Big J

On Monday we start on a new site working for the Forestry Commission for the first time. I appreciate that they are very particular about health and safety compliance, as well as correct procedure. Can anyone share their experiences getting started with the Commission and any teething issues they might have had? Up to this point everything has been quite straightforward and easy, but I want to make sure that I'm starting on the right footing. I have: 2 cutters, fully qualified, full PPE, fully insured under my insurances All relevant signage Risk assessments Method statement My qualifications (I'm actually doing my forwarder assessment on the morning we get started!) and insurances and all relevant PPE Spill kit, major first aid kit Can anyone add to that? Any help much appreciated.

Repairs are a big one certainly. I reckon I spent £100 a week on average on fixing things that would routinely break. Sometimes more.

Out of curiosity, out of the £100 (to use that figure), how does that break down? In terms of raw material cost, processing cost, delivery cost and profit? I only ever played at firewood production, but found that the most irritating part of it was delivery. I offered quite large discounts if people collected. At the end of the day, to produce a full trailer load (7 cube) only took about an hour and a half on the processor, but usually at least 2 hours to deliver. The last load we had into the yard was quite dry spruce from a windblow site. It was £40 a tonne delivered in (cheap now, I know) and the breakdown was this: Per cubic metre: £12 - cost of spruce £4 - wages for processing £2 - electricity/diesel costs for processor and forklift (estimated) £6 - wages for delivery (based on 7 cube load) £2 - cost of fuel for van for delivery £3 - yard costs (based on the above work taking half a day) So £29 costs on a £55 sale price. On a 7 cube load you're making £182 profit per half day after all costs. I appreciate that the raw material costs are quite a bit higher now.

There is a good reason I brought 23 cubic metres with me from Scotland when we moved down. Firewood prices are only going to go up with the increasing cost of the raw material. Chipwood in southern Scotland is doing a minimum of £42 at roadside, so you're not going to get that into the yard for less than £50. That's almost £20 more than just 18 months ago. I don't envy you guys selling firewood now. It will be difficult to get your customers to understand the magnitude of the price rises for the raw materials. The funny thing is that the customers are paying for it twice over as they are also subsidising the big biomass companies (who are driving the demand, and therefor the rise in prices) who are being paid by the government, who we are funding with our taxes! Madness!

It's mostly just the tightness and indirect nature of the roads that is bemusing. In Scotland, the roads are mostly fairly large, but riddled with potholes. Here the reverse is true. My sat nav hasn't quite twigged about not taking me on what are mostly paved farm tracks. Anyway, having fun, trying to get the house straight whilst entertaining my two young daughters.

Having lived in Devon for a full 5 days, I think it's important to reflect on my first impressions. These are as follows: * Everyone is lovely. Friendly, seemingly happy people. We've not met them all yet, but our neighbours up the road have been incredibly welcoming. * The roads are daft. If they were upgraded to 20th century standard, that would be a huge improvement (let along 21st century). * Everyone seem to appreciate a nice trailer. At the local plant hire place, the staff there made a point of coming out to check out the trailer when I came in and then again when I came back, each time complimenting it. * Lack of litter. You get used to Central Belt Scotland, where a significant minority of people treat the landscape as an oversized rubbish dump. Very clean here. * Loads of stunning houses. I'm the grandson of an architect and married to one too. So many stunning, innovatively designed houses here, making use of natural materials and complimenting their surroundings. I shall update on further reflections as I go, but suffice to say we are very happy to be here.

Need any help with extraction?

The issue you get in East Scotland is the North Sea ruins the weather. Endless grey, cloudy days with wind, mist and quite low temperatures. Glad to leave it behind.

No, I know it can be wet here. A lot drier in the Culm valley and East Devon in general, I am told

Thanks chaps. Machines are still up north. Didn't make sense to drag them all the way down without any confirmed work when I knew I'd need them up north a couple of weeks later. We've had virtually no rain since early April in Scotland!

And we are here! Exhausting 11 hour drive down on Friday with fully loaded van and trailer, along with my friend driving the 7.5t box lorry. 28-30c heat, no air conditioning and lost 3 hours to summer holiday traffic that actually started north of Manchester. Lorry unloaded and the weather has been gruesome since arriving. So much for moving south for sunnier climes! Couple of weeks getting the house completely sorted and then back to work in southern Scotland for a couple of weeks. I've two large contracts up there that could theoretically take up all my time, so might not even be working in Devon for the time being!

Thanks for the encouragement! I've burned loads of spruce myself up here, but I burn anything. I'd be felling for biomass chipwood predominantly, so spruce would be ideal. It does process nicely compared to larch and fir. As I said though, the trees were much too large really. 21m of product off a single stem is nothing like first thinning, but it's good that it can do it. It'd only be 2.5 trees or so to the tonne on that. Very confident that once we're up to speed that we can do a tree in 3 minutes with the winch to one point and reposition every 5 trees or so. So, 20 odd trees an hour, which would equate to 5 tonnes an hour or so on smaller material. Might do better than that as I'm hopeless on the fairly complicated hydraulic controls at the moment.

Out with the processor today, testing it with trees that were much too large. It didn't much like bendy larch at 350mm, with the bends creating some issues, and the smoothness of grand fir created some issues with gripping it. It waltzed the spruce though. The photos above illustrate just how tidy a job it does. Neat habitat pile on the left, neat stack of logs on the right. 2 or 3 more trees like that (350mm at butt, 7 lengths of 3m off it) and I'd have a forwarder load. No manual handling at all.

With the batteries for the Stihl, the AP 200 is over £40 cheaper than the AP 300, but only gives away 3 minutes of run time. Is there any reason to get the AP 300?

In an ideal world, I'd not have to get off the forwarder at all, or indeed fell anything. It's mainly just for nipping the odd branch here and there. Perhaps 10-15 small cuts a day with a single tree felled per week? Something like that.

Could anyone recommend me a good little battery chainsaw? I think it would be the best solution for a saw for the forwarder. I'm only occasionally needing to cut a branch/stem that's in the way, and being able to pick the saw up and cut immediately rather than having to start it. Would be useful to have enough power to fell the odd little tree that's in the way too. Nothing bigger than 350mm at butt I'd guess. I've no experience with battery chainsaws so any help is much appreciated.

That would be brilliant, yes. Processor and forwarder job or just forwarder?

Any of you tree surgery types in the area need a hand during the first two weeks of August? Debating whether to bring the forwarder down at the end of July or not. Can lift some fairly substantial sticks. Was playing in the yard with it this morning and I'm fairly confident of getting a 1000kg log loaded. Throws around 500kg very easily. Also has a small winch on the crane too. Get in touch if I can help out.

Yes. The two chaps that have been working with me for years have taken it on. I like the machines too

Nothing yet. I've had such a lot of work offered up here that I've not seriously looked in Devon yet. With the mini processor, I'm better geared up for softwoods now too. That being said, I'm not precluding the possibility of doing hardwoods.

I have yes! Hoping to line up a reasonable amount of work in Devon, but as it stands, it's all in Southern Scotland at present.

Both, ideally. The angle I'll be working is the incredibly tidy site that will be left once we're done. Minimal brash, piled at every 5th or 10th tree, no rutting, minimal scuffing of remaining trees, minimal root damage and minimal soil compaction. I'd pay the same price as someone going in with much larger machines, so why would you chose to put in potentially more damaging machinery? Of course these little Tonka toy forestry machines have their limitations, but there is certainly a niche for them

I don't quite follow?