arbclimber

Lucky no-one was under it when it went down as well.

For me thats what a skilled saw operator looks like. Makes it look so easy, wanders up to the tree, bit of cutting, no wrestling and tugging on the saw, tree goes exactly where it should, job done. Excellent work.

I'd rather use Stihl long reach and pair of loppers. That looks a bit low tech and low budget, not to mention dangerous.

Leave it dangling. Dont use it climbing round the tree, it'll get stuck on everything.

Thats good to know, I started coming on here and actually posting cos i'm really interested in the subjects but also because I find this kind of interaction with so many different people fascinating. There are so many personality types on here, all interacting together. I just dont want to be one of those who only posts to disagree or argue with someone. I dont think there is a single person on here who couln't learn a lot from listening to all the different opinions given.

That is almost unbelievably cheeky. If I see a pair of legs poking out from one of my vehicles one night ill be straight in the garage for a sledge hammer.

Hamadryad. Thought long and hard before posting this but I think its the best advice I can give. From your reaction to the skilled, semi-skilled debate I think you might me struggling cos you are trying to educate yourself for the wrong reasons. Seems to me that your main motivation is for more respect and so you can wander around with a clipboard so people know you are the most educated person on site. I do get that you have a genuine passion for what you do and I think once you realise why you actually want to do what you are doing, the easier it will become. As i said I think this is the best advice I can give. Make of it what you will.

This thread runs and runs doesn't it. Whether you own a business or are employed you are still effectively in business. The skill of business is persuading people you are worth what you want to be paid. Whether thats by doing the best job or by being the quickest. If you can do a job in a way that means you can make a good profit (or wage) whilst finding enough people who want you to do it, you have won. This is a skill just as important as climbing. I see myself as a business man who, for 7 years, made tree work his business. I have certificate, diploma and degree level qualifications but on days I had nothing to do I would take out a mower, strimmer and blower and cut grass. I would usually charge about £40 a pop and do about 4 or 5 gardens a day. On those days people saw me as a bloke who mowed lawns for a living. I saw myself as a bloke with a couple of hundred quid in my pocket that I didn't have at the start of the day. Stephen, Rupe and Skyhuck seem to have it pretty much sorted. Do your thing and who cares what anyone else thinks. Skilled or semi-skilled, who cares. I appreciate i'm new to this forum and my opinion prob isn't the most popular but its just my opinion.

I think smokers just have to be sensible, it would look pretty bad if everyone drove around on the mowers with a ciggie hanging out of their mouth wouldn't it.

very true.

Reading through your posts I see big differences between us but they seem to have given us such similar problems and such a similar outlook on life. I haven't had it hard at all, that was my problem. At school from a very young age I was always by far the cleverest in the school with no effort at all, did GCSE's with no effort and got A's for everything. Parents are well off and always 100 % supportive which made me, to be honest, a lazy arrogant little git. Never really made an effort to do anything. Measured by worth as a man by how many times I could cheat on my girlfriend and get away with it. I get from your posts you are the complete opposite. A born grafter i reckon. Anyway, in my mid 20's the real world hit me, and hit me hard. How come people didn't recognise I was better than them any more? There was a very obvious answer. I had no problem borrowing money for ventures that couldn't fail, how could they, I could do anything. Went from disaster to disaster and finally at 31 my girlfriend told me go and see a psychotherapist or i'm off. I went and it opened my eyes. As I said, I haven't had it so bad, but for me it seemed like a pretty unpleasant place to be for a while. If this rings any bells for anyone, sit back and have a ponder.

Think I should take partial responsibility for the tangent on the other thread too. Same goes for me, I was reading your posts thinking how does this bloke know what i was thinking.

Many thanks mate. Just had a quick skim through. To say that your posts ring a few bells is an understatement. Ill have a good read of it later.

If you put a fishing reel on that it would be the dogs ********. Sorry, I've got a strange sense of humour.

My goodwill may have been worth a lot more but at the time it suited me to sell, It was all the bloke could afford, he wanted to keep me on part time for estimating and such like and I had other priorities so it was a win/ win situation. Not saying that a business such as mine has goodwill worth 5k just thats what I got for mine. Hope it helps.

Stephen, Without derailing this thread or making it a bit girly for an arb forum I think too that we may have had similar experiences. I was a skinny, arrogant little sod who didn't understand why the world didn't see how great I was. Turned out they had no reason to. Anyway i'm doing stuff to make myself proud now and if everyone else likes it then thats really cool, if not I aint that bothered. And i'm still skinny but thats cool too:biggrin: Anyway back to talking about big dangerous machinery and stuff.

That brings back memories. my mate had that one, I had the black widow. Used it so much we were always trying to araldite the handle back together as when you pulled it back really hard it would separate the back of the handle from the front. And then I got my first air rifle, a BSA Meteor .22. I was so proud:blushing:

I remember those, didn't the diablo have those flash looking weights on the front to balance it. Seem to remember a misguided youth could wack a stone straight through next doors fence panels with one of those.

I think it takes a man who is generally happy in his own skin, having genuine confidence in himself and his abilities to genuinely be unaffected by what others think of him. I have found some of the most seemingly confident people are infact the ones carrying the biggest chip on their shoulder and as a result are constantly overcompensating and seeking to bolster their true failing self- worth wherever they can. Be it seeking bigger and better job titles, more material posessions or praise from anyone who might give it. To make it clear this post is not aimed at anyone. If anything it is a fairly accurate description of myself until a few years ago when I spent some time taking stock of my life and sorting my head out.

Many thanks target trees, I was right I was just being a bit thick.

As I said, very interesting post. If I had come across the kind of damage you refer to, the cause wouldn't have occured to me in a million years. I suppose in the summer with the sun high in the sky the damage would be more concentrated but over a smaller area. I wonder if lower levels of radiation may also cause problems in the winter months with the grass already suffering from frosting and the same grass being bombarded over a longer period due to infrequency of mowing.

Skyhuck, I dont get it, what do you mean when you say cut back to a branch of at least 1/3 the size of branch removed. Sorry, I must be being thick cos noone else has asked but it makes no sense to me.

Punctuation man. God thats hard to read.

Ashawandco. Yes i see your point, maybe in our industry then a business doing regular garden maintenance would have a significantly higher value of good will than a tree surgeon doing 'One off jobs'. If i understand you correctly? Actually, I take back my comment about being concerned if my accountant did what you are doing. I have noticed the times of day you have been doing this research and hope my accountant would spend his evenings researching for me in that way. I ran my business for 7 years and when sold it had 2 full time employees. I think it relevant to say that I actually sold the business to one of these employees which I do think increased the value of the goodwill as my customers already knew the new owner. The sale was reasonably complicated as I still work for the business doing the marketing/ estimating and suchlike but for our purposes of our sale we valued the goodwill at £5000 which we all agreed was fair enough. To put that into context I had an average t/o of 100 - 120k and profit of c 50k per annum. I also took a percentage of all work booked at time of sale. Hope this helps. Happy to share details on here as no-one knows who I am anyway.

You wont find many 'dog lovers' feeding their dogs Pedigree stuff imo. Nice idea though, we all like free stuff!