doobin

Hell yes, if there’s a transformer 150m away it’s a no brainer. Save all this messing around, save diesel and you’re future proofed for things like a mill.

Yes, but both are useless in this game without spending a pretty penny on attachments. You can’t just rent a digger with tiltrotator, timber grab, post knocker and ripper either. I've just spent half an hour tracking to the burn site and back a few times with bundles of brash. Loader would have been much quicker (but wouldn’t have gathered it up from the other side of the ditch.) Now I’m using a tilt grader to smear damp clay into a batter. Loader would be useless. I can’t win either way, but digger wins on overall versatility for me. If Kev had been using a grab rather than chasing it around I’d have kept my mouth shut ?

Meh, I almost bought an Avant rather than a digger for a first machine. I guess you get used to what you have. If you watched me rake a site for seed with my 2.8 tonner you’d probably say it’s rubbish for that compared to a multione, and to be fair it might be. I just saw that job above as much more of a digger job, but to be fair the profit is what counts.

Sorry mate but watching you chase those little plants around with that was painful... give me a 360 and grab any day of the week. Just being honest, I can see the usefulness on larger areas though.

Yes but have you checked the flux capacitor?

Come on man, he'd have been given the blood of aborted fetuses if that was a cure!

Hihgly doubt it. The weight is held by a comparatively tiny ram, and the kinetic energy as such will give it precedence over the secondary flow. Both mine work absoloutely fine double acting. Dead ending is only really a problem with a relief valve that's not working right. You could also tweak your aux relief valve to kick in a touch earlier if this won't affect any other implements you run.

I never have the revs flat out so it doesn't worry me. If you were bothered by it then the simplest work-around would probably be to connect a line to the second aux and take it with a one way valve in the line tee'd to the knocker hose. As you pressurise the knocker the one way valve stops it taking the easier route through that serviced. But when you return to tank then the other aux hose can dump straight into the first as per normal.

I never bother setting either of my machines to single acting when using the knocker, and both work fine. It's a tiny ram.

Regular mowing will work fine. Look at roadside verges- full of bracken but no bracken in the 1m strip mowed by the council!

What use is 3.3kva when it's a 10kva generator? Might as well buy a cheap little generator if that's all you need.

How do you see the plumb line in both directions Matt? I can tell plumb left to right from the digger no bother, but have to get out and check before the last few hits to make sure of the other way if I'm on my own. Luckily backwards and forwards you can sort easily on the last few hits.

Yup, they’re very quick for knocking in line posts. Mine allows me to make good money at meterage rates the half dozen times a year I do field fencing. Much more versatile than a tractor, as half the time you need the digger to clear the old fence line anyhow.

Good idea.

Andy's idea.

Bloody hell, what happened?

You should be able to run a heavy enough weight if you go for a simple one with not much adjustment, keeping the weight close coupled to the machine.

I'll be at the yard today having a catch up. Back to it next week- make hay whilst the sun shines- ie, whilst the weather is good, people still have money and we're still allowed to work outdoors!

Are you any good at them? When this is over we should play a few tunes ??

So long as Parker steel remain open?

I'm in a similar boat, but the difference that stands out for me is that I've had (and have) finance plus bank loans. Financing new machines was the thing that really got me going, to the point where I reckon I can weather this OK. I've emailed this morning asking for 6 month payment holidays just because. The promised SE grant will be towards the top of the scale for me (so long as on net, not taxable income) and I do appreciate that that's more a question of how long you've been going (12 years in my case also)- to begin with, you have very little net profit as you are buying so many bits and bobs. Larger items come later, which are eligable for capital items relief. My point is, not all debt is bad. That said, I don't think people should be force to take on debt for essential living costs due to government mandate shutdown- nobody could have forseen it and anyone who says they've made contingency plans for a pandemic well in advance is a fucking smug liar in my book. Nobody ever plans for the government closing down their business overnight. So I don't blame you for going to work to keep money coming in. I'm about to do the same. After all, this money coming in may well dry up entirely in the not so distant future.

You’re not far from me iirc (midhurst) Drop in with it and I can take a look for you.

That’s the thing mate- there are no details published yet for any of these schemes! one thing is clear- our boy rishi does not like the self employed. He will claw this back and then some. His first budget he did away with red diesel. He wasn’t keen on a scheme at all, claiming many self employed had seen income increase during crisis! And now he’s saying he’s not comfortable with the tax discrepancy between SE and PAYE. Not looking good.

Usually when you make a large investment, it goes down as a capital allowance. So net profit say 50k, capital allowance of 20k against a machine brings this down to 30k taxable profit. Anyone know if the grant will be based upon net profit or taxable profit after capital allowances deducted?

At the fencing suppliers the other morning one of the lads tried to show me a video of a Chinese bloke fucking a chicken.