doobin

So friggin what? As mentioned in an earlier post, Eddie Stobart started with logs and then found something more profitable. I myself have moved sharply away from logs over the past few years. Businesses constantly evolve due to market conditions. You are the epitome of a poor businessman if you cannot accept this and seek to drag others down to benefit yourself. You really think the only alternative option is to fold and work for someone? I know I said the entry barriers to the log trade were low, but come on! You don't see Waitrose running smear campaigns against other supermarkets. OK, there might be some tongue in cheek advertising but that's about it. And they do pretty well despite being more expensive. Your business model is similar I believe, premium product? In which case, if you are the Waitrose of wood, why do you feel the need to drag others down? An idiot is someone who keeps doing the same thing and expects a different result.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ <- A selection of capital letters, should be all you need there. Please feel free to help yourself. Legal obligation to report tax dodgers? An accountant might have, but we don't live in a police state just yet thankfully. It works both ways. Yes, they might think they are smart selling a few logs for cash in the winter. I know when I worked on the farm the £40 for logs effectively doubled my days money. I suspect many on here started that way. However, if someone with a 9-5 job is doing logs on the side for cash, they are unable to claim tax back for any gear they use. Do you buy from eBay or Amazon? These are companies who undercut local businesses and dodge tax.... You need to get over yourself and realise that you are in a trade with exceptionally low entry barriers. These 'beer money merchants' are showing more entrepreneurial spirit than you currently. A man who seeks to succeed by dragging others down is the lowest form of a man. Crabs in a bucket, anyone?

There's a guy like that 10 mins from me too! Only difference is that the guy local to me has been on eBay long enough for his feedback to echo local opinion- 69%

I don't need to rush Actually I've liked the Husky gear I've tried. But my missus says I'm not allowed it if it's not orange and white

Depends upon your costs (duh) Work out the costs of everything- raw products, finished products, and your best estimate for the real world cost to process it. There you go. Cost the time as if you were paying someone with the right skill set to do it. Often there's as much profit in getting rid of it for beer money as there is turning it into logs, if you're small scale and realistic about real world costs. A crystal ball would help, but if you had one of them you'd be trading futures rather than messing about with wood

I bet if I take my Stihl and cut you in half, you're like a stick of Brighton rock. Husquvarna Whore through and through For the record, any pro Stihl machine I've had has never needed a warranty claim. In fact, the only time I've used the Stihl warranty was for a BG-86 switch. Yours Stihl Slut

MS241 would cover all your options perfectly, last forever and be ultra reliable. Light as an MS181 so ideal for coppicing with a 12" bar. Will pull a 16" bar or even 18" no trouble. The Echo 5 year warranty sounds good but if you have to get it serviced at the stealers you may as well buy Stihl, and with the MS241 at least, the odds are you won't need a warranty.

If you've got a dropside truck of any sort then the easiest thing by far is to use the dropside peg receiver as a receiver for your vice. Usually a good height for working too.

So no-one else here calls them the coon spoons? That's what my old boss used to call them, maybe it's a Southern thing.

I was jealous until I turned the picture the right way up and realised it wasn't a Hilux...

I agree, I didn't mean that you would always get the best price. But you can at least choose the most buoyant market (cordwood or firewood). Half the posts bemoaning the lack of firewood sales are also whining about high cord prices. It's like farming- there is a large overlap between feed prices rising and finished stock prices rising to follow, which can make you or break you due to the finishing time of stock (seasoning/winter sales of logs).

Might be easier to get a standard bucket (they don't make much money) and then get the plasma cutter out? Logs are big and bulks so the slots could be large.

'Nearly lost their houses'. From a fire in a flue? You make it sound like we're refining uranium rather than part of trade which requires nothing more than a saw and an axe.

Um...sell roadside??? If you are geared up for harvesting AND processing, you are in the fortunate position of being able to cut your cake the way you like it. The two should be costed as separate operations. Timber is worth X at the roadside this month, firewood prices look like they will be Y, do we 'buy' timber from our harvesting operations to process, or is it not worth it?

If you can't tell what an 'unidentified fuel' is then it's probably best to chuck it on the fire and start again.

Apparently that will pull a 20" bar? HUSQVARNA 450 - Chainsaws Seems a bit pointless to invest in a new saw just for one tree. 20" will cut that up OK if your cutting gear is in good order. Do you plan to use the new saw for anything else soon? That's some mighty expensive firewood if not.

The testimonials on that page are hilarious: Someone who parks their chainsaw rather than reach for the files has no business going anywhere near a 20" butt Or was it still standing??

By the time you've broken the mudguards and lights loading it without pins, and then your legs trying to strap down an unstable load when a log falls off on you, you'll wish you hadn't bothered. Especially as you'll only get 25% of payload on if lucky. Add the VOSA fines to that and you'd be much better off finding some pallets. No forestry contractor is going to want to piss around loading a rig like that anyway. Double the time and hassle for a quarter of the product shifted. Get some pins on and it could work for you. There's an outfit from Wales (I think) that run fertiliser down the Sussex and then put pins on and take Sussex timber somewhere else. What about the end product? Are there any mills in Wales?

On many Ford engines the EM light will come on if the fuel filter is slightly blocked. Worth a look, if it starts to trigger limp-home made then this is the first thing I'd change. Parts bingo is no fun but at least a filter is cheap and should be a regular service item anyway.

I think you'd get more for your money with a compact 4WD tractor. Link box for the dustbins of sawdust (or even pallet forks and a pallet, then you can move pallets) plus a hitch front and rear. Using a quad for constantly shunting trailers is pretty pointless, they're not designed to put a low of traction to the ground and like someone else said, they're a right pain with hitching up and double wheeler trailers. You simply can't beat a front hitch for shunting. Whilst your quad is still being hitched up and then spinning it's wheels trying to push a 16ft double axle into a tight space, a front tow hitch on a compact tractor could position three similar trailers in a nice neat line in the same mud. Quads just aren't designed to pull trailers, this comes up time and time again.

There's a guy in Petersfield who sorted a mates forwarder alternator recently. However, can't you just get a new one cheap from the local motor factors??

For Petes sake mate, would you stop talking sense!

Just go for it mate, competition is healthy.

Stick the powerpack in the back and it is....