Big J

It's not being sned out though. Only brashed to 5ft and then dropped. Processor does the rest. Would be interested to see what the official figures would be for trees like that.

The size of tree in question (about 25cm at stump, on average) takes less than two minutes per tree to brash (to 5ft) and fell. It's a good hourly rate, and keep in mind they'd only be on the saw for half the day.

On the look out for a very good cutter for late August for a couple of weeks work in south west Scotland. The work isn't confirmed yet but should be in the next week or two. My two usual cutters aren't available on account of one being on holiday and the other operating a combine harvester for August and September. We'll be principally working in young larch clearfell. Staying on site, 12 hour days. Half of the day will be on the saw brashing and felling trees and the other 6 hours would be operating a (brand new) compact stroke processor (I'd suggest switching every hour or two). I've got a van with 240v power, fridge, microwave, solar shower etc, so you wouldn't be roughing it. I'll pay £200 a day with you supplying fuel and oil for the 6 hours you are on the saw. I expect a high standard of work and a good workrate, but I'm not a slave driver. If you're not confident of brashing and dropping 30 trees an hour (DBH 20cm) then please don't apply. Really nice, peaceful location, not too far from the M74 chance of repeat work for the right cutter. I'll be working on site at the same time extracting. Obviously, all certificates appropriate to small and medium trees please, as well as windblow and multiple windblow as one stand has some blown trees. Many thanks.

Nice big stick there Kav. Stack it somewhere cool and cover it in hessian sheeting. Periodically spray the sheeting with a hose. That should mitigate most of the checking issues.

How cheap? About £18k for the base model, but with all the extras (diesel motor being one of them) £23,500. In hairy young softwood, you're lucky to do 7-8 tonnes per day per man. Two men should be able to do 60 tonnes a day with the processor.

I've just ordered this machine, which should make life a bit easier in young stands: It's cheap and cheerful, but it's able to do a 16m tree in under a minute, which is many, many times quicker than a man with a saw.

Very nice. I like the trailer set up too.

That's actually a little higher than I'd thought. I've pitched it at £32/tonne so they should bite my hand off for that. If it was thinning, I'd ask for a bit more but give that it's a clearfell and a flat site, I should be able to make a decent profit at £32. Thanks for the input. It's much appreciated.

I'm interested to see the figures on this as well. I'm angling myself with my new business towards first and second thinning softwoods and young stand clearfells, specialising in sensitive sites. I'd like to avoid charging the customers for it, but if the figures don't add up, there might not be a choice!

The landowner wants to retain ownership of the timber, so I wouldn't be selling it myself. I have however been asked to put in a price to fell and extract per tonne. So the site is as follows. A 1.2 hectare block with 18 year old hybrid larch. Site is quite flat and dry, but is second rotation, so a bit stumpy. The previous crop stumps are more or less rotted though. The extraction route is where I have a USP. It's a soft, mossy, grassy glade. Minimum extraction route is 400m, with it being 700m to the far side of the stand. There are a couple of soft spots where I'd want to mat a bit of brash, even with my mini forwarder and tracks on. Larger machines would have absolutely no chance of getting in or out. The trees are an average of about 0.15-0.3 cubic metres, with some smaller and some around 0.5 cube. Planted at 1.9m spacings, unthinned and it's a clearfell. Some 3000 trees to come down. If you were pricing this job, what would you be thinking of per tonne to fell and extract? I have a price in my head.

It's the first of it's model run. Between myself and my friends, we've had about 7-8 stoves from them and I needed something larger to heat our whole house. As such, he just scales up the design and ours was born. He does still offer them on the website, but the Dominator listed is the 50cm version at 14kw. 20kw corresponds to the 70cm. Also very good for cooking on. Space on top (even with the fans) for a frying pan and 2 saucepans.

As we're moving down to Devon and have a stove already in the new house, I have no need for my present stove. I offered it to our landlords, but they are tight bar stewards and won't pay for anything. Anyway, it's a 20kw (or thereabouts) Dominator (named after the racing motorbike) stove from the Champion Stove Company. It's had 4 years of use, with some 150 cubic metres of wood put through it. It's in good operational condition, but would benefit from a quick respray before being installed. Negative points are that it could do with a new fire brick at the back of the stove (you could easily order one from Martin Champion) and the baffle plate is somewhat warped. It has no affect on the operation of the stove at all. We've always been really careful with using the fire and have always used a flue thermometer. It has only ever been overfired twice, and each time only for a minute or two. In four years of operation, 9 months a year, that's no bad! It's a brilliant stove. Super simple to use and takes a 26 inch log. Will easily burn overnight on softwood, and really quite efficient. It's provided 95% of the heat for our 200 year old 125 square metre cottage for the last 4 years and is ideal for a tree surgeon with lumpy, horrible firewood as it will take such a large log. It would come with a bespoke and very heavy duty fire guard, made for us by a local blacksmith costing £200. It would also come with two stove fans. One is a Stovax that is a little slow now, and the other is an Aldi fan that works really well. Also a short section of flue would come with it. £350 seem reasonable? Could bring is south, and deliver/meet someone anywhere on the way from Edinburgh to Devon.

Understood. Nevertheless, the apparent shortage of softwood in the north seems to have resulted in significantly higher prices here.

I think that it must be a lot higher in the north of the UK. I've not heard of anything under £40 a tonne delivered lately.

On closer inspection, if appears the trees are a little larger than originally thought, so there would probably be a number of loads of 3.1m lengths with an 18cm TDUB. How much higher would you price that than the chipwood? Could probably extend to 3.7m if required.

Could be a possibility. Would fit on the forwarder, and would mean I could run a much lower load (as in height - better stability) out and still maintain the tonnage.

It's a long extraction route on this job (from the far corner of the stand to the roadside is 650-700m), so I was simply thinking of the best way to maximise the efficiency in extraction. 3m would be fine thought too. That being said, most of the hauliers use artics up here, and you'd get at least 3 bays at 3.5m, which with fresh larch would see you up to 25t. I'll stick to 3m though if I get it.

Not far from Dumfries.

3.5m is the length of the bogey on the forwarder. Fair point though. I've still got my sawmill hat on regarding pricing. Watching the price of softwood go up is unpleasant when you are at the paying end of the increase!

Yep, figured that too. I'd do a short day on the Friday to keep me legal. That being said, I'd probably be staying on site, so would have no drive in the morning, and thus the start of my working day would be undefinable. It irritates me tremendously that the people towing badly loaded caravans and horse boxes twice a year (that in my mind represent a much greater public safety risk) are no subject to any such regulation.

Sveriges - are you operating in Sweden of the UK? I'm not looking forward to it, but don't have any choice other than to 'tacho up'

Just got off the phone with a contractor and he was reckoning £40. Madness really.

Just looking at a large job in the south of Scotland and wanted to get an idea of the roadside value of larch chipwood. 3.5m lengths probably, down to a 75mm top, maximum diamter 300mm exceptionally, but more like 250mm generally. 600 odd tonnes on the job. Good access for artics and not too far from arterial routes. Can only be done by very low impact machines, so trying to figure out the economy of the job. I know that the value of chip wood is very high at the moment but I don't know what it is presently. Thanks in advance.

Yes. It's a brilliant, but increasingly expensive toy/tool/manliness enhancer.

As we all know, the laws regarding tachos are as clear as mud, but even through the murkiness of UK vehicle law, I think I need a tacho. Moving down to Devon next month, giving up sawmilling (on a commercial basis) and going back into low impact forestry. Have a mini forwarder coming from Finland, and my original plan was to stay within 100km of my base in Devon and not need a tacho. However, there appears to be huge amounts of work in Southern Scotland, some of which could prove fairly lucrative. This would mean a 300 mile commute in each direction. I'd only plan to do a week a month, but it's that long distance haul that is going to put me on the wrong side of the tacho law I think. Are there any exceptions for towing plant? Any forestry exceptions? Anything I can use as a work around to avoid having to spend £1400 on a little electronic supervisor for me and my driving? I don't mind that much, but this forestry van is starting to get a bit expensive with all the extras added to it!