Stephen Blair

I always bought privately and dealt with AC Price engineering. If you go looking for mogs, take a good lorry mechanic with you and don’t be dazzled by chrome exhausts and bright thick paint.

Marks hit a good point about chip truck, if you have lots of chip drop off within 5 minutes of any job. It won’t matter, if you have 30/60 minute round trip drop off you will be held up. Which is ok if all the brash is done and the team are carrying out all the heavy and tidying up, going a chip run can be an advantage for a boss/climber. Then there’s terrain, my work area for 16 years was by the coast, so everything was on a hill , villages and towns with farm land in between. I fully loaded transit was struggling and burning clutches and some routes I couldn’t take and then a muddy chip tip was a nightmare for potentially getting stuck. Then you add a heavy chipper into the mix for the drive home and it’s a pita. ‘I used to keep my chipper in an old damp farmers shed with a tractor parked in front of it for security, so in the morning by myself I’d have to shift the tractor, reverse into a dark shed and hook up myself as the workers didn’t drive and lived in the town we would be working. Then reversing a heavy old arbor eater up a driveway was frustrating and also chipping into the high sided back was brutal, most of the chip would sit in the middle, or splatter over the top onto the driveway, then I got a cover made up but that just meant you hurt your neck climbing in and shovelling chip to get more in. I wanted an 8” chipper, they were around £30k and weighed over 2 ton. So no chance on both parts of that equation, I didn’t want to have to buy a 7.5 tonner, get o liscence etc and then get jammed in a cup de sac like I used to when I worked with that set up for someone else. I opted for a unimog and 8” chipper. mog was £17k, chipper £7k. Red diesel, no mot or rd tax . Chipper stayed on as it was side tip and I could now tip chip quicker, more efficiently and my tip sites became the corner of any farmers field( with permission ) I used to aim for £350 a day with 2 guys, my first morning me and 1 guy did £300 in 2 hours effortlessly. No hitching up, no dodgy reversing into a really tight drive full of gravel down a hill and the bigger chipper with 120hp behind it was amazing. Oh and it was non spill, spout right into the back and the force of a pto chipper crams the chip in so much better. My saving on fuel alone paid the finance off in 9 months. soi bought a bigger mog and bigger chipper and almost trembled my original turnover 10months after moving away from tow behind and transit. Yes mogs break down, they got fixed, did I get stopped for red diesel, nope! This is my story, not advice, take from it what you need. The machinery suited my environment. when I worked with Beechwoods for a week in Birmingham around 10 years ago, he used a full chip bodied 7.5 tonner and a tow behind. It was city work. On domestic jobs 3 guys could spend all day chipping into it and when it was full, it was home time at 3pm. Same work and workers, different environment. Worked perfectly. im a 1 man band, beechwood are huge and very successful. After typing all this I’m sceptical about my love of mogs ?

Enjoy!!

My Isuzu has 1 and it’s the best thing for first thing in the morning. I needed a lumber support for my back and for £24.99 from Halfords a heated 1 was a bargain.

I bought a heated lumber support pillow for the digger this week. Never known comfort like it!

It’s not fuss, it’s discussion.

Dislike to upside down eating! Fantastic!

I’m at the opposite end, I’m good with my money and saving so I don’t want someone to have it before they need it when I can have it working for me.

Interesting stuff Huck, my 6 pony Friday night reply was miles off then ? I was told the disease was carried in the Beatles saliva . Most of the weeping Elms survived the longest in areas I’ve worked over the years. Would they be similar to a pollard as I think the weepers are grafts.

Less leafs, less food for the Beatle. Les chance of their saliva spreading the disease. It’s nature, the strong will survive, thinking human intervention will make a difference to the overall outcome is a typical human control response when we just don’t know.

How do you manage it?

Looks like a canker. What evidence do you have it is damaging the trees health?

That’s was my thinking, did it with a travellers site after the flail guy had enough ofntyres and mattress springs jamming the flail! The nappy mountain still gives me the shivers when I think about it.

My machine is a Cat 2.7 ton, the Lasco would rip the ram off if I don’t keep an eye on it

That would be easy to hang off your harness on a small tether, like a 3’ tent peg!?

When I’m lathargic it’s usually when I have money in my bank and not many jobs on. So by stopping you are not moving and creating energy. You should always go for a walk when you can’t be bothered, motion creates motion. Go and donthe thing you love, not money, not for anyone else but for you. My thing is building dams and pottering about a ditch getting the water flowing. I spent my childhood in a burn behind my house, I’d follow it to the top of the hill, a good 600-700’ climb, then over the dyke into the moor where it started. Then when I’d turn round I’d be looking over the whole town and estuary. Whenever I go and do this whether it’s walking the dogs in the woods or up the river I always come back re energised with the answers I need. But my back usually aches for days as I get a bit carried away with the dams! And sometimes in a busy life of work , relationships, parenting we forget to just go and do the simple things. I’ve never had hobbies, too boring. I like an adventure with no plan, no time to come back. Oh and leave your phone!?

That’s genius, no end pinch! Great tip!

Few wet areas there John! Nice work!

Some days you need to go down and clear your head, other times you need to take a deep breath and keep going up. Experience makes the desicion making easier as time goes on. I’ve never had a negative outcome from getting out the tree and either felling it in a oner after speaking to whoever is in charge or coming back and seeing it in a different light with more confidence and cracking on.

Aye my new home is better than the wet west coast. I’m got wet today in Inverness, last time I got wet at work was in August in Skye! Most of my work is Cairngorms and now Nairn. It’s so dry and sunny!

I just cut the slices at an angle so they slide off, I’m usually too lazy to put in a wedge and put my shoulder against an edge when on the last bit and just burn through the last few mm, the steeper the cut the less it sits back. It certainly doesn’t work that way when on big stuff and my big stuff will be your small stuff.? 50-60 degrees is king if you can get away with it as any steeper means a lot more cutting and depends on how far you can reach up on your spikes . Look forward to the teeter totter wedge trick!

Troops! Ha ha where you fae? ?

these pics Shows thebstumps size off better.

Nice looking bit of kit, I used my lasco cone to bust up this big stump yesterday once I found the weak points i broke it down to 12 pieces and loaded the dumper and away. About 30 mins all in, I thought we were going to be there all day.