APC

Ello, This is a bit of a rubbish question and I feel a little stupid asking it. I had a leaning ash today, about 20" diameter. It was leaning in the direction i wanted to drop it so I attempted a dogs tooth with it. My bar was 15" so after doing the gob cut then boring in from the compression side, I went around to the other side to bore in from that side too. This part went well, I felt the saw meet the cut on the other side so I was happy as it all seemed to be going to plan. I cut forwards to the hinge and then back to the final piece of wood. Then I cracked on with the final cut and was dismayed when a gust of wind took the tree back, pinching my saw. It wasn't going anywhere, totally stuck. Question is, what would be the best method of retrieving the saw? Wedges into the boring cuts perhaps? It surprised me that a tree with the obvious lean was able to sit back!! My boss took over at this point and dropped it back. It was my first medium tree done with a dogs tooth, I don't have CS32. I was initially chuffed when I married up the boring cuts from both sides. Now I'm annoyed! Any guidance would be well proper please!! Thank you!

False economy of the year award haha.

Whoah, that's not the point. He was vandalising county property for his own benefit. Whether it was up for renewal or not! The cheek of it!!!

Or I could just use my splitter! doh!

Just remembered got another massive amount of poplar standing at the moment, waiting to come down. I figure it might be sensible to hang up the axe and hire in a piece of kit to process it. I have never ever paid any attention to kinderling processers. Questions are: whats the largest diameter they can take? What is an approximate day rate? Any processers based in Hampshire/West Sussex/South Surrey for hire? Get in touch if possible please!! Many thanks!! Adam

yeah I like that!! I really must try and do something like that on a weekend!

Saw nets of kindling and same sized nets of hardwood logs for £5.00 a pop at Mottisfont Abbey on Sunday. The kindling bags were proper rammed and looked 10 times better value than petrol station prices. I'm looking at selling kindling next year as we have a fat stack of poplar in the yard. I can't find an "average" price for bags or units of it though. It seems to be £3-5 a 'bag' with quantities of actual kindling varying massively. The log price seems a pound overpriced in my opinion but if people buy at that price then there's the demand for it and it's fair. My kindling problem is how to process it economically. Got about 6m cube of poplar stacked up awaiting its fate. A bunch of it is going for chip but once I have the amount of chip I want then the rest is just taking up room. Handcutting it with a hand axe is pretty daunting. Are you looking at buying in cord and processing yourself or buying bulk processed gear? Or do you perhaps have some of your own materials? Regards, Adam

I'm not the most clued up on techy details on them all, but I've been (un?)lucky enough to drive all three over the last year after our Landie got chorred last summer. The Landie Defender had the pulling power to tow anything we wanted without breaking a sweat. It was second to none with mud tyres in the snow and didn't slide about unless I told it to. It did though have no heating, no blowers and was noisy as hell. It was sturdy as it was heavy. It drained fuel but it took punishment being driven at speed over massively uneven ground. The occasional knock in the yard would result in merely a dent and no damage to anything more than cosmetics. If you have difficulty getting in or out high vehicles, this could be a falling point as it is fairly high up. More so than the others by miles. The ranger is just like getting into my focus however. The Toyota Hilux would be what I would have if I had loadsamoney. Like I said earlier, it drives like a car. It wasn't too bad on fuel actually, better than the Landie but not as good as the Ranger. It had decent pull behind it and wasn't too bad at towing although with a full log load in the trailer, you noticed the difference quite considerably. It was a proper quiet and smooth drive. All the posh bits worked, e.g. heaters and electric windows. In the snow, with all-terrain tyres, it was pretty good. It slid around a bit more than the landie. I actually fully lost control for the first and only time when driving overconfidently at the beginning of the snow in December or November or whenever it bothered snowing. I turned off a main road onto a narrow lane with the sole intention of testing out its limits in snow. I wasn't aware I was "ragging it" and to be honest, I'm completely surprised the back end slid out on a gentle bend at quite a low speed, very nearly sending myself into a ditch. From that moment I realised it wasn't anything like the landie so treated it as such. I grew used to it though, driving it the 60mile round trip to and fro work, across solid ice and snow. I found myself overtaken by other people quite regularly but I'd been shown how easy it is to lose control, despite being in such a beast, in 4wd. Oh yeah, and a colleague drove it fairly fast over an uneven field and the front bumper came off, reminding him that it is very low to the ground compared to the Landie. Driven the ranger with road tyres for a few weeks now. It is pretty nice. Heater is good, stereo has decent speakers for a work vehicle (I can blare out techno at a reasonable level with hardly any distortion). Driven 90 miles with trailer on back today, even empty I could feel the weight behind me. Driven on fairly crap roads and on tracks around site. Obviously having road tyres you lose an element of grip but driven sensibly it is fine. I wouldn't take it into the fields though. This could be a problem when we come to feeding our animals. Hope that helps!

I was googling a question and this site came up. Saw that there was loads of experience on here and Q+A about every concievable topic so thought I'd join up.

Nice one guys! Thank you for the quick responses!!! I've got the parts on order, we'll see what turns up, then I'll have a play. I'm sure it's simple. Unfortunately simple things confuse me!

I'd say landrover. I find that rangers struggle a fair bit when towing anything apart from an empty trailer. hilux's are nice, like driving a massive car, but just aren't as ridiculously hardcore as a landie.

Sorted now. Walked into Waterstones and paid the inflated price.

Yo, Knackered the boot to fit the HT lead to the sparkplug. The spring/coil inside contorted when I pulled the plug out. Went to get a replacement thinking it's all one unit but turns out it's not. The lead had a few scuffs anyways so am replacing this piece too. Question is, when it comes to fitting it together, does the boot just push onto the HT lead, and then the HT lead into whatever that fits into (armature??). Is it a simple process or should I get ready to smack me head against a wall? Cheers Adam

dunno what weathers like yet. haven't dared stuck my head out the door. hopefully it will be clear as I wanna see the semi-eclipse. if it's cloudy then i'm just gonna recreate it in the office with jaffa cakes.

For that price you might as well get reinforced knuckles UK Tactical SI Assault Glove Khaki

Morning, Had a National Book Token for Christmas and was up for getting an arb related book. Problem is, I'm after Principales of Tree Hazard Management and it seems pretty difficult to get hold of for a reasonable price. I've tracked it down to between £30-35 at a few online retailers (I can't find it in store anywhere within 50 miles). It seems though that noone will take the book token through online stores, which is a pain in the bum. So really, does anyone know of any online shops that do allow you to use book tokens? Waterstones, Amazon, British Book Stores don't seem to have the option of buying with National Book Tokens. Any help would be well proper. Cheers, Adam

Absolutely this. Many mouth/throat infections can be treated with water as hot and salty as you can manage! <edit>: this won't work for abcesses at all but will nuke ulcers and sore throats.

Seriously Matt, your team seems to find itself in all sorts of hairy situations on a regular basis. It's quite scary really. I work at a park situated between 3 of the worst deprived wards in the UK (bottom 10% in country for crime, education, income, inequality, health, employment and environment) and we don't get ourselves into half as many scrapes as you guys!! Having said now, I'll probably get a bat around the face in the next few days!

If I was to start using my garage to store logs for sale, what do I need to do? I imagine it would include self assessment for tax.

Finish tomorrow around 3-4ish. Back to work around 6am Boxing Day morning. Strictly hardcore.

thorns under nails arrrrgghhhhhhhhhh.

Could it be the alternator being duff and not charging the battery?

I provided a glass-blowing friend with a load of cherry for making casts or something. Alder is also good for this apparently. I'm not entirely sure how they use it though.

My wife tries, she really does.

Yeah, stumps with roots cut off too, upside down.