Big J

No, no and no. Very basic four wheel drive. Use it on road at risk to your propshafts and diffs!

Supply and demand I suppose. There aren't many people around here with very small machines (the Alstor and the Bison are both 4ft wide) and the terrain can sometimes be difficult. A Bruunett and Vimek would be too large and too heavy - the stands look terrible if you have to cut to allow access for such big machines. We used to cut hardwood firewood at roughly 15 lengths to the tonne. So that means 30 lengths to the bogey load. Cutter will stack the smaller lengths and bigger lengths will be one to the lift anyway. So maybe 10 grabs and you're done. Average extraction route length was about yards at most. I'm not saying I'd manage anywhere near that turnaround speed initially, but the chap we used to use was 20-30 minutes per load, reliably.

I think the Alstor weighed in at 1300kg if memory serves. As you say, they have their place. Good for low impact sites, first and second thinnings and small jobs. You only need an Ifor trailer to get them to site, removing all haulage costs.

We used to have an Alstor following us round on the hardwood. He'd regularly do 40 tonnes. 30 tonnes is only 15 loads (one every 34 minutes on an 8.5hr day).

Fully specced Bison 6000 (no processor price available that I can see) is £25k. 30t a day at £10 a tonne should see a reasonable return.

And a dedicated little processor:

Having stopped doing forestry a year and a half ago to focus on sawmilling, I must admit that I sometimes miss it, and I'm hoping to do a limited amount of it again on the basis of purchasing standing timber and managing the job, selling the timber etc. Part of that requires extraction, and I've always been taken with mini forwarders. The Kranman Bison always struck me as good value and I was wondering if anyone had any experience of them? I have a friend who I think I stand a sporting chance of persuading to buy one. Separately, them seem to have a prototype processor attachment, which I think would be great for the smaller diameter softwoods we have so much of up here. Here is a video of it in action: Thoughts?

I'm pretty sure that Sweden is regarded as the least religious place in the world. With lots of trees, Gransfors axes and the native blonde lady population perhaps I should emigrate!

If there was such a country of 'Anti religious Darwinism', I'd be filing my papers for emigration to this land of logic and common sense first thing tomorrow. The thread is being rapidly derailed. A new thread entitled Creationism versus Evolution could be started, but given this is mainly a UK forum, it could be quite one sided!

Well in an ideal world, everyone should do their job for the love of it, and not for the money I suppose. I don't see an issue with doing it for both!

I guess the difference with tree work is that there is always a cool toy/bit of machinery that eats the profit!

Never mind U bolts, I've sheared two of the main aluminium brackets double end chainsaw milling. The mill struggles with 17 and a half horse power running through it.

Sorry, I thought you said Popular Chopin!

Definitely not good Beau. Erected 255ft of 6ft fencing at the yard today. Holes dug yesterday, posts in place, ready mix concrete truck into the yard first thing and away we went. As soon as all the posts were in, we started back at the other end with the rails. By the time we were done with the rails, started at the other end with the boards and finished at 1630. A solid days work!

Not likely to be very stable as crown cut. It will be inclined to cup fairly seriously. If it were the only length there, then perhaps you'd take a few slices off it, but given that there is a reasonable second length (I'd probably mill it), that's what I'd put the time into and I'd firewood the main butt. Remember, it's just as much work (and usually more) to convert a crap log into boards for only a fraction of the return. Stick to the best logs and you'll have far fewer issues in the log term.

Just not worth it Mark. With the volume of sound wood above, you're better focusing on that and firewooding the rest. Of all the viable hardwood timbers, beech has the lowest value.

All my sawdust (from the sawmill, not processor) goes to horsey types. It's finer, but as it's not bone dry, seems not present any issues for the beasts. I give mine away (usually a total of about 1-2 bags a week).

It's like they made one to his spec!

se7enthdevil tends to get timber at a very low price, so you can get a bit more than that for it. I find that in my area, I'm quite cheap (possibly why Steve sometimes buys timber from me!). If you don't have a kiln, it will limit your market. Kilns are simple to build - I've posted a thread here on Arbtalk about how to build one. Regarding prices per cube, this is what I tend to charge on average. First price is green, the second kiln dried. Air dried would be somewhere in the middle. Oak: £18/38 Beech: £10/22 Sycamore: £12/28 Elm: £15/35 Ash: £12/26 Douglas fir: £8/14 Larch: £7/14 Spruce: £7/13 I'm VAT registered, so all those prices would be plus VAT. Jonathan

I draw the parallel with engineers in order to try to instill a sense of perspective with regards to the pay package. My brother is a civil engineer, 5 years experienced now, obviously did a Ba degree to get started, is now incorporated, has started his masters and is on the road to becoming chartered, at which point he might start to get close to earning £45k. What I'm saying is that whilst yes, good climbers are worth good money, they aren't worth £45k on PAYE. If it's your own business and you assume the risk, the debt, the responsibility for finding work then you have the justification to earn as much as you can. If you are just an employee, then no, definitely not.

I'd be inclined to ring up the first length with the rot and mill the second length with the branches. Better to have solid boards with the odd branch than half rotten boards with straight grain.

£45000 a year PAYE is lunacy for a job that takes about a month to qualify for. That's relatively senior civil engineer money. A sense of perspective is required I think chaps. I think if Beechwood is offering up to £30k a year plus benefits, he should have no problems filling the vacancy. PAYE is a very different kettle of fish to self employed.

No one is certain what causes it. Elm from sandy soil is supposed to have major problems, but I had 50 tonnes last month from a sandy site and it was fine

Guide for buying logs: Things to look out for with all species: When buying logs (or indeed deciding what goes into the firewood pile or what you are going to mill, if you don't buy your logs) there are criteria that apply to all species. These are some (though it's not an exhaustive list!): * Ring shake: This is where you find cracks that run along the growth rings of the tree. This is the most serious form of shake, and seriously ring shaken trees are not worth milling due to fractured boards. This is what ring shake looks like: I've found it to be most prevalent in Sweet Chestnut - I've looked at many SC logs and only milled one. * Star shake: Not as serious as ring shake, but severely shaken trees can still be a lost cause. Seems to be worst (in my experience) in oak up here. I wouldn't automatically disregard a star shaken log, but I'd look carefully at both ends. If you can't easily see the top end of a log, look at any larger branch stubs as the shake will still be visible through the branch stubs if it is present. * Twist: Very few trees grow completely straight. It's the degree of twist that causes the issue. The best way to judge twist is to follow the pattern of the bark. Severely twisted trees tend to come from sites that are exposed or subject to other stresses. As such (for this moment ignoring the fact that the twist will result in boards that will twist the moment they are cut), trees like this should be avoided. * Off centre heart: If you haven't seen the tree standing, you can still get a very good idea of how it grew by the position of the heart. In an ideal world, you would only mill logs with a dead centre heart, as these trees will yield boards that are most stable. A severely miscentred heart will mean huge tension in the log and result in boards that move a huge amount both on the mill and in drying. This is accentuated with softwoods - you won't believe the movement in milling larch with off centre hearts. * Rot: Don't automatically disregard logs with rot. It might not extend as far as you think, and in some species (like elm) it's thought that rot can cause more colourful figure further up the tree. That said, on commonly available, lower value timber, firewood a half rotted log as it's not worth the effort. * Metal: Metal is sometimes obvious, usually not. Look for usual lines across the butt (this often means fence wire), look at the position the tree grew in and look at the butt for discolouration (blue stain from metal is only really apparent in oak, but other species can give metal away sometimes). Accept that garden trees nearly always have metal in them, pray it's not too severe and don't bother with a metal detector as they really aren't that good. * Branching: The number of acceptable branches on a log depends on your customers. If you are selling quartersawn oak, the number of acceptable branches is zero, or as close as is damn it. Garden furniture is the other end of the scale. Sometimes branching results in stunning figure - the difficulty comes later in getting it to dry flat and machining it. Very branchy logs at my yard usually end up as mantle pieces. * Amount of time felled: For some species, a tree that has been down for a couple of years is better (oak for instance). For others (sycamore and pine mainly), it can be disastrous. Sycamore is very prone to grey staining and will grey within a couple of months of being felled, even if felled in winter. Pine goes blue. Get the right tree at the right time of year, and make sure you don't sit on it for too long if you can. Spruce is another one - dries fairly quickly in the round and becomes very hard to cut flat once part dried. That's about all that springs to mind at the moment - do add to it!

I think one of the things that is going to cause headaches is possible discrimination cases in our industry. I'll set the scene: You advertise for a job, interviewee comes along (looks OK on paper) and they are massive. The might have some tickets and on paper experience, but we all know that really means nothing. Who is going to employ someone who is by the nature of their obesity is going to struggle with the physical tasks of day to day work? You can't easily say "Lose 5 stone and come back to me" though can you? On principle, I wouldn't employ anyone with a serious weight problem. They are not going to be able to keep up carrying all that extra weight, and frankly I don't have time to hear their excuses about slow metabolisms and big bones. Anyone with an actual disability causing their weight problem should know better than to seek employment in areas of work where it's going to be a major issue. We all have our limitations. My back and leg injury are such that I cannot stand still for long periods without a lot of pain. Consequently, I'm not going to sue a nightclub for not providing me with a chair for manning their doors....