the boundary.
-
Some from last weekend. I have no ideas what they are
-
What is the advantage of your scabbard over the excellent hard plastic one supplied with the Silky ?
-
That MIG looks ideal. One little tip, dump the noddy earth clamp and make your own from a pair of mole grips and some copper sheet, you'll notice the difference a really sound earth connection makes.
-
Some good advice on this thread Mick, those buzz-box stick welders are difficult on most metal, impossible on car bodywork. I gave mine to the scrap man. A quick and dirty way is to mig it, you get a lot of weld onto it without blowing too many holes and the gasless type save you having to mess with the 5 year bottle rentals for your gas. Mig will make a strong weld and nobody will refuse to MOT a migged repair. You might be better to hire a welder for a few days, in which case you could get a TIG set, which is Rolls Royce welding and much easier than stick, mig or even gas. With a TIG set you can literally weld a razor blade to a boat anchor, but it is slow. Pro welders will sometimes put the root run, the part of the weld where the metals are thinnest, with a TIG then fill the rest with something faster. I've got a couple of excellent reference books on welding if you want to borrow them, covering all the methods here and many more ( Explosive paste welding sounds like fun ! )
-
I'd have wanted much bigger ropes and a pulling method that couldn't suddenly lose traction or fry the clutch and get pulled forwards, a big Tirfor would do. I'm just a pessimistic amateur though .
-
Perhaps you could use lockwire and tab washers as used on race bikes. You can drill a small hole through a bolt head or a corner of a nut and wire it to something solid, or another nut, with stainless steel wire. Also available, and perhaps easier if you don't have a pillar drill, are tab washers. They have one long tab with a hole for the wire, and several shorter tabs that can be bent up against a flat on a nut or bolt head. You've probably seen something similar on car wheel-bearing retaining nuts. Here is an example of tabs; Progressive Suspension Safety Lock Wire Starter Kit | Set Up Equipment | Pit & Paddock Accessories | Motorcycle Shop | Demon Tweeks And here's a quick guide to lock-wiring; http://www.byrongliding.com/lockwire.htm
-
I like this thread. People have often carved their love tokens into trees, perhaps because they see the tree as everlasting and they hope their love will be the same. I have a very unusual sycamore that has loads of these tokens going back to the 70's, I won't cut it even though it is a pain to kill all the seedlings from it. I also have a large Sweet Chestnut, carved with a huge heart by a previous forester with a chainsaw. It meant something to him, or he wouldn't have made the effort. The tree is slowly covering it up.
-
Do other industries laugh at you ? I doubt it. Trees aren't as easy to predict as concrete or steel. As a bystander ( the "public" if you like ) I consider Tree surgeons to be like medical surgeons - they do the best they can but sometimes the patient dies.
-
Perhaps a block and tackle would be best, you can stop at any height if your arms get tired and the mechanical advantage is enough to lift you, your rifle, thermos, sandwiches etc etc Lifting Equipment - Tiger Chain Blocks
-
What would have killed that tree ? It looks in good shape to my amateur eyes.
-
Did someone already try to fell the tree ? Pic 14 looks like it has a cut at the base.
-
I like the idea , but the stalks could have been a bit thicker and maybe some leaves around the bottom. You've got much better control of your saw than I could manage
