richy_B

Nice one. Looks almost deliberate!

Nail on the head there. I am often envious of a tradesman who turns up in a transit compact with a few grands worth of power tools and charges £250-300 for a days worth of work. Then they drive home and park on their drive at no extra cost. An professional arb team might turn up with a 7.5t tipper and chipper and people baulk at you trying to charge £400. But no one has a gun to our heads making us do it! So who's to blame I guess. As has been said, public perception of the 'value' of your job.

I do. £200 for occasional climbers, £250 for urgent or weekends. Most guys in the SE won't even reply if you offered £150. But I'm in London.

I did look at a ditchwitch sk755 and was very impressed. It was a used one for circa £14k.

As Coletti said, limited lift in terms of height and weight. I looked at a used 'kanga kid' as I thought it might be useless for little jobs but the issue was it didnt have the height to tip into a transit tipper. I feel they are behind the rest of the class. Cheaper obviously but a boxer, Vermeer or ditchwitch are far superior standon machines and the Avant and Multione ride in are another option.

I can't specifically comment on parts but it baffles me how some companies still exist with these kind of carry ons. I ordered a new Ifor trailer and was quoted 22 weeks!

I plant 1000 or so rootballs a year (mainly 12-14 but quite a few 18-20s). I always get the tree in position and strapped them cut the wire top and trim back the Hessian. I don't remove it as a lot of the soil falls away and you lose all those fine roots. We replace 20-30 a year after 3 years and the Hessian has always rotted away and there are only a few bits of wire left. For me it's always leave the bag on. If you are going to cut the bag off you might as well buy bare rooted trees.

Apprentice sounds well suited. From your description it could be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Reduce your physical workload, work with you 3 days a week or so which allows for college. Not sure you could send them in your place but could work.

True but that customers comes along every leap year! If you have a market for it or can use it yourself then great. If not it's a hard sell.

Nice. Have you welded a hitch to the front of the blade? I thought about putting an American type receiver on the top of the blade so I can slot in a hitch when needed.

I will give them a clean later!?!

I was in a natural clay pond yesterday and I agreed about the rubber tracks and steep, wet conditions. I had the blade all the way down and was still sliding all over the place. I'd have been stuck without my trusty waffle boards. If you've not got some do - one of the best £60 I ever spent.

If you are going to be with him 5 days a week then you are not self employed. Ask yourself - if he is this unscrupulous when you are PAYE how will be be when you have no protection. You are walking into a minefield. Arguably you should inform you mortgage company of any major changes in employment status. check you t&c's.

No disrespect intended but there is 'the grass is always greener' can be a dangerous thing. As PAYE you might feel under paid and perhaps you are but with 6 years employment you have reasonable job security, stat sick pay, paternity cover, demonstratable wage for mortgages, loans or credit should you need them. You go self employed for a bit more money and you have no job security, he (or anyone else) could drop you with no notice at all. You have no sick, no paternity, no redundancy, no holiday pay. Often overlooked is the impact of self employed on your ability to get a mortgage. £95 A day puts you at £24,700 per year PAYE with all the benefits listed. £120 self employed is £31,200 if you worked 5 days a week 52 weeks of the year. Take off 20 days for normal level of holiday and it's £28,800. Take off some fees for tax returns. Take off the cost of supplying your own equipment and LOLER. Then consider you may not fill everyday you want to work. If I were your employer and you asked for this arrangement I'd gladly take you up on it as it takes away loads of admin, hassle and risk for virtually no money difference. I would suggest you need to looking at £150 self employed or you'd be better trying to get to £105 PAYE.

Sounds sensible. Would a small logging trailer help at all? I have a small ATV logging trailer from tcf. I think it was around £700 quid. You could load tow it with the digger easy enough.

It is smaller than the competition but I've got on well with it. A larger grab could see me on my side I fear! When grabbing piles of brash a bigger grapple would be advantageous though. I mainly used it for grabbing rings when I was processing arb waste. I could sort through a big pile of rings into rough sizes or I'd chainsaw it into smaller lengths whilst in the jaws. You can lift them onto a strong table for someone to then split as well. Only 40-60kg rings but an absolute treat compared to lugging them by hand. Getting them from ground to the splitter table height was a back breaker.

A bit of it does but it's pretty minor. It has 3 settings on it. It is mainly for how far away you want to grab. Ie the grab is right above the log say 2 metres away, 1 metre away or right up close.

Not the best picture of the grapple. Super useful bit of kit.

You can get a 'thumb' for the excavator pretty cheaply. Or a fixed grab is very good. I have a fixed grab from digbits on my 1.7t komatsu. You could put a round strop when skidding the logs up a bank then use the grapple to load a trailer. Saves a whole lot of back ache! I can lift 200kg bits of log not bother.

No offense but you are overthinking this and will tie yourself in knots. You don't need to be itemized unless you have thousands of customers. Work out your standard day cost ie 2 men, tipper and chipper. Don't mention to a customer but have a day rate and half day rate. My half day rate is 60% of a full day. Charge them one or the other. What were you costs last year? Divide that by 200 and you have a good base figure. All the chip and logs are yours unless agreed otherwise.

Arb trader

A quick Google brought this up : http://extendmyseat.com/about-us/ This German company seems to do exactly this as well. Advertised for taller drivers. gmbh.de/en/traffic/aftermarket-seats/vario.html

I used a defender 110 for a while and it was hugely uncomfortable and I'm only 6'2. I doubt any vehicles are going to suit you as they of course build for the average user, which for men is something like 5'10. They probably have leeway of 6" either way but wont help the very large or very small. Is there a way of perhaps getting a custom seat/playing with the seat base etc to suit you? Not for this instant but having seen recaros being fitted in a track 330i the seat height drop considerably. If you could do that and perhaps move the base 50mm back it might work?

FFS!

Mine as we're all having a looksie.