rovers90

I was talking to a guy at the Great Yorkshire Show who made chopping boards and longer ones to go down the centre of the table and he recommended anything for food use should be kiln dried.

Interesting article in one of the motoring supplements at the weekend about the real cost of running a car, calculated as the pence per mile (ppm). Figures looked at the typical motorist buying a brand new vehicle, driving 12,000 miles per year and retaining the car for three years. The calculation took in to consideration three years servicing, depreciation, all taxes and duties, fuel cost and initial purchase price but not insurance (this is dictated more by other factors such as the drivers age) and was based on the average purchase of a small/medium four/five door family car. The most expensive car to run based on the above is the...............Nissan Leaf at 52ppm.Apparantly the purchase price is non negotiable and the predicted resale value represents a £20,000 decrease, partially due to the fact the very expensive batteries will be nearly due for replacement. It doesn't stop there however, the second most expensive is the Toyota Prius hybrid at 46ppm, followed by the Lexus hybrid at 45ppm. I also remember reading an article a few years back which claimed the environmental cost of making such hybrids was three times that for a standard petrol or diesel car. Apparantley the very precious minerals required for the manufacture of the batteries are flown backwards and forwards across the globe before the manufacturers end up with a finished battery! Do the people who buy such cars realise the damage created in their manufacture? I'm going to show my age here, I recall watching a programme, possibly Panarama, in the early seventies about the fuel for the future - hydrogen. I distinctly remember watching a car being driven, parked up with the engine running and the presenter collecting water coming out of the exhaust and putting it back in the tank before driving off again. If we could do that in the seventies why has it not been developed and put in to manufacture in the following 40 years? One can only guess the oil companies have had something to do with it. Thank you and goodnight.

I think you are spot on with the above. However, my impression of wood burning joe public is he is not bothered one iota with the above. Because they can see trees all around them they think firewood should be sold for next to nothing. The unregulation of the industry has also not helped either - people have been buying by the pick up load and yet have no idea how big or how much volume that pick up will hold; so if they ring two suppliers and get quoted £70 and £130 for a pick up load they will go for the cheaper one. This despite the fact the first could be a Suzuki Carryall and the second a Ford F350 which could take two Suzukis in it load bed. The wood buying public needs to be educated....how that is achieved is the problem!

I use a guy who is a specialist with chainsaws-all makes- hedgecutters, strimmers etc based at Consett. Very reasonable and usually very quick turnaround. I'll pm you his number.

Grand Designs Australia, More4 Sunday 9pm - apparently if you enjoyed the Ben Law episode of Grand Designs, this is the Australian equivalent. Trevor Sullivan has been living in a shed with family and animals near Lake Bennett for over ten years and is now ready to build a treehouse with the the help of his mates. Sounds like its worth a watch.

I usually do all the cooking whereas my wife tends to pierce with a knife and go ping ping! She does do all the washing and ironing though. I really enjoy cooking, especially when its things I have grown or shot, but she says I just like it because I usually have a little port, sloe gin or jaegermeister as I cook. Blame me mum I say, she used to plonk me down in front of the telly to watch the "Galloping Gourmet" when I was little:thumbup:

No bother Ross, it was my mate Ian you sold it to!

Ross, is that £23 plus VAT for roadside? Derek

Definately the place to go to when you win £160million on the lottery! Some of the kit, like the Land Rovers with the drop sides, is only available for export though. Although if you won that much you could export it to your villa abroad!!

I supplied mixed loads last year and people appreciated it as the softwood was easier to light than the hardwood. Should we not just be marketing DRY wood to people anyway?

My wife and I visited the Great Yorkshire Show at the Harrogate Showground on Thursday and had a great time - lovely weather, plenty of different trade stands (as in different to a game fair), Black Sheep Brewery bar, forestry demos and great selection of pork pies in the food hall. All unfortunately let down by the fact it took us 1hour 35 minutes to actually get off the show ground and then a further 30 minutes of queuing on the roads to actually get to the A1. It did not take as long to get back home to Newcastle as it did to get off the show ground!! Wasn't impressed - favourite chip shop was closed by the time we got back and I missed the first half of Ice Pilots!!! After 100 and odd years of holding the event you would have thought they would have the traffic system sorted by now:mad1:

That amount of money is self perpetuating - the interest alone would be four to five million a year, unless you spent really big you would hardly have to touch the capital. As others:001_huh: have said, if its not going to change their lives why the heck did they enter in the first place???!!??

I looked at the Mitsubishi Super cab (or Club cab to gave it its proper title) and decided they are not that super - the space behind the front seats is very small and the only access is by tipping the seat backs. If you fancy an extra cab pick up the Ranger / HiLux and Navarras are more useful and I would have thought somebody would be able to convert them to tipper basis.

Ha ha Tommer,very quick, you'll cut yourself with that sharp tongue one of these days. I should may be have expanded a bit more - I went to view a "stunning" Ranger in Yorkshire. Indeed it did look stunning on the internet but in reality it had two cheap Chinese tyres on the front, two different brands on the rear both of which were close to the limit and a spare that was bald. The alloys were all badly curbed and there was a thick layer of dust all over the engine bay, even though it had apparently been serviced and valeted. I can confirm that the pics show my truck for what it is..a really smart, great condition Ranger:thumbup:

Sorry to hear about your problem Joy. As others have said, when honest hard working people like everybody on here get messed about it's not nice and something that we should not have to deal with. I think Gensetsteve has a valid point - if somebody turned up to do a tree job for me in a vehicle advertising logs I would be thinking thats my logs he's selling. Just a thought for future. If they refuse to pay, go down the legal route straight away. Yes they have a £50k Discovery 4 but chances are its on finance and I would point out to them disadvantages of having a CCJ registered against them in the present economic climate, anybody with poor credit records will get nothing out of any high street bank these days. In my last months as a mortgage advisor for one, I had to refuse high net worth customers new mortgages as a credit search revealed a missed payment to a credit card, it wasnt even registered as a CCJ. So tell them if they want a Discovery 5 when they come out, they had better pay up. Good luck and tell husband not to let it get to him too much.

Ta da!!!! After nearly a year of deciding what to buy, countless hours trawling the internet, clocking up many miles viewing vehicles in different parts of the country and totally exasperating the wife......I have finally purchased my new vehicle. After 23 years of Land Rover ownership I have switched from the green to the blue oval. Although as the Ranger was built when Ford owned Land Rover I'm trying to convince myself it really is a Land Rover at heart! One of the reasons it took so long to decide was that I was mad keen to have a Discovery TD5 Commercial but in the end I decided it would not be a huge difference to the Freelander it was to replace. The new vehicle had to be a jack of all trades - a comfortable everyday car, be useful for my gardening business and for my log business, be smart enough so the wife would still get in it to go away for hols in it and to go shooting in. After three weeks of ownership I have done 1200 miles in complete comfort (although I do find the seat base a tad low, currently sitting on top of a travel blanket to raise me up a bit!!), fairly economically and I absolutely love it. It is a 2007 model and only had 28000 miles on the clock by one previous owner - it looks and drives like new and I got a cracking trade in deal for the Freelander. Enough of my waffling - 2 pearls of wisdom if you are thinking of buying a new motor: always go to view in person, the photos on the internet often make the vehicle look much better than it actually is and the sellers interpretation of stunning will often be differnet to yours; and secondly, if you wait long enough the right vehicle will come along!

As somebody once said on here, "Yes thats because they haven't actually got there yet!!!":001_tt2:

Some people are just soooooooooooo quick!!! That must really hammer your mpg Rob!

Where's pie land Dave as my friend may be interested if transport was not too much?

After 23 years of Land Rover ownership I have just bought an 07 plate Ford Ranger Supercab and think its brilliant - much quieter and smoother ride than the Freelander it replaced and so easy to drive, very light steering and you hardly need to touch the accelerator to move!! Only concern is mpg, haven't used a full tank yet but I know it will be lower than the 34mpg I was achieving in the Freelander. To be nonest, if you are buying new stick to what you can buy from a local dealer;they all come with warranty so its just down to personal choice.

I know there has been some interest in kindling machines recently so here is a BGU machine on e-bay. BGU Kindler machine, Firewood processor | eBay UK Might be of interest to someone

Education of the customer certainly comes in to it and making them realise that the best wood is dry wood. Part of the problem is the retailers selling the stoves are quite adament they must use hardwood under 20% moisture content and I know if I had just spent a lot of money with one of them, I would then be looking for this and it would take some pursuading for me to try something else. I sell mixed loads and have had no complaints - people like the soft wood because it lights easier and helps to start off the hard wood.

I could use the logs and my friend might let you off load them at his site on Number 1 Industrial Estate at Consett. He may take the chip as well but I'll check with him first.

I wonder if this is the same chip Stobbarts sell for £90 per ton?

That looks absolutely fab, well done. I keep thinking of buying a mill for the chainsaw and having a go with some oak my mates got lying around; none of its more than 16 inch diameter but I'm sure we could make some planks to make a bench or something.