Dan Curtis

Kelly. You gotta love fire! I even have a mount made up for my big one land rover

Luke Chapman uses lengths for his stargazer seats. Look him up on Facebook, he's got a carving page. Distance might be a bit much though

If only...

I think there's a Japanese Elm that's more resistant than most. Councils went into planting them big time for a while. Then they found out it has a tendency to have serious structural issues, compression forks and associated failures. Bit like Norway maple, but more so. An older guy I worked for who's been in the industry since the 70's reckons that you can prolong an Elm's life by pruning out any wilting foliage as soon as you see it. I've not seen this myself, but I've seen mature living Elms that he's worked on. Not sure how you go about pruning out galleries and overwintering beetles though!

We've planted a few Aesculus indica in the last year in memory of a friend. Saplings of parent trees that he planted 40 odd years ago. I want a grove of Sequoia personally, so much so I started it three years ago with the intention of adding to it over the rest of my time.

No worries. Best of luck with your search

Haven't you worked out how to open the window?

Still have

..... and branches will come out of your ears with little bits of brain on them

The City care depot on mile cross road used to take green waste but I'm not sure if they still do. Worth a call to ask though

Have a look at this thread, it might be of some use. http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=68828

In the first situation I gave, no. It's your company taking the risks of business for profit, therefore you'd be liable. He's essentially your employee for the day, same as anyone on the books. Try to find a reputable climber with a proven track record, there are several on here, and more if you speak to other local companies/saw shops etc.

If you're only using him to climb with your own team/you, you must hold EL insurance. Public liability is not a legal requirement but in this circumstance it would be yours he'd be covered by. If on the other hand you subbed the entire job out to another firm to undertake how and when they like, it would be them that are liable to hold insurances.

That second one is a dc 100 isn't it? Thought they'd scrapped that idea?

Cheers Jon. I was planning on getting the whole chassis waxoyled next year when the gritters have finished up for the winter

I think my rear cross member on my '57 plate 90 is in need of some love. What would people advise painting it with?

Gross axle weight I'd assume. I have an ifor with German plates, I'll go and have a look at it

I've done my share of bigger trees yes. I've also done a lot of clearance work, rancid lapsed hedging type material that would almost need chipping prior to attempting to get a 6" machine to pull it through. I'm not lazy at all when it comes to brash, for me it's all about efficiency so most days I'll stack brash into armfuls from the tree, ready for my groundsman to pick up and put straight into the chipper, no snedding needed. With a bigger chipper I can drop one branch with a couple of forks, still an easily liftable size, and it will go through in one, meaning the guy is on his way back to the dz while the chipper does the work. With a smaller chipper I'd be making more cuts, dropping more bits and the groundsman would have to feed more bits into the rollers. Not to mention the hazards of increased cutting, and increased amounts of falling material. I think you're being obtuse about flywheel speeds, what I said clearly didn't refer to rpm, but throughput capacity. There is always going to be an increase in brash throughput as the size of machine increases. You don't see biomass boys running Jo Beau's because bigger machines 'aren't really faster with brash' Fwiw, I'm the most anal person I know when it comes to clean timber, as anyone I work with will tell you. I can't stand stubs, they are dangerous and make handling and stacking more difficult.

The majority of my career has been working with chippers over 1500gs, from Greenmech 19-28, 12" Bandits, right up to 4 tonne Heizohacks, never have I had a problem with chipper placement from not being able to push one in. It is a fact that bigger chippers work faster, and require less brash prep than smaller ones, which can make all the difference on tightly priced jobs. You don't need to be chipping 12" wood but if you're not having to put brash down and cut all the unions before feeding one little bit at a time it can save a huge amount of time.

1) Yes, but not very often as I mostly work in three of the flattest counties in England:001_smile: I drive a Land Rover, this will usually do the trick, if the Land Rover won't push it up a driveway, there's no way that I will even if it is a <750kg machine. You could always fit a front hitch to whatever you drive to keep the weight on the right axle whilst putting the chipper into place. 2) As above, Land Rover, or tracked chipper and Land Rover with a trailer. I've worked on ground where it's been so soft I've literally left the truck running in low range with the diff lock on whilst pushing the trailer from behind with a tracked chipper to get through. It made one hell of a mess but it was easily rectified after the ground had dried (and the snow had cleared). Even a 565kg TW125 wouldn't have been pushable there. 3) Land Rover/Quad or winch with a pneumatic jockey wheel on the chipper. 4) Land Rover again! But in all honesty, two of these are both soft ground issues, if it's really that soft then a wheelbarrow will be hard to move over the ground, let alone a chipper, whatever it's weight. I wouldn't say that having a sub 750 machine will get you out of any of those circumstances, if the ground is steep, or too soft and rutted, you're not getting in without some sort of powered machine. Obviously you can't drive over people's lawns when you want the chipper across it but that's a case of the land rather than the weight of a chipper. There are ways of doing things with heavier machines that don't require pushing or slipping over and chinning a wheelarch.

Better view of the top section.

It's a sequoia srt with the basic petzl top. I have used big saws countless times in trees, since using the full body harness I've wondered how the hell I used to do without it. It puts the weight through your back into your feet rather than trying to pull your harness off.

1000 footers, must be

Done it. Worked for one company for two and a half years where the yard was down a 70 yard single track, no room to turn inside and just wide enough to get the mogs through. We all backed our chippers in every night once we'd worked out that we could do it.

If it jackknifed you're going too fast. Best advice I got was to do it like a Spitfire on taxi. Keep it going side to side to stay on top of it. That way you only need look in one mirror at a time because you should know exactly where it's going. This is possible in spaces not much wider than the towing vehicle.