muldonach

when somebody sells you one get a free welder thrown in with it - a hydraulic splitter will on real tough stuff follow the grain until either:- The log gives:001_smile: The tractor hydraulics lift the relief valve:sneaky2: or The splitter fails:blushing: which has happenned to us 3 times at least - we have now learned to be cautious as to what we try to force through cheers mac

Your original statement was that a man supplying a processor and charging £160/day would be left with £30 was it not? We have already put some figures on the costs of running the processor as for fuel the Valtra in my avatar will run flat out all day for £30 and will happily drive a processor ticking over at 540 output in the 1000 pto range for half of that. £20 of petrol will get you 3 gallons in my language which will take you a fair old distance, round this neck of the woods most people travel in there own time. Vehicle insurance, tax and servicing? = £5/day Vehicle depreciation = you can make it any figure you want - ballpark figure £10/day I suspect that the chap in question will be left with about £90/100 per day which would be a very reasonable wage round here for a paid employee, a little on the low side for a guy providing his own plant. As for charging £20 to fill a cubic metre bag with a processor - good on you if you can get it but I certainly would not pay that rate. cheers mac

Wood Species - Weight at various Moisture Contents how long is a ball of string - it varies with species as well - the link will give you density although in some cases in lb/cu ft so you will need to convert. %age of air will vary according to the size you split the logs down to I think - the more even they are the better they will stow. The only easy way you will get a worthwhile answer is to fill a known volume - either bag or trailer - and take it over a weighbridge. The weight of the timber in the trailer and the density quoted in the table will tell you how much timber is in the container and the rest is air - I would guestimate at 50%. There are a couple of other experiments you could do but probably more time and trouble than they are worth. cheers mac

No mate - he is in NZ wearing a red shirt with no 3 on the back:thumbup:

Seems a bit strange that the owner would arrange to meet a potential purchaser on a day that bars access to most of the wood. My first concern would be whether or not you will have access problems on a number of shooting days or even throughout the shooting season. Before worrying about that though - where and who are you going to sell this timber to? You say it is only good for firewood and that you propose to move it 600m to a loading area accessible by artic, I guess then that you propose to sell it as cordwood? Do you have machinery to move and stack the timber at your lorry loading area? Essentially you need to find a price per tonne or per m3 which you can sell this timber at, estimate the volume or tonnage you have and work back from that, allow:- haulage cost to your end user or agree a price at roadside. cost of extraction to your loading area assuming you will fell, sned and process yourself - how much are you going to cost a days work at and how many days do you estimate to do the job, don't forget to allow for a tank of petrol and oil per day cost of travel to and from the wood If you cannot estimate the volume of timber in the wood then I would try to work on an outturn basis - you pay a rate per tonne or cube for the timber you take away see if there is anything left to pay the owner with. I would look carefully at the windblow and make sure that you can work it safely and that it is actually worth bothering with. Also check that there is a felling licence in place and clarify who is responsible for ground preparation and restocking, does it actually allow the timescale that you indicate? Step carefully and think twice as carefully before you take it on and don't even think about making any agreements until you have been right through the wood and have a full understanding of any restrictions on access. Cheers mac

Like I say the AW Jenkinson Plant at Lockerbie was offering £24/ton at the plant gate this summer - once you take harvesting and transport into account there is a negative return. Invergordon would mean transhipping out of Ayr docks in 2-3000t tranches which is feasible - what price are they paying? Cheers mac

Rural area = limited market and plenty of saturday / sunday woodcutters I'm afraid - do about 50t / year of hardwood thinnings - you cannot give softwood away locally except to woodburning stove owners and I believe the FC practically gives it away up here. When I hear prices of £45/tonne for firewood we really are in a different world - only thing that comes close to that kind of price is sawlogs. Cheers mac

At £45/tonne @ roadside I am a willing seller with large quantities to bring to market over the next few years, mainly softwoods SS & LP but with a proportion of hardwoods - all sub 10" for processor. Who's buying? Cheers mac

The only bulk market for firewood round my way is in Lockerbie - AW Jenkinson - the last time I spoke to them - summer - they were offering £24/tonne delivered in. Haulage will be about £12/tonne and access for an artic is a big issue. Cheers mac

They don't reflect the prices being bandied around on here - a 1 cu metre bag , box or whatever will be lucky to hold 0.5 cu metre of solid timber, assuming it is thrown into the bag, box or trailer. Which at a typical density of 700kg/m3 equates to :- 22.53p/kg at £80 per cube 28.57p/kg at £100 per cube 34.28p/kg at £120 per cube The price they quote (17.66p / Kg) comes out at £61.81 for a 1 cubic metre bag of seasoned logs. 85% boiler efficiency looks pretty optimistic as well but that is another thread. Cheers mac

1 tonne of wood @ £50 will fill 2 x 1 cubic metre bags of split logs which at your quoted rate of £80 per cube will offer a decent return - obviously depending on time taken and delivery distance. I don't see any way people can pay £100-120 a cube for woodfuel for heating,we burn 25 cubes a year to heat a mid size house so anyone buying in woodfuel as a primary heat source at £100 per cube is wasting money I would have thought. We certainly do not pay £50 per tonne - it is free to us cheers mac

Fishing for information to be honest - we have small scale machinery available but it does not suit that ground, I mess about a bit with firewood but am not in touch with the roundwood markets. We have had a couple of the companies you mention look at the site and as already mentioned getting any useful information is difficult to say the least. We have had one company offer a price on an out-turn basis, my first impression is that the offered price is low but obviously they have to cover harvesting and haulage & leave a bit for themselves. Cheers mac

We are in the process of bringing a softwood clearfell to market, there are various difficulties with the site. I have had several of the big companies come to visit and getting any information on prices and out-turn is like getting blood out of a stone. I have a couple of offers on an out-turn basis but they look a little light to me. Site is easy sloping deep peat, crop is 3SS:1LP P73, Yield class 14 and 10, plant spacing is 2m x 2m and about 60-70% has survived. 20 ha in one coupe and estimating 4-5000t total. The forwarder will have to haul brash about for sure and it will need light loads and low ground pressure to avoid bogging. Longest haul - one corner to another will be 600m What is a sensible price for harvesting / forwarding? Cheers mac

175 cubes is worth arguing about - how about sampling it - mark of a couple of 1 x 1 sections and measure the base area of all the timber inside the lines? Should not take too long and will indicate who is nearest. Altenatively sell by weight? No arguing with a weighbridge ticket. Cheers mac

Depends very much on where you are i.e. how much your local market will bear. We do seasoned hardwoods at £60 / cube delivered within 20 miles, another local guy does softwoods at £40 for 1.2m3 collected. Any attempt to charge £100/ cube would get the dogs set on us! Cheers mac

So does that mean a 4 x 2 which is experiencing wheelspin is no longer a 2wd?

No con at all and all modern landys certainly do have permanent 4wd. All the centre diff does is allow a little variation in drive - all 4 wheels are driving but if any one wheel spins all the drive will go to that wheel, it is a necessary feature on road to avoid axle wind-up when cornering, which results in a viscious self straightening action in the steering. Losing a halfshaft or a propshaft will not immobilise a landy in itself - if its a halfshaft then just lock the diff (or engage 4wd on the series models) if it is a UJ then remove the propshaft since they normally break a lug when they let go. It will drive fine on the road but be useless off road or in slippy conditions. Cheers mac

You would be surprised I think at just how fuel efficient a ship is - cannot recall figures accurately but 2000 tonne of cargo can be moved at about 10 knots ( 240 miles per day) for about 5000l of diesel In round figures that is 100 truck loads - no idea what a loaded wagon burns but suspect it will not make 240 miles on 50 litres - ready to be corrected though. Cheers mac

If you get the chance of a lug-all winch - american made in aluminium - grab it - not all that powerful but dead light and easy to use. Cheers mac

Sorry but you can get over fixated on "optimum results" and moisture content - what matters is that it burns well and gives a good heat output. We have heated our house for 20 years plus with wood that has been split and stacked in an open fronted and sided shed for as little as 3 months - chimney swept twice in the year. Quite happy to sell the same stuff and customers happy to get it, yes it is not optimum - but it is perfectly acceptable Cheers mac

It will be almost impossible to reduce a hawthorn crown with a polesaw unless you are really really luck - the very dense growing habit makes it very difficult to get anything you cut out of the crown unless you can get a really good grip on it. A good deal of patience may be required but as others have said they are impossible to kill with a saw - winter is best and cut it back as much as you want. We had some hedges on the farm which had grown into trees - well past the stage of being able to lay them so we simply felled them and put a sloping cut on the stump - they have never looked back and the regrowth is just about due to be layed. cheers mac

20?? In a day??? - should be doing 60+! Once you get past the hairy outside trees the snedding should be much easier. cheers mac mac