muldonach

Seconded - also grind into the crack and weld from both sides cheers mac

Don't take a 339 as a present - we bought one a few years ago and have found it to be pretty hopeless - starter is fragile and easily ripped out. regards mac

You might want to take into account that 1m3 of wood does not normally equal 1 tonne. The 10 tonnes you have allowed for will take 2 days to process and you need to allow for travel in both directions and digs if necessary. Regards mac

At £350-400 a day for a man with a chainsaw and a tractor to drive a logsplitter I don't think there would be anything inconsistent about it - there would be zero work! you would need to produce a pretty big pile of firewood in day to make it worth the customer handing you £400 regards mac

Well having an idle moment I made some sweeping assumptions and punched it out on a calculator. If your average tree size is 0.35m3 (10m high x 30cm dia at base) and you put in a reasonable 8 hr day you should end up with 60 trees felled, snedded and cut to length, those 60 trees will weigh 8.5t when they hit the ground. You are now faced with 2 runs on your tractor to your end user, you don't say how far away it is but running a tractor on the road takes time, as does loading and unloading so it is unlikely you will get much more done that day? So on a semi- educated guess the economics of your projected operation are that you will have a gross income of about £65/day if you can get a good price for your timber and from now on in it is all cost - travel, fuel, repairs and lost time (hung up trees, nipped saws, bogged tractors and trailer punctures). We did something similar to this about 20 years ago now and the stacked timber sat for three months through the summer before the buyer lifted it If it is a recreational project then fine - but it is very unlikely to be an economic one. Not wanting to rain on your enthusiasm but I think the above is a reasonably realistic assessment. Regards mac

Nothing gay about those trailers mate

there is a service you can register with which prevents cold calls (but only those originating in the UK) we did it years ago and it helps quite a bit but have no earthly recollection of how or where we did it bit of googling might throw up an answer but a bit distracted at this end just now regards mac

he broke the first law of argument - show no weakness

6 acres does not really mean much on its own - first of all survey the site to get an estimate of standing volume and average height and diameter. Then I would contact the major companies - Scottish Woodlands UPM etc and ask for a roadside price and spec. Also worth talking to local sawmills or users to see if they will take it direct but arranging haulage etc can be a pain. The closer you are to your market the more likely it is to add up. As far as I know nobody will use pine for pulp but it can be chipped for OSB etc. Be very careful since the pine will rot very quickly once you fell it and will get a blue stain through it in short order which I think renders it unfit for any use other than firewood - don't fell anything you don't have a market for. Then you will need a felling licence, one condition of which is likely to be that the site is restocked - you or the owner is going to have to figure that into your economics. As far as making any money with small scale machines - it really depends on the ground you are working over. If it is level and firm, and your machinery reliable then I guess you can make a profit but lodgepole in our area at least (SW Scotland) is typically planted on deep peat and there is no way a small tractor trailer combination can travel the ground. The lodgepole does not make enough brash to run on and you need all wheel drive and low ground pressure as a minimum - once you go through the skin you are in to the axles. If your ground is soft then my advice would be to run away! I would talk to as many end users as you can identify but I would be a bit careful of taking on a job you are not familiar with - not too many people make a living doing this kind of thing and I assure you it is very hard work. HTH Mac

Take a good realistic look at the tyres on the tractor and the ground you have to work with and buy a trailer that your tractor can cope with - a big heavy duty trailer looks real smart in the yard but pretty sorry for itself when it is in to the axles. Cheers mac

AVG plus Zonealarm has done fine for me for the last 5 years Cheers mac

Before you start lining chimneys etc just have a check that the flue is actually clear - it is not unknown for a piece of clinker to fall off post sweeping and partially obstruct the airway. Did you sweep it yourself or get someone else to do it - we have had problems in the past with sweeps failing to remove all the residue and leaving a partially blocked flue. Also if you have a damper in the flue which is removed for cleaning make sure it is reattached and opening properly. Regards mac

He has spent the entire period of labour goverment selling the idea that prudent financial management means spending more than you earn and borrowing more than you can afford to pay back. Possibly the biggest long term disaster that has ever been chancellor let alone Prime Miinister Regards Mac

Got a JCB 130 and could do with a timber grab - any chance you could point me at a supplier? Cheers mac

Not for a pension mate - it gets everywhere! Regards Mac

Learn to live with it - as you suspect it is simply a lack of tension when winchin in - or possibly a drum freewheeling too freely when dragging the wire out and the wire "ripping down" when you winch in again. Avoid having too much spare wire on the winch - if it is bad then secure the wire to a sring point and pull with the tractor - gently does it and it will come out. Cheers mac

Equally surprised at this end as well - we have a hunter 20 that has been driving our central heating for the last 18 years without a drama and it replaced a hunter 14 roomheater which was excellent for more than 10 years. Cheers mac

A bulker 2x2x20 would be 80 cube according to my arithmetic - either way that is the volume of the wagon and even split logs will not stow better than 50% in my experience. I don't know the dimensions of a bulker wagon since we have never used them but don't believe they go up to 20m. cheers mac

Hmm - two letters and a phone call- write to your mp and local councillor regarding the lack of interest from "officialdom" then phone your local paper and relate the story to them - one thing officialdom really hates is being mentioned in print when they took no action! regards mac

Sorry but find it difficult to agree with that one - we changed to broglio head on 245RX for bracken and brambles because we were forever smacking the three corner off stones. Find the broglio excellent and has certainly lasted a lot longer than an hour! No good on grass / rushes though. Cheers mac

take it you refer to sweet chesnut? If so mix it with anything you have but make sure that the ash, oak or whatever will burn - cos the chesnut won't unless it is split small and dried out well Regards mac

First question:- is anyone near you offering this service? If so what are they charging because that is the rate you have to compete with. Secondly I would say you are approaching from the wrong direction when you ask "what could I charge?" what do you need to charge to make it worth your while all around? Decide on a figure that you are happy to walk away from a days work with the palax with and then add on to that all the costs you can identify and quantify. Get that down to a dayrate and market it at that - don't initially put your rate in any adverts you cannot easily change. Do a couple of jobs and get a feel for how much of a market there is and whether your rate is giving you a good return and adjust it in the light of experience. Try to see the job before going firm on a rate - we fronted up at one job with a palax and less than 50% of the timber would go through it - however we had pointed this out and arranged to have an extra sawman on site before starting. If you cannot get work at the rate you derive then either you are being unrealistic or someone is doing it at an uneconomic rate - only you can judge. HTH mac

At 500 a week plus delivery and fuel I would be looking for a full time operator as well - dream on would be my response to that quote I'm afraid. I would be very wary of hiring a processor out to the public anyway - looks like a lot of risk to insure for untrained operators from joe public and if you expect them to sharpen chain without training I would lay in a good stock of both chain and bars. The other question I would have is where is your market - the domestic market does not need a processor for a week - two people can run an artic load of timber through one in two good days even with a fair amount of chainsawing oversize stuff. Anyone who wants one for a month will want his own machine or a pretty substantial discount on those figures. I woud suspect that your potential market is a lot more likely to be a day here and a day there but will be interested to see what others think. Cheers mac

We do this with firewood in neglected hardwood plantations, it is certainly do-able but don't underestimate the challenge. If you have not already done some training then I would recommend getting some and also getting an experienced cutter in to give you a good start and show you how to work in the wood. If it isunthinned then mark out the extraction roads before you start felling and cut to a logical system. You don't say what kind of groound you have but we find ourselves very limited in the use of tractors by wet and soft ground. Once you have started to cut the ground up it rapidly becomes a quagmire. A quad and a small forwarding trailer make a lot less mess if the timber is small enough to handle. Mind you at 50/tonne roadside it makes reasonable sense. Cheers mac

Rather than one of those does anyone know if there is a company making a firewood processing head that will fit on to a 13t excavator? had a hunt around on the web but not come up with anything so far Cheers mac