Ben90

Excellent news, I'm waiting on my wee pine to arrive!

The best kind of personal protection is seeing how this stuff works (or doesn't work, rather) when the poo hits the fan. Regular reminders that even when tarted up in all of our crazy expensive Stihl/Husq/SIP/StretchAir/Kilma gear that we're still far from invincible. I've got a couple of small skags on my boots from rush-logging during dusk one late afternoon It only removed part of the rubber cap cover, no contact with the leather below, but it serves as a constant reminder to think twice, cut once.

Just make up a sign that says: SEX Now that I have your attention, men are at work.

Go go power rangers!

Dodgy, canker-ridden ash tree, only one direction of fell. Took out a bit of the back weight to compensate for the predictably crappy hinge material. Oh, and as you can see I bored in and left a big hold so I had more time to tart up my hinge In retrospect I probably shouldn't have cut such massive ears into it, it lacked enough sound wood as it is.

I'm 5'11 and 11 stone. Problem is i'm 20 and my Girthday is approaching; That fateful birthday when your turbo-metabolism leaves you and realise that your clothes suddenly don't fit.

I would probably tell them about it, I think it's our duty. And if arbs don't, who will? But I would also advise them to get second opinions if they wanted, anything that doesn't imply that I'm only doing it for the work, they might already have the neighbour's tree guy in mind. After all, there's no better advertising than a job well done. Keep it brief and impartial, don't use pressure or scare tactics, it only takes 2 minutes of your time and it may well lead to something big. They may well give you the work because you were nice enough to tell them about it.

Sell it all to a matchstick company, unless they've all been outsourced..

Could you flog it to some larger farm shops or garden centres that can make hurdle fencing out of it?

That is bad! Certainly a close call. Shame it didn't eradicate their rat problem too, there were still 3 left!

Nice job, but why did you not cut the stump right down before grinding? Dirty wood?

The first one looks like Meripilus giganteus to me, or Giant polypore. I don't know much about them, except they're also very bad news. Enter Hama/MonkeyD, stage left...

It seems all good companies like Haix have been hit by the current economic climate and are being forced to cut corners on quality but try to keep the price the same so nobody suspects anything, that is until the product starts falling apart. I've noticed the newer timberwolves have started using cheap and utterly useless Alko tow-hitches and jockey wheels, which are already starting to get a bit rickety on our 6-month-old chipper! We had the same TW model previously and the hitch was sturdy for years. Another prime example of corner-cutting. To be honest I'd prefer it if they charged us more but gave us the same good kit, rather than trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Stihl, for example, I don't see much evidence of them skimping on quality among their range, but the prices have certainly gone up. Now we can moan about that until the cows come home but at the end of the day we're still getting a quality long-lasting product, in my opinion. Disclaimer: I'm sure Husky are the same but I'm a Stihl man so I wouldn't know, so put your pitchforks away.

iTrips are good but if you're on a long haul trip you find that you'll start getting distortion quite often as you move into a zone with a radio station that broadcasts on a similar frequency that the iTrip is set to, so you're forever changing to an unused frequency while driving, which is a bit of a ball-ache. You can pick up these 'cassete tapes' with a wire coming out of a corner with a headphone jack in the end, you plug it into the iphone/mp3 player as you would plug in headphones, put the 'cassete' in your car, press play on the stereo and the iphone and it plays whatever's on. Of course you'll need a cassete deck in your wagon, but you can pick these things up for pennies and you'll never be forever changing frequencies or changing batteries. My stereo has a USB port in it, so I picked up a few memory sticks and crammed them with music, I can also plug in an Ipod with the USB computer cable but it shuffles all the tracks, which is good sometimes.

Nope. 1.5m

A fine example, I don't understand these kinds of people. The only explanation I can think of is these idiots were convinced that their employers were in the wrong somehow by ambulance-chasing lawyers. Clearly, these lawyers can perform miracles, they should be negotiating world peace instead!

because it's becoming increasingly possible for stupid people such as this guy to practically steal money. Surely Rule 1 of a proper risk assessment assumes that a competent person should be carrying out the work to begin with? By that logic, do you think I could go to work one day, hold my breath, pass out and sue the company for a load of money because their risk assessment didn't say anything about breathing?

Cable bracing would only ensure that the whole tree falls over if the limb gets too heavy, because the weight of the limb is still being held by the tree. There needs to be some ground support involved hence the prop. Haven't had much experience with propping but all I can say is don't make it too tempting for kids to climb on it or they'll wreck it. I would also prop it as far along the limb as you can while retaining good contact between limb and prop. You want to minimise the leverage force the limb has over the prop so it can do it's job effectively.

This reminds me of a site clearance job we did last year, came across a wasp nest in a shrub just above ground. We'd ran out of wasp spray so we set it on fire with a stick that had the end dipped in petrol. Went up nicely.

I spent a couple of weeks on site doing nothing but oak deadwoods/reductions a few weeks back. I must say that swinging around mature oaks with a silky in hand and nice cool jeans on in the height of summer is probably somewhere near the top-end of work in this job. Didn't even get repetitive, loved it.

Great stuff! I wasn't even born before '90 so it's cool to see what the arb industry was like back in the day. Those old Californian forestry films are interesting too, 4-stroke chainsaws that must weigh 20kg+, and a little metal helmet was all the ppe they had. I look forward to seeing more! For the record, wearing jeans while using hand tools is still a-ok

You're probably right, maybe not to such an extreme though. In all seriousness, it would probably be a good idea (if you have the space) to set aside a small room/cupboard in your own house and take all of your smaller kit like chainsaws and such there every night, get one of those bathroom vents fitted in that room, and only get your larger kit like chippers and grinders insured. At least that way if you catch one of them in your house and beat 10 bells out of him with a frying pan, I imagine it would be easier to prosecute, since they can be posing a direct threat to your family. Failing that, just put 30 rakes on the floor around your lock-up every night..

Not really preventative though, is it? Unless you can convince the company that you pay your premium in exchange for one of their phone clerks living in your lock-up with a rifle 24/7.

It is indeed Inonotus dryadeus, and a lot of it at that! As for extent of decay it does look pretty terminal, but it may stand for many more years if it is well sheltered from the wind. After all, one man's dangerous tree is another man's micro-habitat. Would moving the shed and any other targets be an option? A tip for the camera though, next time you want to take a focused picture of something up-close, look for a little flower icon/button which will set the camera to 'macro.'

What a brilliant resource! Many thanks to everybody involved in putting it together.