muldonach

All I really need to do this year is to buy a tractor with loader But I guess I will need to buy a bale trailer so I can load and unload it with the loader before feeding the bales to the cattle I will need to buy to eat the silage off the ground we bought this year. That is after I finish fitting out the sheds on the ground we bought this year so as to be able to keep the cattle actually inside the sheds After that we will cut some firewood and then we may start to clearfell some conifer but apart from that there is not a lot on the horizon Apart from training the collie to work the sheep Good New Year to you all out there!!:beer:

Don't know at the moment but will have a look soon - I have just been cutting some big knotty sitka with it and it is running like a pig - seems much better now revving freely out of the timber but dying once put under load. I took the spark arrestor screen out and it made no difference - was not dirty anyway Also today had the first refusal to start when hot - never been an issue up till now Is the carb clearly marked with a number and if so where? If not how do you tell which carb is fitted? Cheers mac

Really should have looked more closely earlier but on starting to strip down found one top cover screw missing from carb and another slack:blushing::blushing: All back together and sounding ok still to try it in a bit of timber but reasonably sure the cause has been found:thumbup::thumbup: NOT the easiest little piece of kit to work on but hey-ho Cheers mac

Very nice but I think I will let him work towards that one himself....... maybe just a touch outside my budget!

Will have a look at the spark arrestor - cannot say I have noticed any carbon build up on it but will check again. Air filter is clean no idea what the dealer did or did not do - saw was left with him for several weeks while I was abroad and collected by my other half. cheers mac

Th eonly way I know to reset the auto carb is to stick the saw into a big log and run at full throttle for 3-5 minutes. therein lies the problem - it will not run evenly at full throttle but yes it has been tried at full power in a big log Cheers mac

I have a 560 which has not really done a lot of work from new - it is now over 2 years old and out of warranty. It was used for a few days felling in the spring and was reported to be running fine, it may have been put away with some petrol in it. It is now lacking power at the top end - it will start and idle no problem but when the throttle is opened up the saw "hunts" - it will rev up fine but then die off - it is almost as if a rev limiter is cutting in, then rev up again basically it is working but it ain't working anything like it should. It happens whether the saw is in the wood or not. One possibility is that it is being starved of fuel but if that were the case I would expect it to be screaming off load as the mix leaned out. It has been to a dealer and returned with the comment "we cannot find anything wrong with it" - there is something bloody obviously wrong with it imo! I took the plug out this morning and if anything it is running a bit over rich - plug is chocolate brown almost black also the saw seems to be using more petrol than normal My thinking is that something is gummed up in the carb and it needs to be strippped and cleaned, however before I get into it has anyone else any ideas or previous experience of a similar problem. I also seem to recall reading somewhere that there is a recommendation to remove a gauze from the exhaust on these saws - can anyone confirm or otherwise please? Cheers mac

Many thanks to those who responded - all fixed up now thanks Cheers mac

I have a young fellow looking for wood carving tools for Xmas - would any of you chaps recommend a basic set of decent quality tools which can come in at a budget of £100? Any recommendation on books also would be welcome Cheers mac

A modern landrover will be reluctant to start if any of the glowplugs are defective - check them all. Have had it where we had to go through a pre-heat twice to get a start but always one plug out of action.

It most certainly is the reality - the only moisture which wood can take back in is that which physically lands on it - either in the form of rain or ground contact - or in the form of condensation.

No it will not - moisture content in wood is an absolute figure - e.g. a Kg of wood at 30% moisture content is 700g wood and 300g water Relative humidity is a measure of how much moisture air contains relative the the amount it can hold at its present temperature, the absolute amount of moisture air contains varies greatly with air temperature. If the wood at 30% is at or about the same temperature as the sirrounding air it will continue to pass moisture to the air at any relative humidity of less than 100% - although the lower the relavive humidity of the air the faster the evaporation will take place.

+1 - never buy a new saw without heated handles - I suffer badly from CTS in both hands. If they are not working as mentioned above it is almost invariably a simple electrical disconnection - broken wire or connection in one case a bit of sawdust in a switch

Metreel Lug-All Heavy Duty Light Weight Aluminium Portable Winch Hoists try these folk for spares - I think I dealt with them a while back but found thier delivery charges heavy Stanton Hope also worth an enquiry

If you want to tow then go for a 4 wheel drive - we have a 500cc honda FA which has an optional low box and it is worth its weight in gold. Whether it is worth spending the money for occassional use with hired equipement is debatable though

This is our little logpile for next winter - cut by my young fellow and a pal over 4 days and all extracted by quad - the stuff that does not need splitting goes into our stove and the stuff big enough to need splitting goes for sale. Its all birch and willow out of the rides through the spruce plantation behind

Hawthorn and even worse blackthorn tend to go in easy and fester a bit when they get in! If you cannot find anything with a needle then a wash with some disinfectant is about all you can do - may be worth putting a plaster over it to blanch the skin and make anything trapped easier to see. If it does not get better it will get worse - sorry

I am at work! "Work" at the moment involves sitting on a oil rig off Qatar waiting to move it. At the moment the earliest they will be ready to move is 1st Nov but weather forecast does not look acceptable till 4th ho hum:tee:

stack it on a pallet and leave it in the barn

Its absolutely standard on deep peat. If you are going to work on or near peat first thing to do is to establish exactly what you are working with, we have areas where there is firm ground a foot down and others where there is no firm ground found with a 6 foot rod. Walk your site thoroughly and mark off any obvious no go areas, leave a good safety margin around them. There is no point in waiting for a dry summer - in a wet winter a peat bog can be 90% water, in a dry summer half of that water can evaporate - which leaves the bog at 82% water. If you find soft spots when you walk the ground then there are two ways to work with a machine:- Build a road Reduce the ground pressure The most common way is to reduce the ground pressure with a brash mat - as already said in real soft ground that needs a harvester and may well require that small round wood goes into the brash mat. I have seen a 25t machine 5' above ground level on the mat he built - by the time the forwarder finished it was at ground level. If you are working wiith a skidder as indicated by your avatar then keep the machine on the firmer ground and rely on the winch more than usual, don't try to skid on soft ground - open the brakes and move the machine then winch the load back in once you are out on the hard. Get a recovery plan and kit in place before you need it, ideally you would have a second machine on site. Make sure you have good slings and a means of pulling from firm ground. Heed the advice already give - try to prevent your machine sinking in the first instance - if you do start to go down then don't try to horse it out - get something under it. Once you break the skin then abandon that road. Make sure the rate covers the risk! Have fun Mac

Cannot comment on the speed of the two processors but on the point above we run a cord from the pto kill plug on the back of the tractor to the operator station allowing the operator to switch the PTO off from the operating station

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/firewood-forum/13656-got-love-having-right-kit.html should take you to a previous thread on the subject. Noted also that you are asking about stacking the timber - we tend to park an excavator in the landing area and lift the load out of the timber trailer and onto the stack in a oner - beats handballing it off! cheers mac

We pull a lighter trailer than that which will carry about the same - most of our ground is flat but there are short sections of slope etc. We have a 500cc quad with an optional low box and permanent 4 wheel drive - would not want to work with anything less capable. So the answer to your question is I'm afraid - no I don't think your proposed quad is up to pulling that trailer.

Around these parts any big ash tree will almost certainly have significant rot in the centre, certainly enough to make me wary of attempting a fell as described unless I could make sure the road was shut off for the critical period. As discussed above any big tractor with a decent rope will pull a tree over - but that is based on the supposition that it is sound at the base. Cheers mac

Personally I would start the saw and introduce it to a piece of wood - why on earth would you soak a chain in an oil bath? No you do not need to oil the bar groove separately Its all a bit like moisture content - yes it matters but you can worry too much Cheers mac