muldonach

Nowhere near enough:- 45% of that stack is broken stowage (airspace) - big flared butts, bent lengths and some of it with projecting snags. Even trying to estimated the average height of that stack will be a challenge, since it varies quite a bit. Cheers mac

Yes - pm me with details and will be happy to take a look for you and probably take the timber as well

Not 800t but have seen an operation outside Edinburgh stacking logs in ventilated bags inside a shed - stack 20 x 4 x 10 bags. Think they had 3 sheds on the go - certainly 2. They did say they had some problems getting the middle of the stack to dry properly - my thoughts were that the stack was actually tootight and neat thus preventing air circulation through the stack. Their system was that they filled the shed from one end and once seasoned started selling from the same end and backfilling immediately but leaving a clear gap between seasoned and green. It was a tidy set up and no big machinery in site - moderate processor driven by an alpine tractor and a small telehandler for feeding the log deck and stacking full bags. 800t not impossible by any means but needs a big shed and some kind of order. Cheers mac

hired equipment = drive it like you stole it! That kit needs an operator familiar with it and preferably one with a financial interest in it otherwise a recipe for spare parts and repair bills Cheers mac

Am I being a bit thick here when I ask why you would want to run a splitter off a processor which already has a built in splitter? If the built in pump for your tractor hydraulics is too low flow why not just buy a pto pump? Cheers mac

Apart from the safety aspects of pulling timber downhill with the tractor in the line of fire, can I ask what the significance of the 30 degree angle you refer to is?

County - lighten up mate - my post was written with tongue firmly in cheekand was intended to convey my utter agreement with your point. Our thoughts on this matter are completely aligned but it is as ever unlikely that common sense will prevail I have indeed prepared and submitted a Forest Plan and we have two separate felling licences valid at this moment in time. For the life of me I cannot see why we need any more beaurocracy or certification for firewood produced in the UK - but unfortunately I think we will get it. I am sorry my attempt at humour was apparently lost on you Cheers mac

What an absolutely ridiculous idea! How could you possibly assume that timeber sourced in the UK has been felled under the existing planning laws and thus already confirmed as meeting sustainability criteria and compliance with UK Forestry Standards:confused1::confused1: Logic like this will not get you far - don't you see the clear opportunity to employ another army of assessors / auditors / compliance officers or whatever else you want to call the people that will adminster this scheme:biggrin: As for making life easier for growers and processors - do you not realise that these people are in danger of showing a profit for honest toil and there is no way the government can stand back and let that happen:001_huh: Cheers mac Far too sensible an idea to be taken seriously mores the pity. At £85 a ton it will not be long at all before shiploads of "certified biomass produced from sustainably managed forests" starts arriving from the Far East, Eastern Europe and South America

by up here I presume you are north of Bolton - I can make lodgepole and sitka available if you have a market for it? Cheers Mac

Hmmm - that will indeed be a first then - I rather suspect that as with all other certification schemes any premium to the producer will be short lived indeed and that the market will rapidly level off to a point where the premium barely covers the cost of certification - if in fact it does cover it. FSC is a case in point - anyone seeking to shift large volumes of timber essentially has to be FSC certified and there is no premium in the timber price that I am aware of. Timber is simply not a viable fuel in the domestic market and it certainly would not be at £80 per tonne roadside - nor would it be anywhere close to competitive with hydrocarbons at that level - or anywhere near it. Cheers mac

As others have already said the key to safety is to keep firstly people and secondly machinery out of the line of fire. Attach a pulley at the landing site and park the tractor well away from the pulley. People on site should be outside the triangle formed by log, landing pulley and tractor before winching commences - and the same triangle should be observed on the other side of the winch line, ideally anyone on foot should be above the log on the slope or at least as far out of line as the tractor is unless there is intervening physical barriers. Cheers mac

I dream about peat that I can drive across like that, we would not get the tractor off the road before the front end went down. Looks like the tail of your shirt has been wet mind you. A pal has a pair of horses across at the moment to exercise them skidding logs in an old hardwood plantation - which was not fenced off from the moss. I offered him an electric fence which was declined. 4 days later we have a bunch of fire engines and recovery "experts" dragging a horse out before it drowns. They did mention that they had never been on a rescue so difficult to access and I am told that one of them was less than amused at the damage done to his truck. He has since taken me up on the electric fence. I think a radio controlled winch may be on the cards - how is your DIY radio control coming on? I guess you will be milling the lodgepole:biggrin::biggrin: Cheers mac

Your potential customer has asked for a quote for supply and fit - give him one, but the price you pay for material is your business not his, if he wants prices quotes for material supply tell him to go and ask a merchant. Cheers mac

Having learned the hard way I would be cautious when using a splitter on this type of material - I never bent a ram but I did bend the splitter a couple of times. Use the saw if in doubt Cheers mac

A twin axle trailer with rocking beams will tow much more easily than a fixed single axle, and will go through and over places that the single axle will not look at. The twin axle logic trailer is not physically much larger if at but carries more and carries it on a wider wheelbase and with a lower loadheight. I will be surprised if the tow force required is much different. cheers mac

Yeah fair play - an awful lot depends on the ground you have to work with and what you need it to do, on good firm ground it will not be too bad - on our mix of bog and ditch with drags up to a Km it would be a nightmare:biggrin: Cheers mac

It looks pretty flimsy to me I'm afraid centre girder looks light drawbar looks too long axle is too far back tyres look narrow - are they flotation fixed single axle is a disaster on poor ground fine if you are running on roads bolsters are too high loadbed is too short apart from that it looks good Cheers mac

Having spent a few years towing oil rigs about with 150-250 tonne on the brake, (as well as a few drags of timber in my spare time) I find it difficult to imagine why anyone would want to do anything else. AFAIK the slots on the butt plate are there to get your first snig off the winch wire so you can go back for another one and make the drag worthwhile - with small stuff obviously. If the drum brake is holding it is holding, the only way towing on the brake can be bad for the brake is if it is poorly adjusted and slipping and you persist in operating that way. Cheers mac

There is or was a little plastic device available - a cheap relascope - which you held up to your eye and walked backwards until one pin was lined up with the tree base and t'other on top of tree - you were standing at the height of the tree away from the base. Same idea as the stick

Looks like a nice little set up and the engine out the front should help to keep it all in balance. Be interesting to see what she will pull - are you leaving the turf tires on? Cheers mac

At 16 acres it will be tough for the woodland to generate enough income to pay management fees. There are grant schemes available for reconfiguring the age structure of existing woodlands etc but the schemes vary considerably depending on which part of the UK you are in. All of them have a bunch of hoops to jump through and to be honest we got a management plan 95% of the way to completion and then threw it in the bin because we could not agree with the FC. That having been said your best option initially is to go to the FC website for your country and do some reading and then probably talk to your local FC office, in my experience they are approachable and helpful - particularly on a small area such as this. However 16 acres of oak and ash is not going to offer much in the way of scale - a pass through to thin and possibly open up some sky by localised felling with associated planting is about all that springs to mind. Although you may want to push through a felling licence to thin all the ash before it dies. I would be tempted to carry on with removing windblow and put a thinning application in so as to be able to remove any trees that need removing - there won't be any grant though. Cheers mac

We have a honda 500 FA - hydrostatic drive with low ratio available for towing - if you are pulling stuff through the woods it is worth a look at Cheers mac

I could take the newness off it pdq and could well use that machine - but 24K? I don't think so. 400 hours in three years makes me wonder why they bought it themselves Still kicking myself for not chasing that tracked massey that you linked to a couple of years back Cheers mac

Another vote of appreciation for the level of workmanship shown throughout the thread Cheers mac

Well things vary greatly from area to area - but around here you would be looking at £17-22 per hour plus diesel for the tractor and any implement it is driving. Cheers mac