Fozzie

I managed to get stung by one whilst in the office doing some paper work and ended up in A&E for about 7 hours. Turned out that I came up in all sorts of hives and rashes that depleted the volume of blood in my system, hence every time I tried to stand up, I passed out, including some 6 hours later in A&E when they wanted to do a standing blood pressure test. I said "this is not a good idea" and then the next thing I knew the room was full of people that I had never seen before, pulling Oxygen out of the ceiling... Nasty things: I now have an epi-pen, and a number of other Tree Surgeons I know also have them due to severe allergic reactions to the buggers.

Definitely - there is a tax advantage to a company's contribution, but for the individual, you do not pay tax on whatever you personally put in to a scheme.

I've looked through the posts, and what does not seem to have been given much prominence is the tax saving by paying into a pension scheme. You get tax relief on what you pay in, so that's at least a 20% (could be 40%...) benefit before the scheme you pay into is invested for growth anywhere. Whatever profits the scheme accrues over time remains tax free, up to the point you start drawing on it. 25% of the entire fund can be withdrawn from age 55 without paying tax on it, then you pay tax on whatever you receive monthly, assuming that amount is in excess of the annual tax allowance. Therefore even if you have left it a little late in life to start a fund, pay as much of your income into a scheme as soon as you can so that you don't pay income tax on it, then draw a chunk out tax free.

Just ordered one as I have to try and make some benches for a caravan park where I've been taking trees down...! Hope it is as easy as the videos make it look :-)

That was one of my thoughts: If the engine packs up, replacing the one on the 18/100 should not be too horrendous - can you remember roughly how much the new engine was?

Thinking about what you have all said, and dan494 's suggestion of Greenmech CS100 or Timberwolf 18/100, have been doing some trawling of the internet. Have found that Timberwolf are made just a few miles up the A14 from me, so quite handy, and there is a TW18/100 with a dealer 50 miles away for just under £3k, so I think a trip over the border to Norfolk is in order Saturday morning. Seems they are as rare as hen's teeth, as people tend to keep them once they have one, so hopefully it is not a pup! Thanks 76ar for the offer of your CS100 in Durham. I don't travel more than about 5 miles to do my jobs, and I have a full diary, so nearly 300 miles would be like going to the moon... :-)

I have found the video on the rock machinery site, but could you post a link to "wee chipper thread" please - I did a search for wee chipper on arbtalk, and nothing showed up. What sort of size do the chippings end up? - can they be used as mulch / or surface for a menage for horses?

Wondering about this one Heavy Duty Petrol Chipper Shredder - Mulcher - 15HP

Anyone out there used any of the 13hp chippers? Some tosser wrote to the Environment Agency informing them of the two farms that I used to drop green waste at just outside of Ipswich were accepting / burning green waste. None of the locals ever complained (they were allowed to drop their stuff as well, to keep them sweet), just done for no apparent reason, but having received letters threatening £10,000 fines if they don't stop, I now have a problem... I digress. Am wondering about a small chipper for a couple of grand, just to deal with the twiggy rubbish - anything over 3" I have for the firewood pile, so can't really justify 1,000's on a 6"/7" diesel jobby. The question is - will it be a waste of money, or do they actually work. Any views welcome!

I came into Arb at 51 after 35 years at BT, a lot of that time working in a lab with no windows at their research centre. I do my own advertising and have a small pool of groundies to call on (young groundies... ) and am plenty busy (people are waiting up to 2 months for me to get to them sometimes!). So if you feel you can do the physical stuff, I'd definitely say do it

Is it my imagination, or are there more wasps around this year? Getting fed up getting stung! First time I stood on a nest just as I started taking a coni down, so fair do's , but today just checking the post! - that really isn't on. Then went for a walk with the dog and a couple of tree fellers in the woods had also just been stung. Spiteful little critters with no place in the ecosystem of you ask me!

I run a small tree surgery business on the Shotley peninsula and have recently lost access to the couple of guys that I used to call on to help me out (they went and got full time jobs!). I am looking to make contact with anyone in the area that has CS30/31/38/39 that has odd days in their diaries that they might want to fill. It would be mostly ground work, as I do all my own climbing, but CS38/39 definitely an advantage, as would be a chipper ticket. Just had to turn away 5 days for 2-3 people, due to lack of available resources...

Possibly, but where to look? It happened so suddenly...

I have one of the Titan 8T petrol spliiters http://www.titan-pro.co.uk/petrol-log-splitters/59/Category.aspx excellent piece of kit!

Hi folks. I have had a MS192T for a few years, which always ran like a dream, until yesterday! It was running fine, I made a cut, but when I had finished it, the saw kept running faster than tickover. Got it to the ground and tried it again, still running fast, but revs up, albeit not running brilliant at full speed. It feels like a carburetion issue, but tweaking the carb did not help (why would it have gone out of adjustment in an instant anyway). Stripped it down, but the little membrane / pump thingies both look intact. Does anyone have any ideas? Would it be worth getting a carb kit and changing the membrane / pump diaphragm even though to the naked eye they look ok, or is it likely to be something else? Thanks in antipitation... :-)