Stereo

Thanks for more input. I take from this: 1. Have fair postage and have it up front so you know what you will pay before you get halfway through checkout. 2. Bundle deals are popular. 3. Customer loyalty is a 2 way street and should be rewarded. 4. A free P+P over say £50 is appreciated. Re. Northern Ireland / offshore etc. it's a tricky one. I can understand people in these areas getting P'd off but many UK couriers put big restrictions and surcharges on these areas. We have been lucky in that we cut a deal with DHL where we could send 30kg anywhere in the UK for £3.60 because we were sending 200+ parcels a day. Unfortunately, they have now been bought out by HDNL and have become a waste of time. Every other courier we have spoken to want a hefty surcharge to anywhere which needs a water crossing. It's not the sellers who don't want to sell to you guys, it's the couriers. That said, many sellers could try a little harder to offer an option, as we do, even if it costs a little more.

Hence the quotes around 'free'.

Don't forget there was no interweb back then. We had to make our own entertainment.

The RHI payments are quite significant though, especially if you can source 'free' wood as you say. Well worth a look I think OP. Eco Angus have some stuff on their site about RHI and some vids on Youtube of the boiler. There are plenty of other makes as well.

Used to come in a clay jug when I was a boy.

Oh and don't forget to check out the new government payment schemes. Can't remember what they are called but it could be very worthwhile if your new equipment qualifies.

We have an esse W23 and are a bit dissapointed to be honest. It's nice to have burning away and provides ambient heat and cooking and I'm sure adds to the hot water but not as much as I would like. Looking at an eco Angus to heat our expensive heat store which the Esse doesn't.

That stuff will rot you from the inside out you know. Down here in Devon, most of the neighbouring farms used to brew up some hairy scrumpy every year. Walter up the road used to throw a few dead rats he'd shot in the mix to give it some flavour. Cheaper than a pork joint but the bones were more tricky to pick out at the end. I remember as a boy cutting rides in the woods for the shoot and being subjected to it at lunchtime on a sunny day. Most of us woke up around nightfall. Some maybe still there.

I guess it comes down to what you expect in terms of service. If I go to my local hardware store and buy some Draper tools, I will expect to pay list price. But I can see them, touch them and talk to somebody about them. On the web, you expect to pay less (maybe up to 40% less) because there is more risk as a buyer, even if you can send it back, it's a hassle. The problem with this is that everyone wants the lowest price and expects shop style service (or is this not the case?). It's an endless dilema for us. People want us to pick up the phone in 3 rings and sort everything there and then but they also want us to match Amazon's prices and think we are trying to rip them off when we explain that the it costs big time to have a person sitting on a phone all day and that a non dedicated phone service means that someone elses order isn't going to get packed that day. To be honest we've always majored on price as a way of getting sales. It's a one way street though, a race to the bottom as they say. What I want to know is can we have that person on the phone all day and will customers be prepared to pay a bit extra for that level of service? I like your idea Bob about accounts for high spending customers. We don't mind if we take the odd loss on an order for a good customer as long as they are happy and we make enough overall to pay our staff and keep the bank manager at bay.

It does mean we would make more on multiple item orders, yes. I'm not going to deny that. We are not trying to rip anyone off. We just want to offer what people want.

I have got an A level in maths but the only pie I can get my head around these days has chunks of steak and gravy in it. Too much beer under the bridge methinks.

Alder will season in no time. I think you have to be a bit careful as it will rot if left out in the air for a year or so. That's what I was told anyway. It's a good firewood though as it splits easily and dries quickly. Plus it coppices like mad and grows super quickly. I have half an acre of alder coppice on the go at the moment. Just felled all the trees last winter and the shoots are taller than me already. Problem is they love boggy ground so we can only harvest when it's frozen solid or in the summer when you get eaten by flies.

I have mentioned on here before that I run a retail company selling tools through our website and you guys would be in our target audience. Again, no intention to plug and I will not reveal the site as this is not intended to be spam. If this question is against forum rules, please feel free to let me know / remove it etc. We are looking to revamp the site and are thinking about offering free delivery on everything. The upside of this to the customer is a very simple pricing structure ie. the price is the price delivered to the door. The downside is that prices are higher and you pay more for multiple item orders (so a courier delivery is built into a drill but it wouldn't cost us twice as much to send a grinder as well.) The other downside is that there would have to be a minimum order amount of say £10 as we can't build shipping costs into small items such as spanners / sockets etc without having silly high prices on them. So, do you look for fair pricing and fair delivery charges? Do you like the idea of a site where postage is free on everything (as eBay and Amazon are going these days). Or do you go for a fair basic charge with a 'free over £50' type of deal? Thanks for your answers if you can spare the time.

My Dewalt 18v Lithium has done endless days of work and is still as tight as the day it was new. It's a brilliant drill. Makita and Hitachi are very good as well. Avoid the cheap stuff like Silverline, AM-Tech etc. The batteries are absolute rubbish.

Washing your hands too much can cause probs. I've found this since having kids. Looking after 3 under 5 for a day, you are going to wash your hands a lot. This seems to weaken or soften the skin quite a bit. I had all 3 the other day and then spent the evening busting concrete with the bar iron. My hands were a mess afterwards. I use that E45 cream a couple times a day in the winter which seems to keep the skin supple enough to stop blistering and going hard.

Thanks guys.

Take an oak tree, freshly felled. It's 20" in diameter at the base and about 35 feet tall. The branches have been removed. What would be a good estimate of the weight of the main stem?

Thanks for the comments. The point about billets was that I have found it much faster to log up smaller stuff (up to 4" dia) using my GMC mitre chop saw than a chainsaw. Probably safer as well. I have been bringing the lengths back in the hilux and then chopping them on the table directly into a trolley for taking to the stack. Saves the back as well I find. So I thought it would be quicker to cut and split into long, thin lengths and leave these to season with the final processing being with the chop saw in the workshop. I suppose the key is that I have never owned a decent splitter and rely on the maul so that's maybe what I need to to look at.

I've got a pretty standard Husqvarna plastic 'forestry helmet' with built in mesh and muffs. Is this up to the job do you reckon? I have heard some pretty horrific stories of branches spearing down. The rest of my family think I'm a poofter going out in proper boots, clothing and hat. They go for wellies and jeans! I've got 3 small kids who kind of need me though so looking cool comes second for me. OP, when you say 'hard hat', what were you wearing? Glad you are OK by they way.

I run a business and we spend a lot of time thinking about how to shave cost here and there. How to avoid staff walking a long way repeatedly, to avoid having to move through doors time and again etc. etc. But I've realised that all I do for my own firewood production is fell a tree, chop it into 10" long rounds and then either bring that back in the hilux and split later or chop it in the field with a maul and then load into the hilux and unload into the barn. To be honest, it takes too long and I feel there is far too much handling of the wood. Whats the process that most of you arb guys follow to get from standing tree to pile of logs? Would be interested to hear. We have plenty of woodland so supply is not an issue. My own feelings are fell, log the branches and the trunk into 1m lengths. Split anything which needs splitting there and then with a vertical splitter (power source is an issue here without spending out on a diesel or PTO one). Then stack the lengths (billets?) on pallets in the wood / field to season. When required, saw into log lengths. The reason I ask is that we are strongly considering heating our business premises with a wood gasifying boiler from next winter so demand is going to go up and I'm not getting any younger!

One thing I try to remember is that each and every person in the audience is a human as well, probably shares your fear and many will know full well what it takes to get up there. It's the fear of the laughing at you en-masse I suppose. they won't though. When I'm in the crowd, I always respect the speaker because I put myself in their shoes and know it takes guts for most of us. 99% of the crowd will fell the same way I think. Second, I use a strategy. I'm not an extrovert, I'm a quiet kind of guy. So, if I have to do anything like this, I invent a character and play him. He's not afraid, he's just going to do it and they are going to listen. I have done this before and people have said they were amazed that I had it in me. The key is that it wasn't me, it was this other plonker who thinks he's the biz. Third of course is preperation. Have something to say and have plenty of back up material as well which you don't plan to use but can call on. Lastly, I would say is practice your speaking. The worst thing you can do is um and ah. Better to speak slowly and clearly than be umming every other word. This is the thing which comes across so badly if you think about it. Practice prescision and pause rather than um. Hope this helps and good luck plus respect for having the balls to get up there.

We used to run a bench like that from a Major as well. Big flat belt flapping about like crazy and no guards or anything. My dad and uncle george feeding in the wood and us boys picking up the finished logs for splitting. Looking back, the belt itself was insanely dangerous and could have maimed or killed anyone within spitting distance. A guy up the road has our Major now and is rebuilding it to as new spec apparently. I don't really miss it. It was a b$%£$rd to get in gear and all I ever used to get to do with it was scoop up cow business.

Wow, thanks for so many replies. De-walt, Makita and Bahco are already on our hit list but I will investigate all the rest, particularly the axe brands. We have sold more Silverline mauls this winter than I care to think about. Literally hundreds of them. I only realised the other day that the maul I have been using for years is a Silverline one and it's been used and abused but still goes on. The key we find with cheap tools such as Silverline / AM-Tech / Rolson / JEK etc is to choose the ones without moving parts. A Silverline 3/4" socket set may not be a thing of wonder when you look at the castings but it will likely do 99% of a set costing 20 times the price without breaking. A £30 Silverline cordless drill on the other hand is soon going to let you down. If you don't end up sending it back it will be on charge half the time you are using it where a De-walt 18v Lithium drill will drive 100mm screws in all day long on a single charge. It's worth noting that 99% of the cheap brands come out of exactly the same factories and usually only differ in colour and branding.

I run a hardware / tools website and we are starting to sell a lot more axes / mauls / hatchets etc. It's an area of interest to me and I would like to move the site in this direction. I'm not going to mention the site here as that would be spamming so please don't ask. Plus it's still a bit unfinished as we are so busy with orders we never get to worl on categorizing products etc. So, at the mo our main brand is Draper which is a good standard range of tools and we also do some Silverline stuff which is not so great but very popular. We want to move into more of the really good brands. Stuff we can stand by. Some of the things we send out is a bit embarrasing to be honest but people want it and don't seem to complain. It's not what I want to do though. What I would like to do is know what kind of brands you guys look for when you need an axe, a maul, a new chain, protective gear and so on. We don't really do big stuff as it all goes out with City Link although we can do pallets. As I said, this is not an advertising post but your thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks

There's always 10 times times as much brash as you think there is going to be. That may be your major headache.