djbobbins

Happy Christmas everyone! Have a good one.

Thanks all, looks like we'll be back in the UK sooner than planned (i.e. part way through next year) so I've decided just to get the beast insured for the year again, saves messing about.

Coming at this from an independent point of view (I don't work in the arb industry, just interested particularly in the energy side)... I think £850 is cheap. I am guessing you can already undercut a lot of companies on here by not having to be registered for VAT (assuming the threshold for registration is still about £55k per year). Assuming you are all going to put in a decent day, I think you should work on £150 per man day, then something to cover fuel, depreciation, maintenance etc, and of course profit. Sooner or later if you go into it professionally, your staff will want payingthe going rate (and will need to have NI, holiday and so on). You wouldn't have the income from a full time job to fall back on, in the same way that the other guys on here haven't. That equipment that you're using will need replacing and you won't be able to borrow vehicles. I would say price as if you were set up and doing this as your living. Six man days of labour, all the material costs, wear and tear and so on feels like al least thirteen hundred sheets to me...

I think it's an interesting difference in culture that I have observed. I used to live in (delightful) Coventry and remember an incident a few years back where some scrotum got on the bus, abused the driver, got off after a few stops and then proceeded to throw a stone at the bus as it drove off. Little sh17... but for those exact reasons of (a) being half sloshed myself, (b) not wanting the aggro and © wondering whether he'd have a chib, I did nothing. Now in Germany, on the local trains and tram systems tickets get inspected only on a random basis. It's done in a very different way though. I have seen a few people riding without tickets get caught. I've never seen one of them be rude. Younger people tend to just get told to get off the train (like anyone under about 20). Anyone who ought to have more sense has their details taken and will get sent a hefty bill. The things that make a difference, IMO, are: (1) a different attitude to authority (although I think independent thinking and blithely obeying "authority" is a fine line); (2) the fact that the ticket inspectors work in groups of three... I think it's a good way of dealing with things though - in this case, the ticket wouldn't have been checked until the journey was underway (so no-one else would have been disrupted), the drunken lad would have got home safely rather than ending up with a busted up face, the tubby fireman wouldn't end up with a record for GBH (which I guess will be the outcome) and the train operator would get a thousand quid income by way of the fine for travelling without a valid ticket.

Reminds me of this TV advert, health warning before you click on the link that I'm pretty sure it'd be too risque to get past the ASA in the UK! video A strange butter advertising - love, sex, brazil - videos kewego

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€25 today for five foot of Nordmann, and that included a 10% tip. Guy even knew exactly where they had been grown, which I'm guessing is more than they would know down the local DIY shed... Mind you, he couldn't get his Dolmar to start to trim the base off it!

Quick query - I'm out of the UK at the moment, but when I am home for Christmas I want to be able to get my Isuzu Trooper out on the road to blow the cobwebs off it. It is currently insured but the cover will expire on new year's day; I am undecided whether to insure it again for another year TPFT, or to look for some short term cover just for while I am home. When I'm not around it is locked up, with a crooklock, behind locked gates, so I am not so concerned about security. Anyone got any recommendations for insurance providers either specialising in short term cover (couple of weeks in Jan) or that will do e.g. max 2,000 miles per year cover??

My father did hedge laying when he was a teenager and got some thorns in his hands. He turned 70 in September and still has a black mark under the skin in one hand from a thorn.

Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "dropping a log"!

Baler twine out of the drivers window and down to the clutch for a hand operated clutch... Tin foil folded up in layers to make a custom-thickness shim when the handbrake wouldn't adjust on some old banger or another, in order to get the handbrake effective enough to pass the MOT... When my missus was training to be a nurse, many fixes were done by student nurses using porous sticking plaster tape (you guessed it, it's pretty much like thin gaffer tape) including sheeting up a window on my car after some sod smashed it by reveersing a flatbed transit round a corner but forgetting thez had scaff poles laying in the base...

I don't know if anyone has already posted this on here, but I saw this website and wondered if it might be worth anyone that's had any gear pilfered keeping an eye on. I think the idea is that the police sell off known stolen property which they've not been able to re-unite with its rightful owners; in the "Tools" section there are chainsaws, grass trimmers and the lik (both the last couple of times I've been on there saws have been up for sale): Bumblebee Auctions

Damn, too late!

Someone had to do it... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zey8567bcg]Lumber jack song - YouTube[/ame]

second...

Won't let me upload all the pics for some reason, I'll try one at a time...

I found these two blokes in a local piece of woodland today, having a bit of a rest after a hard day's work. One of them has even got his preference for saw clearly showing. I thought someone might like them!

I think more like "crater" and "WWII film set" would be more like it. 2500lb is a lot of explosives! We found a WWII anti-vehicle land mine in a dried-up lake bed about 20 years ago. Bomb squad came out and dealt with that one; it was a "dud" so no loud bang. The area where I work now (Dusseldorf) is often affected by UXB clearance work on a pretty regular basis though. I don't know if the civils contractors get danger money though!

My permanent home is just west of Warwick, but working in Germany at the moment. Not an arb pro though, just grown up with this type of work and interested in logging / bioenergy side of things.

I'm in Germany, not France, so probably can't help - however I have seen one of these on sale at my local "OBI", which I was quite tempted by. Anyone know what they're like? Dolmar Benzin-Kettensäge PS-45/40 cm im OBI Online-Shop I think the choice of arb / firewood products is better over here than in a UK DIY shed. As a couple of examples, the local OBI sells 10 ton splitters and 4.5kW saws for logging! Einhell Brennholzwippsäge BT-LC700D im OBI Online-Shop Einhell Holzspalter BT-LS 1014D im OBI Online-Shop

My mother used to chuck all manner of stuff in their rayburn but I don't think nappies (at least, not those with solids in them) were included. I'm hoping not anyway, 'cos the main time me and my father used to notice she'd stoked the fire up with something was when we were working on the roof, or up the (sloped) yard sawing wood, where in either situation you got a faceful of whatever was coming up the chimney!

I was wondering where this one was going... I was expecting it to turn out that he / they were waiting for either (1) the undertaker, or (2) a male escort!!

To be fair, I've actually done that (filled the cheque in completely, then forgot to sign it) as an honest mistake when I was paying a plumber. Mind you, he'd done a half-arsed job of fitting my bathroom so I can't say I was too gutted about it. Taught me the lesson that the bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of saving a few quid has gone away.

This is at risk of getting very surreal... what about if I batter my potato before I cook it in the better way in the stove then have some butter with it? And a pint of bitter to wash it down??

I think the original post was missing a line somewhere; based on nearly every cat we ever owned as a family you'd need to put a good sized log on top of the seat to hold it down! Our cats (in succession, not some kind of cat-gangland mob) managed to see the better of a fully grown Staffy, numerous rabbits and many other cats. The crowning glory came after we had sadly lost the nicest cat we ever had (bear in mind I'm a dog fan, this cat still won me over) to foxes. We went to the rescue place and got the biggest tomcat we could find, which just happened to be a ginger thing. A few weeks later, all hell broke loose outside the house one night. We went outside and found no cat, but traces of blood and lots of ginger fur, therefore assumed the end of that cat too. Lo and behold, the next afternoon the cat strolls into the house, missing a few bits of fur and with bite marks around its neck where the fox had been trying to shake it, but most definitely still cock of the walk. Never saw the foxes again mind... nails, them Staffordshire cats... best make it two good sized logs on the lid just in case!!