woodworm

You're supposed to fire the kiln up before you take them out !

Oh dear

I would imagine that the reason that has died is because they cant always guarantee that the wood (unless it is always kiln dried) IS under a certain moisture content. I always do my best to make sure my wood is all under 25%mc and prefer it to be under 20%, but you might get an odd piece which is not, therefore, would you lose the certification? Who is going to come and verify it? it might me dry this year, but will next years be dry? Another jobs for the boys scheme which just wont work without increasing the cost of firewood because of certification, and the customer doesnt want to keep paying more per cube.

However high do you need it?

Not trying to be funny, but do you know anything about forestry and woodland management and have you had any experience of forestry work, if you do that's great, send me a pm and I may be able to help you.

Has anyone got a Hakki Pilke 1x37 6 way splitting blade that they would be prepared to sell and if so how much do you want for it? Cheers Woodworm

Not great, its on VERY poor soil and the frosts got it 2 years on the trot (-15 degrees). We lost a lot but are replanting some more when they come. Did you do yours through Prima?

Hope its good firewood as we planted about 5 acres of it 2 years ago

Elveden have plenty in stock, was there the other day, everything from 1 to 6/7 feet high, evergreen or other species.

I bet its not!!

What he said !! Believe me, I am machinery mad, but having driven harvesters for 6 years now, (the current one brand new new last year,) I wouldn't buy one even if I had 15000m3/year to cut, and defo not at the prices you are looking at. The harvester that was traded in when I got the new one last year was only 4 years old, and in the last month before it went, we put 2 new feed wheel motors and a 205 litre drum of oil in it, and it was only 4 years old, (that alone probably cost £3500-£4000. The one before that was only 3 1/2 years old when it went away on the low loader and within 72 hours the wiring loom caught fire and the new owners had a bill for almost £2k to put it right before they had hardly felled a tree. These costs would be better put towards utilising a reliable contractor with good new reliable kit. If you are unhappy that they might take the wrong trees or too many trees, get out there with a can of marker spray and mark the trees to come out, but please dont give yourself a major headache and an empty bank account for the sake of 1200m3/year, its really not worth it. The problem with a tractor based outfit is that it wont deal with the trees once they get larger, ie over 350mm, and they are not anywhere near as stable or strong as purpose built. Woodworm

1000-1200 m3 per year, that's between 1 and 2 weeks work with a purpose built machine. There is no way you can justify buying a harvester for that kind of volume, even if you have won the lottery ;-) It would be far more sensible to get a reliable contractor with a newer more accurate machine to fell it and if you want to extract it yourself, you still could. Don't mean to offend but I also don't want you to waste your money!

So is it willow coppice that you have been growing?

Well done to everyone who contributed in any way, especially Steve, I really don't know how you have time to do any paid work.

Chat room has mostly worked really well for me. One or two probs i think a couple of years ago on raffle but last year it was perfect and i think i am right in saying that it didn't crash at all.

Does anyone ever use the chat room ? I have looked in there 3 times in the last month and there is never anyone in the there. I reckon its only used on special occasions like this Sunday

Hi Bruks Do you run a Bruks chipper yourself? Woodworm

So do I. Very clever!!

whats a cofferdam :confused1:

I'm looking to create a small sycamore woodland from young saplings between 30 and 80cm tall. Does anyone in the Norfolk/West Suffolk area know of or have an area of problem saplings that need removing that we could then transplant as our new woodland stock. Am I actually allowed to move sapling trees without permission from the FC or some other organisation. Also does anyone know the best/cheapest place to buy tubex tree tubes and stakes in same area? Cheers Woodworm

You dont have to be able to fell a tree to manage a forest. I think you have just confirmed my point. As a manager you need to be able and competent to undertake the job you have been given, and without any hands on experience you are unable to do that just from a college course. Maybe anyone wanting to get into management should be an assistant manager for at least 5 years so that they can take a secondary role to the manager until they have learnt more about managing on a full time basis. If you have never had any experience of even minor management of a forest, you cant come out of college and go straight into it and telling experienced forestry operatives the best way to go about forestry practices.

From some of the positions I have seen within the FC, you need no experience at all. All you need to have done is gone to forestry college and come away with a bit of paper that says you know everything there is to know about forestry. Don't get me wrong, there are some very good foresters within the FC but it gripes a bit when they come on site having never felled a tree and tell how best to do your job. Rant over

It must be the most celebrated engagement in history!

I love this thread, cos I wonder how many others started on page one and after about 10 pages realised that only the last 4 or 5 posts are from today, and i did the same last year! My best present is a new snowball gun from me mother in law.............bring us some snow santa.

I know of a guy that works in forestry, but works on the railways aswell some weekends. He always works christmas day, boxing day and new years day and gets £1500/day. His thought is that its only another day and by working those three he can pay for all his familys presents aswell as giving them all a pretty smart holiday each year. Not my cup of tea but each to their own!