jacjak

cheers, the thought of catching a rabbit or rats is about the only thing that will drag him away from being in front of the fire these days

Its actually hard to believe what your seeing in some of those photos. Quite humbling really, total respect to the cutters. Must of been one hell of hard life

HE may be old, but he still earns his keep

used to suffer really bad with it, started strapping it up and it slowly started to hurt less. Still strap it up for work and most days are pain free, but soon plays up if i forget to. Didnt actually stop working though, so sounds like i got off lightly compared to some of you. do have problems with the hand as well but never made the connection until i read the thread, naproxen seems to help with that.

fair point

cheers all good to know im not the only one dealing with stuff like this, just wish none of had to put up with people like that. Does kinda make me smile when i think how long its gonna take the customer to sort out the massive dents in their perfect lawn looked like someone had been dropping bombs perhaps they will think better of it next time they need tree work doing

I priced up a job before xmas, customer seemed happy with the quote but said they would get back to me on it. happened to be driving past the customers house yesterday, only to see a big empty space where the tree was. I presumed they had got a cheaper quote so gave them a bell to see if i could find out what they were charged. Was gutted to find out someone else had done it for free just to get their hands on the wood to sell. How on earth can you compete with people like this just wondered if anyone else has lost work this way

just had a look at their sites both do look really good thanks for pointing me in the right direction bart

Im keen to learn so if there isnt anything local i would travel to do a course

just wondered if anyone knows of any carving courses suffolk or the surrounding area:confused1:

yeah the price of books really stings and the days of finding a cheap shigo on ebay are well and truely dead

Dont know about research papers as such but you could read up on Alex shigo, some pretty interesting stuff he believed alot of old methods were actually bad for tree's and pushed for changes, worth a shot sorry I can't be more help.

My dog austin as lazy as it gets

Can see how thats a problem. Found the same thing in other customer based trades iv worked in the past.I would say about 5 of my older customers would die each year always seemed to lose a few over the winter.It is a shame to lose them, old customers are some of the best plenty of cups of coffee and in my expirience always quick to pay dont sit on the bill forever and a day like some people

do understand what you mean dont graft,dont earn ,and what you gain from working in the field is compleatly different from reading a text book or doing a course but some colleges do seem to give the impression that all it takes and then your ready to take on the world all about getting people through the door and parting the cash i suppose. and im now starting to get my own kit together im starting to see what you mean about the cost side of things,soon adds up:sad:

thanks very much for your imput, hear what your sayin about qualification and skill dont always go hand in hand but thought id cover the point because some people feel hard done by because their payin out for all the qualifications while others do without.

Im doing a paper for college its to see if certain factors affect and restrict people in their abilty work and earn to their full potential.The main factors im looking at are health and safety regs conservation laws and presevation orders people doing tree work that hold none or little qualification the publics lack of knowledge at what qualifications they should be looking for when they get tree work done or is it that they just dont care and want it done as cheap as possable i am doing a small survey of the public as well,so far the amount of people that said they would attempt to do their own tree work before they would consider getting someone in to do is quite scary but think alot of people would change their opinion when there's 30 or 40 foot of tree between them and the problem area. anyway would be really good to hear everyone's thought and views ,Im still really new to the industry so to hear what other people think would be a great help:confused1: many thanks:001_smile: