Taupotreeman

Don't you just love that? My truck is similar. Never ceases to amaze me how tight the turning circle is. On the opposite side of the coin is my landrover which has the turning circle of the exon valdez. And the thirst too.

Council tree so no photos what so ever. I'm the first arborist they've had and they don't generally take photos of their assett unless the tree is due to be removed, unfortunately.

Got called out to this Red Oak today. When replacing the broken footpath in the second picture the contractors have just ripped the roots out with a digger. There's about 15% of the roots been removed and the tree has a bit of a lean although not sure if this has developed after the last strong winds or if the tree has always been like this. The tree in the back ground is pretty upright incomparison. My worry is that the root destruction by the contractors has compromised the stability of the tree. Suggestions?

Ha, followed one of the local outfits down here the other day with there new truck. They have put real high sides on it and as it went round the corners I thought it was going to tip over. I usually carry a bin full with it spilling out the sides and back along with the rest that has landed on the roof blowing off on to cars. It's all bio degradable. Still umming and arrring about the chipper but just heard that Asplundh has a bandit 90 for sale. Their gear is usually well looked after so might be worth buying second hand but not sure if the council would consider it. Drew, all the new kit will need testing I'm sure as I'm bound to order a pile of gear that I have no idea how to use. I looked at Mason's set up a few weeks ago and it's all new to me. Jeez, I've only just progressed to a hitch climber. Mind you, that tree motion is looking pretty affordable all of a sudden when someone else is paying. Give us a yell next time you're down. Adam, how long does it take you to fill the truck? She looks real small. great for all those small driveways though.

Never a truer word spoken. No good if the thing is in the workshop half the time.

My old whisper chipper swallows all cypress no worries. It'll take cabbage tree fronds too and hasn't blocked up yet. Stuff goes through it so fast it doesn't get chance to block up. The only stuff it doesn't like is vine and the like but only because it has no feed rollers to grab the material and drag it through. For a dinosaur it's been a fine machine, especially considering what it cost me to buy and what it costs in maintenance.

Now that's just pure class remember on the way back from my basic training a whole load of us in the back of the bedford truck with the canopy rolled up. One of the boys had way too much to eat the night before so we held on to his arms while he hung his backside over the tailgate and proceeded to take a dump as the truck was driving along. Unfortunately it was the main drag out of newark and was a reasonably busy road so some poor sod got a windscreen full.

Looked at those as well but don't reckon they are heavy duty enough to deal with everything we want to throw at it. Alright for your average everyday stuff but we have a lot of stuff we don't want to leave for firewood hence looking at the slightly bigger gear.

Just reading the brochure and they reckon the 95xp is the better one if you deal with all that smaller stuff as well as the big. Mulches lawson better apparently.

Well hopefully the prospects for the tree are good. Fortunately council is real keen to keep it unless it starts to die back majorly or the split widens significantly. They are talking about carrying out some more bracing to stabilize it and the cracks are being monitored.

Rayco??????? now comon, be serious Think I'm edging towards the bandit. They are slightly cheaper than the vermeer and I've used them a fair bit in the past. Thought about Morbark but the support network here isn't so good and I've seen some that sound decidedly sick after a lot of hard work whereas the bandits seem to take anything you throw at them. Never really thought much about the drum chippers from bandit though so might have to discuss things more with the supplier.

If you're after a few ideas my wife may be able to help. She's a florist and sets up a lot of weddings so if you're short on the shrubs and want a quick fill in or some direction let us know. Will only be theoretical help though cos we are more than just a drive away unfortunately.

I've been looking at the drum chippers in the brochure. Somewhat different to my old style whisper I have to say but they look quite compact. I have no issues with a drum chipper, just want what's best for the job really.

Ha, wait until we can justify the 21 inch chipper. Then we can make you fellas cry with the stuff we put through it

About that big, if you can make it out. It looks quite a decent split in all fairness. You can also see the decay in the limb. There's a few like that but mainly smaller lower ones although there's the odd one in the upper canopy.

Working for Taupo District Council and keeping my own gear to do weekend work and maybe the odd bit when I'm on leave. I can keep the business running and put all by expenses through it Council is currently looking at a Hino truck. Nothing too big but enough to pull a 9 inch or 12 inch. It'll be based on the split dumps Asplundh use as we can use the same body fabricator to spec up our truck to save designing new plans for an engineer. We still have to look at Mitsi and Isuzu but should be a 4 litre turbo diesel with about 6m3 bin on it give or take. Just don't want to get a 12 inch chipper if we aren't going to use it that much as we will still be contracting out the bigger work. If the inhouse team proves to be more efficient than contracting then we can look at setting up a second crew in a couple of years time.

Cheers bro, can't wait. Just started looking at new trucks today. I offered to buy second hand but they were having none of it. Put in a shopping list the other day for $15k worth of climbing gear, you know, saws, harness, boots, ropes etc. Didn't even blink.

Yeah the Oak is beauty but it's starting to show a few signs of decay in some of the branches so I'm a little concerned. Hopefully it'll age gracefully and it'll be around for years to come. Hoping to remember to get some pictures of it in leaf. The stump is bleedin huge. At least 10 feet across the top never mind the buttress.

I'm currently helping set up an arb division at the local council and they are pruchasing all the gear from scratch (Oh Yeah ) I've got about $50K to spend on a chipper. The choices are Vermeer BC1000, Vermeer BC1200, Bandit 90XP, 95XP or 150XP. Now I know I'm probably pushing the proverbial up hill with a sharp stick asking this but has anybody used both and which, if any, are the better machines or are they both pretty much the same?

First week at my new job so took a couple of piccies of some of the local residents. The first is a large red Oak (protected) which is slowly peeling apart at the bottom. A cobra bracing system is in place but it looks like more might be needed. I also came across this monster stump. It doesn't look that big in the pictures but believe me, it's a fair size. I reckon it's an old Macrocarpa but I'm not 100% sure.

Meindles or Klimbas. Had both (not the air zermatts though) and both are excellent. The klimbas are a slightly chunkier boot whereas the meindles are more like a very stiff walking boot. If you've got smaller feet it'd be the meindles for me, just.

Looks good but just wait for the suckers. It'll go ballistic.

Mozzies don't like it if you eat heaps of bananas but they do like the colour blue. Unfortunately, if you attract them you're pretty much stuffed. DEET works great but like others have said; be careful, it's nasty stuff. I'm fortunate, mozzies hate me but the wife swells up like a barrage balloon and they love her for some reason.

Gets quite freaky sixty foot up a gum and the thing starts cracking as you cut in to it.

As above. Don't wait until it's dry to split it as some Gum turns almost to concrete and is nigh on impossible to split by axe. Plus it takes ages for it to dry out in the rings. I took a couple of doozies down last year but stupidly left them in rings for about 6 months before splitting them. they're nowhere near seasoned but some of the stuff I did split almost straight away is now chugging away merrily on the fire.