doobin

No, no, no. The last thing you want is an SDS or an impact driver. You don’t see oak framers using them for drilling the holes do you? I don’t understand why people think sds drills have loads of torque, they simply don’t as that’s not needed for concrete. you need sustained torque, not jolts of torque. You’ll just burn an sds up and an impact driver will just cam out with too much torque demanded of it. You need to be looking at something like the Milwaukee SuperHawg. Masses of torque and a nice long control handle. M18 FUEL™ SUPER HAWG™ 2-speed Right Angle Drill Driver Gen II | Cordless Drill Drivers | Milwaukee Tool UK UK.MILWAUKEETOOL.EU M18 FUEL™ SUPER HAWG™ 2-speed right angle drill driver gen II. Extremely long run time, up to 100 holes with a...

It’s been an amazing year for things that sometimes struggle with lack of sun/heat. I’m gutted my melons took an age to get started, it would have been a really good year for them and I fear they may not catch up. I left that marrow as a young courgette barely big enough to pick before I went away for five days. Came back to two big marrows plus loads of courgettes. Out of four plants this one is yielding the best by far. The yellow ones I’m really not keen on, funny shapes and get old before they get to a nice size. Aubergines looking the best they’ve ever been too, already ahead of the usual to medium fruits per plant offered up grudgingly at the end of the summer. The drip irrigation has really been key this season, and the weed membrane was the right thing to do also.

Larger, heavier blades. However most importantly an opening back and front to let taller thicker vegetation go under the deck without being flattened so much, and then be ejected easily behind once cut.

If you take out the mulch plate and let it shoot straight out the back on the rotary decks they are pretty good also.

Have you considered a subcompact tractor with a mid mounted rear-discharge deck? Pretty much the same thing as a ride on brushcutter but 4wd as standard and can be used for lots of other things. Independent brakes will make life easier also.

What brand were you running?

I fully agree. Add multione to the list also. I have an 8.4sk, it’s been good. Good value for money- will lift 1400kg+ with the back weights, but it’s a basic 26hp engine so no dpf issues, very economical to run and cheaper to buy. Still has two speed travel. An excellent machine for lifting and shifting.

Agree with mark, nice set of 10’ ramps for loading into your tipper. 10’ will sit nicely in the bed once loaded and are handy for bridging steps etc once on site. I wouldn’t go folding. Make sure you have some pins or similar locking the ramps to the truck body when loading! Don’t stand on the machine when loading, go up forwards standing behind it.

Developers are no doubt lobbying behind the scenes for more government ‘help for buyers’.

For that application I’d ring up rather than cone split any day. Easier and less mess. all assuming you o my want to make the timber into small enough bits for the digger to handle.

Tree won't even notice that smidge of damage from ivy removal. If your house is the white building in the background it looks from the pics that it won't even come close if it fell in that direction.

Bang on

A pleasant morning doing some very tight ash extraction. would have been a lot easier, cheaper, neater and more efficient if they’d just had me and the three tonner fell and extract the trees rather than task a gang of tree surgeons with a forestry operation but it’s by the hour so who cares.

That’s exactly how I see it, but you put it far more eloquently than me. Birders can be just as bad. Anywhere there is blanket legislation it becomes a game of top trumps, and associated ‘professional costs’ Take bracken control- only way is mechanical these days, and to be fair has been for a while on a lot of my work due to the landowners wishing to stay organic. That means three cuts throughout the growing season if you want to put it into remission. Trouble is, a nature reserve will normally be a a matrix of different habitats, including scrub. So there might be ground nesting things around. It’s probably only be a pheasant, but it might also be a nightjar. So on one hand you’ve got the birders kicking off about that. But on the other hand, the habitat in question is the last refuge of a red list insect in the UK. And if you don’t control the bracken, it goes extinct. But birders can claim top trumps- it’s an absolute offence to disturb any nesting bird. If it wasn’t for volunteer ornithologists and conservationists who tick the survey box each time we cut, either the work to save a species from extinction wouldn’t get done, or ‘professionals’ would be have to be engaged on the taxpayers pound. Charging more for strolling about with a clipboard than a contractor does for providing £60k of machinery. I like the suggestion about using AI and a camera to count and identify bats. Something like that is needed to bring down costs if we as a society decide that bats are worthy of such veneration. Don’t think I’m bashing conservation- it’s a mainstay of my work. The issue is the same as in many industries- gatekeeping and associated high costs being forced upon the rest of society by ill thought out legislation. Whilst I’m at it- badgers. Should be on the general license. No shortage of the bastards, and if we really care about ground nesting birds they are a major source of predation. By all means make it a capital offence to engage in badger baiting- but if we can control foxes then why are badgers any different?

Never had a tick on me (to the best of my knowledge) but I've just ordered five pairs of combined fine curved tweezers/slotted tool so I can keep a set in every vehicle.