monkeybusiness

I have had a hycrack for 25 plus years and have never had any form of near-miss with it. As long as you present the timber correctly they are totally safe. Mine was supplied with a ‘stop-bar’ which is essentially a sprung bar attached to the tractor’s fuel-stop by a length of string - pull the bar and the engine shuts down. It’s run on an old Ford 3000 so this basic setup works perfectly.

Oh yeah - we have the long reach pole saw too, which has been good so far to be fair. The bar is on the wrong side though for some reason, which I still can’t get on with!

I meant once planning is granted, but worded it incorrectly. In my experience not much felling takes place once an application has been submitted though, as developers don’t want to jeopardise their application. Any felling after the survey is immediately quantifiable.

I have a mountain of Makita battery kit that always works, every item every time. I bought into the Husky battery gear and almost immediately had an expensive charger fail - a bit of research showed that it is a common unfixable fault (essentially it is a throw-away item if still under warranty - madness!). The main reason for buying into the Husky battery kit was their long reach hedge cutter - we use it for less than a fortnight per year on a couple of repeat jobs. This blew its gearbox casing within its first week of use - again, a bit of research showed this to be a very common fault! It has since been a disaster of a tool with repeat wiring problems through the knuckle joint, and is currently languishing in the back of the shed not working as I can’t be arsed investigating it yet again. We do have a top-handle which hasn’t yet broken, and the batteries themselves have been good. I won’t invest further into the brand’s battery offerings though, as my experiences to date suggest maximum pricing with minimum quality unfortunately.

Husky battery kit is dog toffee sadly - really really unreliable expensive crap.

Yeah - Labour did everything possible to undermine and delay any implementation of the Rwanda plan (purely for political one-upmanship), and discarded it untried as soon as they came in to power, whilst lamenting the costs spent to no avail (largely because of their boycotting tactics). And now they have zero alternative deterrent, even though the hard work and investment had been done/spent. Pricks.

Not really, no. Groups and woodlands can be identified as such (with any important trees individually identified where necessary) as that is how they are relevant from a planning/landscape perspective. They are given retention values as a group and this information should be sufficient to help steer decisions as to the suitability of the proposed development. Surveying every single tree would add immense costs and would do nothing other than generate mountains of totally irrelevant data. We already have a planning system that forces ridiculous overbearing demands on developers, giving various consultant firms a licence to print money.

The biggest threat to trees on development sites is ‘speculative’ removal prior to any tree surveys being undertaken. Once the tree stock is surveyed and included within a planning application the current system affords very good protection in my experience.

I’m a bit confused by this thread - not sure if I’m only seeing one side of a conversation for some reason?

For a manufacturer it would be a very cheap and minor addition to include telematics within a machine control unit - even if the data was only accessible to the manufacturer themselves (to be released to relevant parties in the event of theft) it would make shifting stolen kit on much harder. It doesn’t help with the sale of replacement machines following theft though, so won’t ever gain traction. Even though it would be a very powerful USP as far as I’m concerned (as a buyer).

This is w*nk - really sorry to hear it. Anyone who buys gear without provenance from car boots/marketplace etc need to reflect on this sort of event and consider how they would feel if on the receiving end as it is these easy outlets that drive this disgusting industry.

That rootplate is tiny in relation to the size of the tree - I’d be surprised if there wasn’t evidence of root decay there.

I looked at a price for a new Hilux (out of interest as much as anything) - the current one is coming up to 3 years old and I wondered if it was worth swapping whilst it still holds decent value. Turns out a new equivalent is 25% more (after discount etc) than mine was in 2022 - that explains why 2nd hand prices have held up so well but destroyed my man-maths justification to buy a new truck!

Were you using the extension bar on the Makita? You lose a bit of ‘undoingness’ with each additional joint between the gun and the nut. And charged batteries make a difference too. But it does sound a bit wank to be fair!

He wasn’t talking about the lawn….

Reminds me of a lad who used to subby a bit to me as he was setting himself up to go full time on his own - he wasn’t the best climber (but was a really decent likeable fella). Another subby ended up working for both of us and overheard him talking to a prospective new customers when quoting a (not very difficult) dismantle. His price included the caveat ‘Expect some damage’ said with a totally straight face 😂😂😂! It became a bit of an in-joke when quoting awkward jobs - he was deadly serious though!

This is a relatively long but (in my sad life at least) a really interesting lesson in all that is the Jerry can!

Save the dosh and get spannered boyo, that is definitely a better option! If you already have Makita kit then stick with them, you won’t go wrong.

Exactly this! Labour did every possible thing to undermine attempts to slow down illegal immigration when in opposition, and petulantly canned the Rwanda option as soon as they came to power instead of giving it some support and testing the possibility of an actual deterrent working. They are the worst thing that could have happened to this country (which says a lot after the fingers-in-the-till arseholes they’ve replaced).

Yet!!! What will do a lot will do a little….

If you already have Makita batteries and chargers then get one of these - when you pull the trigger the world stops turning until whatever you’ve attached it to comes loose Mark…

Try Digbits

Should work but might make it a bit wide. How about a big lip on the blade to rest them on?

Start a new thread with all the info - sounds an interesting situation.

Peregrine’s favoured nesting site is at the top of a nicely pruned German pine, every twitcher knows that…