Big J
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Everything posted by Big J
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Mini forwarder at home in hardwoods
Big J replied to Big J's topic in Forestry and Woodland management
Sorry for the delay in coming back to you - very busy on site at the moment. The Megamax is indeed a very exciting project and a huge development undertaking for Logbullet. What's interesting about a machine of this size (4-5t) is that is very much still fits the criteria of being a low impact machine, but it almost twice as productive. That's my experience from running the Vimek 610.2. Obviously, it can't be transported from site to site by car trailer, so it's best suited to larger jobs. The haulage cost isn't that much though, so for instance, on my present job it'll equate to about £0.30 on each tonne. -
I do 90% of my work mileage in my 19 plate Citroen Berlingo. It's practical, comfortable and reliable, as well as being fairly quick and cheap to run. The remainder is in my 2006 V10 Touareg, which I use for occasional heavy towing and site visits. It's not cheap to run, isn't 100% reliable (it's 15 years old) but it's extremely comfortable and very rapid indeed. It puts a smile on my face. Now and again I drive my wife's car, which is a 2016 4x4 Seat Leon X-perience. It's essentially a VW Golf estate on stilts with 4 wheel drive and a tuned GTD powertrain. That's also a right giggle to drive, but it usually stuffed to the gunnels with my wife's and children's stuff, so I stick to my two vehicles.
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I do. I don't like day rates as it seems like a payment for attendance, rather than work done. If I'm on hourly on the forwarder, I almost never stop. Doing days for the National Trust over winter on hourly, I took two 15 minute breaks for food over a usually 8-9hr day. If I'm working for myself, on my own time, I'm much more relaxed. It's my time I'm wasting then. Also, given that I usually ask for longer days than most (07:30 to 17:00 is standard), it seems only fair to pay for that extra time.
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I'm honoured to have my name dragged back into this 😄 Fundamentally, the contractor pays for recovery and doesn't charge for the time if it's his (or by extension, his staff's) fault that the MEWP got stuck. If the customer insisted on putting the MEWP into that position, against the vocalised better judgement of the contractor, then the customer should pay. I don't think that scenario 2 is very likely though, and thinking about my own machines, I wouldn't allow a customer to push me into a position where I thought that my safety (or that of my machines or subbies) was compromised.
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For me it depends on the circumstances prior to the MEWP getting stuck. If he pressured you into pushing the machine into an area where you highlighted a strong chance of getting stuck (and you proceeded against your better judgement) then he should pay. Given that I think that it's unlikely that that happened, I don't feel that he can be charged for either the recovery or the day. When I'm on an hourly rate on the forwarder (I don't do day rate, only hourly), the clock stops for any kind of repair on the machine unless it takes less than 30 minutes. So burst pipes even aren't charged for. This is why I charge hourly rather than daily, as down time is fairly common.
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That's some going 😄 I've had it show 4.3mpg for a little while when full throttle accelerating up Great Haldon Hill (A38 southbound below Exeter) with a heavy trailer. Problem is that you can't do that for long as you rapidly close in on the speed limit despite the 1 in 8 incline. I've never really tested the 4x4 capability on it as I'm too precious with it.
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I've had up to 32mpg on a long run up to Scotland, but I was only doing about 63mph and I was bored stupid. Over 600 miles from the admittedly rather large tank. 23mpg is standard for general, local hoonery.
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That's pretty much exactly what the Touareg does. 15mpg is spirited driving with 3.5t behind. 28mpg is a steady 70mph on the motorway.
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Bah. Amaroks are little baby cars for little babies. The Touareg V10 is where it's at 😎
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To an extent, yes. But also no. As I said earlier, I've seen birch in Finland where it's simply grown as a weed on waste ground and has a form that is simply unobtainable in the UK. Similarly, scots pine in Sweden grows absolutely, completely straight. It just won't do that here. Management is certainly part of it, but the level of managerial input needs to be much higher here (I feel) and the results are far from guaranteed.
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Interesting thought and I can't argue against it, but would then cite my various visits to Germany (good soil) where the forestry is generally excellent.
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I appreciate that. So what's your explanation for the rapidly grown, but poor quality timber in the UK?
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Most of the forestry here in Devon is planted on such marginal land. There is also loads of spruce on sites that are completely unsuitable. We're working in a bark beetle infested stand at the moment, which I feel is exacerbated by the extremely dry nature of the hill top. Drought stress makes for a happy bark beetle.
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Thanks for that. I shall have a look. I started out on second thinnings on hardwoods, handfelling. Ran a sawmill for 7 years, whilst doing larger diseased elm and sometimes specimen softwood harvesting jobs in Morayshire and the Highlands. Then moved to Devon and do a wide range of forestry. The variations are really interesting, and there certainly is some good quality timber here, but it's a lot of work to get it to that state. You do notice that even just a couple of counties east of us that the oak (particularly) improves no end.
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I agree that it's more complex, but my understanding so far is that the increased wind speed, decreased quality of sunlight in summer and the lack of a dormant season contributes substantially to our rapidly grown, but generally low quality timber. Please educate me on this - I do find it very interesting and it's something I'd like to know more about. I know a little more about silviculture than is needed to be a harvesting contractor, but would not describe myself as a forester. I'm only reflecting on my own limited knowledge in the field and my more extensive empirical observations from being both a harvesting contractor and sawmill owner. I posted a photo of some first thinning spruce from Cornwall on a Swedish forestry group and it was described as balsa wood 😄
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Interesting bit of trivia. A platypus can both lay eggs and produce milk, meaning that it's the only animal able to make it's own custard. That's fresh custard, mind you. Powdered custard is made by Birds.
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More consistent sunlight. The excessive cloud cover here seems to result in more branching as trees strive for light. A brief comparison on this website: Sunshine & Daylight Hours in Stockholm, Sweden Sunlight, Cloud & Day length WWW.STOCKHOLM.CLIMATEMPS.COM Indicates that over summer, Stockholm gets 40-50% more sunshine than Plymouth. I'm entirely open to your hypothesises Mike, but empirically, tree quality is hard to attain in the UK. You can do everything right (good seed stock, suitable ground, correct thinning regime) and still end up with a stand of crap. In Finland, birch grows absolutely perfectly as a weed.
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I believe that the best conifer stands are at higher altitude though? Also, the quality of their summers are better. It'd be interesting to see studies comparing growth rates and timber quality in species such as sitka in their natural ranges versus the UK. Spruce is a wonderful timber and can be of exquisite quality. Soundwood from the Dolomites for violins springs to mind. Our forestry industry in the UK is set up for maximum production with timber quality as a distantly secondary concern. I'm not complaining about it - far from it (I plant a lot of eucalyptus nitens). I'm just pointing out the differences.
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Very windy when compared to more continental locations, though obviously there is local variation. Even in the centre of blocks, you get much more wind stress here than Scandinavia. The softwood blocks I've seen in Finland, Sweden and Germany look like lightly garnished snooker cues. Edit: I should add that we get much better growth rates on the whole, due to the lack of a winter, but if quality is the goal then maximum growth isn't ideal.
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It's still relatively poor quality in the Highlands - just good compared to the rest of the UK (for conifer, in the main). The wind is the biggest issue, I feel. We just have so so much more here than continental Europe, Scandinavia and I presume North America. Wood under constant wind stress has to compensate in ways that don't make for a good saw log.
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Morayshire just grows really good timber. Lots of sunlight in summer, cold winters and fairly well sheltered on account of the Cairngorm. My comments related simply to timber quality. The growth rates of timber down here are bonkers, and unparalleled within the UK. It just doesn't translate to quality unfortunately.
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And WRC grown down here in the West Country can't hold a candle to the stuff I've felled and milled from the Highlands or Morayshire. It's the lack of a dormant season (mild winters) combined with continuous wind stress (causing compression and tension wood growth, as well as much larger basal diameters) combined with the lack of quality sunlight (causing more substantial branch growth) that gives us our often dodgy quality timber in the UK.
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Prices for next year? No idea. Twelvty million dollars per bushel 😄
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Haha 😄 Nonsense - there are midges aplenty everywhere in Bonnie Scotland. I've been mauled sat in my friends garden in the middle of Queensferry. I see them very, very occasionally down here, but it needs to be a damp, still day in a woodland, and even then it's only a few.
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It might be just about viable to send the logs to Helmdon Sawmills at Brackley in Northamptonshire, if they are sufficiently large. It's sad that poplar has such a poor market. Beautiful trees.
