Paul Jenks

Which bits are playing up? It's only an engine with some bearings, hydraulics and other moving parts. Any halfway decent farm engineer should be able to sort it. Is there an agricultural engineer near you? Must be one on a farm industrial site nearby.

The short wheel base Isuzu, Mitsubishi etc trucks will give the best payload as they are the lightest around. The poor buggers in the cab get bounced around a bit though. A 4WD tipper will give a tonne or so payload and will go most places, though they are costlier to buy and to run.

Once again the words 'tree surgeon' are applied to a person carrying out works to a tree. "unknown to him, the branch he was cutting was supporting another..." Sounds like he did a proper risk assessment then. I don't suppose HSE are involved on this one?

Looks like a lychee to me

I wonder how many volumes your accident book runs to each year.

What are the targets? They look like woodland trees. Do nothing. If you're concerned, climb up the tree, brace yourself across the stems and push them apart. With someone watching the union. If it moves alarmingly, consider some mitigating works.

What wood were you cutting? As said above, juddering is usually associated with each cutting tooth trying to cut just a little too much with each pass. If it was a hard or dry wood it would likely do this.

Whatever the extent of this particular genie, it's out of the bottle. There are a lot of dead and dying ash trees around and some will have seeded and some not. Most will fall to bits without the aid of a climber and chainsaw and will become excellent hosts for all sorts of beasts and bugs. No amount of sterilising saws or boots will make a difference to the spread across the country in the long run. Whether the FC or the government knew it was on the rampage a long time in advance of the general release of information is currently conjecture. The value to the economy is a debatable point and I would suggest less immediate than that of our meat exporting. From the government statistics, DEFRA, the meat and meat products export trade is worth about £1bn a year, poultry and milk products excluded, + another(£600m). I doubt ash wood amounts to 100th of that figure and it certainly doesn't employ as many people. As with many things arboricultural, the timescales for disease transmission in genetically diverse populations are measured in decades so I daresay the issue may have been overplayed by the FC. It's axiomatic that the media has overplayed it, though as this story has a shelf life of many years it's lost its zest for the front page. I fail to see how a mass fell would solve any perceived problems other than generating a lot of work, hysteria and good firewood. Remove trees when they're stuffed and replant with a suitable replacement.

But don't take the mickey out of his hair, as he gets upset.

Apple | The Wood Database - Lumber Identification (Hardwoods)

What an extraordinary comment. I know shooting from the hip is moderately common on forums. I thought the folk on this one had grown out of shooting from the arse.

I agree, Huck. However in the context of this; {taken from euromove.org}, "From the negotiations on the UK’s accession in 1970-72 to the present day, Britain’s contribution to the EU budget has been the subject of controversy. Although the percentage of our national income involved is small (under one per cent of GNI), the cash amount is still considerable. In 2010, the UK’s adjusted net contribution - that is, after allowing for the UK rebate and receipts from EU programmes - was estimated to be £6.27 billion (the rebate was £3 billion). In percentage terms, the UK’s net share of the EU budget in 2010 was 10.87 per cent, compared to 19.53 per cent for the largest contributor (Germany) with France and Italy both paying higher shares than the UK" In real terms it's not so much. Wherever the money is concentrated there will be snouts in the trough. At least if they're European snouts some will feel justified in whining about it.

Goodness, that's a well reasoned argument. Does the same apply to wealthy individuals and wealthy businesses? In an interdependent global economy it is the honourable thing to do. Giving more if one has more may not be acceptable to some and may well disadvantage others. On the whole it will benefit more, even if the bulk of them are in other countries, in this instance. I'm certainly not a socialist though I do believe in social responsibility at the individual, corporate and national level. There are winners and losers however the cake is divided and divided it must be. It's implicit on those with the knife to make well reasoned decisions. Alas, they are human, just like most of us, and are inevitably making decisions that not everyone will agree with.

The challenge with any black or white question is that the answer is not usually a black or white one. We, as citizens, are not party to all, or even most, of the relevant information required to make qualified decisions on the subject. We can express our views based on what we know, what we think we know and what the man down the pub told us he heard on Jeremy Whine. (That's not to say there are none on here with very sensible and well informed views from both sides of the argument.) 40 odd years of international legislative bureaucracy is tied into our agreements with Europe, covering everything from trade, defence, healthcare, tourism, law, human rights, environment etc, etc. To unpick these is possible, just. Is it worth it? Many businesses would benefit from a break with the EU. Many would also suffer. Business has to be one of the fundamental components of any decision making process. The reason being that business is what drives the economy and generates the tax that pays for all government does. The complexity of the breakdown of winners/losers and the impacts on employment, trade deficit, income tax, corporation tax, future investment, tourism etc is far to onerous for a dualistic in or out discussion. Without clear monetary values assigned to each of the areas with the potential to be affected in the immediate future after a change and further into the future, (complex computer modelling required), we might as well try to stick a tail on a donkey whilst blindfolded as an equally satisfactory decision making process.

Be funny if it had a mouse trap option inside the head.

I have a rule of thumb that always works for me. If someone wants me to look at a job, friend or family that is, Sometimes I'll offer to do it for nowt but a cup of tea and a biscuit, or they'll pay the full professional rate. I feel invigorated and it gives me pleasure when I do a job for absolutely nothing for someone in my time and at my pace. I feel satisfied when someone pays me the right money to do the job. I feel awful working cheap so I don't do it.

Maybe I should have put in, " before we started using top handled saws" Our local dealer was Husqvarna, so we used the 238's and 242's up tress for pruning. This was in early 87 prior to the real challenging stuff delivered in October.

No, I definitely meant simulator :lol: You now have an idea of how my mind works. Tub of Vaseline and wet wipes included.

As a slight aside, who in their right mind would work for someone who only provided the cheapest, nastiest PPE? Including climbing kit. Within reason we sort the guys out with what they want. They all have personal climbing kits, PPE and waterproofs. Why would you work somewhere that expected you to buy your own, regardless of the nuances of the rules? Astonishes me.

Want to bet? You've not seen my forearms. Like I said, it's what we did before top handled saws.

I thought a goat simulator might be something you collected from ByBox 'cos you were too embarrassed to sign for it at your front door.

The chap with the chainsaw wound doesn't look like a professional user. The up side is the subcutaneous fatty tissue probably slowed the chain down a bit. What was he doing? A close up inspection of a bore cut that went wrong? Will this go down in the HSE statistics as a 'Tree Surgery' injury?

Firstly, weigh some chip and get an idea of the volumes you're going to be able to legally transport. The one in the picture above is going to be properly over loaded if full and will probably wallow a lot too. Aluminium doesn't need to be a strong as steel and therefore you can make extra savings on weight. You just get dents more easily and the body won't last as long. Arb trucks or any truck that has a towbar already on it will probably have had the guts pulled out of them, especially if over 30-40k miles. I know ours have. That's what they're for. It's why we can write down the cost of the vehicle over 4 years. In business it's considered to be worthless after that time. It still has residual value and the better it's looked after the more this'll be, so when you chop it in you get the deposit for your new one. The Isuzu and Mitsubishi 3.5t trucks are the lightest and are pretty robust. A log guy round here has a payload of 2t on the back of his with a good sized aluminium tipper. Bloody bouncy to drive though.

A better and enforceable licencing system should be the way forward. Making sure the purchaser has a certificate is a start. However the number of stolen saws in the industry[a loose term to cover the top professionals to the bottom feeders] means that there are still many users who're unqualified and a hazard to themselves[usually the ones in the HSE statistics] and to others. As with street works, users should have to carry a licence/certificate and if challenged will gladly produce it. Working on building sites, highways, MOD etc is becoming this way. Certainly, many of the sites we work on have challenge cultures. This will gradually filter down into the wider market place and the bottom feeders and old school operators will have less and less credibility. This may begin to reduce cut injuries and thence the need to ban, which, lets face it, is a bit too draconian. I remember using rear handled saws one handed in trees.

Well done Ben. It is quite daunting, regardless of how much prep you do. We've got our re-assessment in a couple of months. Sticking with the program is now the tough bit. Don't let it slip.