monkeybusiness

I’d recommend hornbeam - looks very similar to beech/holds onto its leaves in winter when kept as a hedge etc, and is tolerant of poor soil (often found where coniferous hedges have been removed). It grows faster than beech too - we’ve had great success with it over the years in exactly your application. Our trees come from Prees Heath Forest Nurseries near Whitchurch - 01948 841353. Everything native is grown on site from UK sourced seed, no imported crap, and they are solely a trade nursery so their prices are excellent. I’d be hanging fire for a few weeks and sourcing bare root trees tbh, they will be significantly cheaper! (Edit - and you can flail the bejesus out of hornbeam, it seems to love it!)

Not sure whose cages you rattled Eddie but I owe you a pint - finally appear to be getting some progress with both Engcon and Approved (both are promising to have my bits available by Wednesday this week). Cheers!

That’s a really common way to dry/ process timber on the continent. Less splitting and chainsawing, cross cutting is done with saw benches. Timber dries fast once split and bound. Depends on having good straight grained timber to be able to split into billets (not ideal with arb waste). Looks a great setup Marcus!

We have an old Ford 3000 that runs the log splitter and is used on a flail mower once a year to sort out a new plantation we put in for a customer (which also gives the tractor a well-needed workout). Last year robins were nesting in the tractor’s cab so the mowing (and splitting) had to wait!

Would it not be better value for the landowner to pay hand cutters to fell to waste? Even a poor cutter should be able to smash through a couple of hundred of those a day surely?

Mattresses are a pain in the backside with a tractor mulcher. Worst site I did had been used by cable thieves for stripping armoured cable - there was miles of the steel armour hidden in patches everywhere! If you were lucky and it was a small enough clump the mulcher would chop it up and spit it out (lots of sparks and metal shards stuck in the tyres and mudguards) - otherwise it was a shut everything down and get the grinder out again....

Fingers crossed mine is in there somewhere!....

I ordered a special build flail from Approved in April, happy that it would take as long as necessary for the factory to manufacture and despatch. In August they contacted me to let me know it was built and en route to them. I was on holiday at the time, but paid in full when I got home (a month ago). 2 weeks ago I contacted Approved to see if I could collect as would be in the area, to be told that they were waiting for plates to make the hitch (this was part of the order, not something that was landed on them at the last minute). I know they fabricate their hitches on site in house (they turn out lovely work to their credit). Now they won’t return my calls or emails... It is frustrating as they have incredible knowledge and supply brilliant products. Their customer service is missing though (I previously tried for 12 months to buy a radio control unit and valve block off them but ended up spending my money with Flowfit, who were happy to supply). I like Andrew at Engcon and am sure he does all he can for his customers. I was told that my hitch would be with the dealer for fitting this week - it was apparently dispatched from the factory in Sweden on Tuesday last week. I’ve still not heard if it is even in the UK 11 days later - someone within the Engcon supply chain is telling porkies as it shouldn’t take 11 days for a consignment to reach a national importer from the factory surely? And there is no way something that valuable would be sent without any way of tracking its progress, so someone somewhere must know where it is?! It isn’t just these guys though - I ordered a new digger at the same time as the hitch (would be weird to have the hitch with no machine I guess) and was told there was one immediately available within the dealer network to my spec. If turns out it didn’t have the as-ordered extra counterweight, but these are available ‘off the shelf’ so nothing to worry about! Except they aren’t, and nobody knows when one will become available...... Fuckwhittery all around as far as I can see, you spend your money and are treated like shite.

Farkinell!!! Engcon had a great show offer on a hitch and 3 buckets at Plantworks which tied in nicely with buying the Bobcat - I never ever thought it would take so long and be wrapped up in such wishy-washiness though... Don’t get me started on the muppetry from Approved Hydraulics over the Femac flail either Aiden - they are really taking the piss now to the point where I’m considering asking for my money back.

I’ve been waiting for 2 1/2 months for an Engcon quickhitch - apparently it was shipped from Sweden last Tuesday (10 days ago) but still hasn’t arrived with Engcon UK. It’s either being carried from the factory on foot in a pensioner’s rucksack or someone somewhere is telling fibs... I ordered a SMP quickhitch from Sweden 3 years ago and it was delivered to my home address in 2 days. I needed a part for my Rototilt last week and got it the next day.

Awesome work, love it!!!

No

It might be worth a chat with NPORS - they seem like a pretty forward- thinking training organisation (they offer a tilty qualification now). I’d imagine there might be a way for you to possibly monetise your idea if it is something that they could incorporate into a training course/qualification.

Planning permission for a pond - what a ridiculous country we live in!!!

Not worth financing a new Bobcat E10? 0% over 5 years, cost you about 35p per week!...

At some point there is a risk of a cut and hold shear operator grabbing too big a piece and pulling the machine over on a site where it would (rightly) be reported, or where the consequences lead to injury or worse on a site where it may otherwise not be reported for whatever reason... At that point I’d imagine the powers-that-be may determine a cut and hold shear actually is a lifting appliance, and everything will become a lot more complicated (calculating potential applied load with a safety factor may lead to insistence on hugely oversized carrier machines - the weight of the shear itself is only a small part of the ‘lift plan’). A recognised industry-accepted competency needs to become a reality before insurmountable red tape is forced upon us!

I wonder who came up with the course content? It’d be very interesting to hear your thoughts on what is delivered Eddie, as you obviously have a good deal of experience in using tree shears on sites that already require a lot of ‘hoop-jumping!’. If nothing else it is an extra piece of paper to stick in front of a difficult site manager to show competence - it would be good to know whether the course is actually fit for purpose in the real world (and not just a training-provider exploiting a gap in the market).

They’ll soon change it if you keep accidentally snapping it whilst accessing your property.

Google Thomas Higgins - they’ll get your money if you present an invoice and the cuntstomer doesn’t pay it.

Your original question asked what someone being paid £100/day on the books actually costs a business per day. I answered your question, but (still) don’t understand your follow up.

As I said, £150 plus per day real costs for someone paid £100 per day on the books.

?

£150 plus

Bloody expensive and won’t wear well with the odd battle scars - will look shit (and become worthless) very quickly if worked IMO. Land Rover are simply a very good marketing company flogging a variety of size/shaped luxurious but completely unnecessary cars to an increasingly wealthy customer base - the only thing in their current range that interests me now is the full fat Range Rover (which I would definitely buy if I was rich enough, but I’m not!). They cleverly pitch their image around their roughty-toughty go anywhere/do anything heritage which is bizarrely aspirational to those who have no need for such vehicles. They make a lot more money selling 2-3 tonnes of metal and components at the top end of the market than at the lower priced end and who can blame them? Work vehicles aren’t on their radar anymore I don’t think.

You’ve done a mint job, nice one!