Mark Bolam

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That is true, but the price of full ‘arb backs’ makes me wince. My setup cost less than £500 and has done me for years. Can’t brim it quite like you can with full barn doors etc., but that’s not really an issue, I’ve got about £10k spare to play with! Seen here demonstrating it’s outstanding off-road ability.

What’s the plan with the back Mick?

And presumably very rare.

IF it were to tragically die at a young age, replace it with something more suitable yourself.

It might well do if you’re on highly shrinkable clay. The soil will expand to the volume it would have been without the tree taking up the water. The point is, whether you remove the tree in one go, or in stages, the soil will still expand to the same volume, so the damage will end up being exactly the same. As others have said, it’s not really our call to make. To be on the safe side the insurers should get structural engineers involved. It’s mostly scaremongering anyway. We now seem to get months of drought followed by months of it pissing down. The soil will do it’s thing anyway, irrespective of any trees. Genuine cases of heave are pretty rare. Cases of badly built houses not so much….

Staged takedowns are pointless.

Righty tighty lefty loosey!

Looks good mate!

Doesn’t work for me!

Spot on 42. Decent old school butchers have what we need. Supermarkets are not your friends here, although most still do brisket, which is a personal favourite, slow cooked in ale.

Probably from Otterburn Doug.

I took my truck up from Kent to get Kirklands to do the work and got the train back, then reversed the journey a week later. It was well worth it, they were superb.

Life is way too short to be rigging stuff back over a field just because someone is being awkward.

Just tell her you’re reducing your tree and the branches on her side can either be left in her garden or you’re happy to pick them up. Her call. Get her response in writing, email or text, then she can’t whinge later on.

Can’t believe how tidy that finish is John.

I’ve ordered 2.

Any update on this?

‘Oh no! I need some friction! I don’t know what to do! I’m 22 and have set up my own arb company thanks to wealthy parents. Help soon! This branch is really heavy on this sycamore pine.’

Another classic piece of kit to overcome a problem that doesn’t exist to pull in a few dollars from bling merchants?

I’m getting better as well mate, the little loaders are pretty twitchy on the controls. Someone watching me on day one would have thought we’d let an epileptic guy have a go on the machine. I’m on record as saying I have the touch of a rapist.

I deliberately went as small as possible on my loader to maximise usage. 750mm access with skinnys on, 900mm standard. I’ve got a good mate with a tracked Norcar, and loads of farmer mates with Matbros and JCBs I can call on if required. This influenced my decision a lot. I also have mates with mini diggers who have been on them since they were about 14. For me, it’s much better getting them in than buying my own and making a tit of myself. You need to realise the difference between a genuinely good 360 operator and someone reasonably competent. It’s like 10x difference. In terms of attachments, my titchy WQ has a flow of 21.6l/m. It will run a small flail, but would bleed movement. Pointless. I’d like a little flail at some point, but would go for one with a donkey engine. Like a tow behind quad one but front mounted. That would be very niche work though. A compact tractor/flail would be way quicker.

I’d go with that, but within sensible limits. A bloke on one of the arb sites last week was asking if anyone made a topper, a haybob and a small baler he could run off his Avant!

Just add another wrap to your hitch then.

Clutchy’s advice is golden. Do the maths regarding which is the better machine for you. My WQ has worked for me because of narrow access and speed, and the Klou grab with ball hitch has made me a lot of money on tight access jobs. A rotator is a must on some jobs, but kills the capacity on a mini loader like mine enough to make it worthless. Intermercato tigercat on a 5t machine was unbelievable, but totally unrealistic on my jobs due to transport.