doobin

Just top it up to the top of the rad/mark on expansion bottle. Any excess will be vented as it warms up. Far more important, however, is to check the quality of the fluid with a hydrometer.

If anyone is currently selling kiln dried logs at a serious premium, then this has a lot of potential to increase profit. Take that, Certainly Wood! Horses for courses. Good luck with it.

Xtorque is same as Stihl 2 mix, correct? I think this technology is really good for two strokes, my Stihl 2 mix gear is far superior to the old stuff. Much more power and economy.

No worries! Hope you get sorted.

Not any lead acid type. Plus all batteries only last for a limited amount of cycles.

Right, good. Here's your answer: For the price of a proper leisure battery (which you WILL kill by not recharging enough! ) and the lights, you could buy a small 1 or 1.5KW generator, which would easily run some flourescent bulbs, which would provide WAY more light than 12v ever can. This type of generator (google 'suitcase generator') is light as anything and easy to move. Plus you can run power tools. Cost of petrol? Maybe £1/hour. Don't forget that charging a battery isn't free. And by buying a generator, you're buying an asset which can be easily sold if no longer required.

OK, working on the assumption that all around the Transit cab provides good light, the caculations for your 30ft x 30ft barn are: 36m perimeter. £1/metre cost so peanuts in total. 4.8w/m draw. 172w total draw. That's 14.3 amps. A lot. An 80AH leisure battery would give you maybe three hours before needing to be recharged to avoid damage. There's a problem maybe? You've got a big area to light.

How often will you use these lights and for what period of time?

Mate, you started this thread two months ago! Sh!t or get off the pot ay? Seriously, do as I did and buy a 1 or 2m strip for £4 posted. Try it out and imagine it scaled up. It's a lot brighter than you think. You could go the whole hog and try 5m in one corner. It's cheap as chips and can always be used elsewhere!!! 5m lights up my double cab Transit interior like day. That's an area approx 5 feet tall and it must be 6 feet square. Have you decided what you will use to power the lights?

Any stiff boot tends to be slippy in the wet. I use these: Best Grip Boot Studs UK Buy Best Grip screw in boot studs online, Best Grip screw in ice studs for boots, sports shoe studs, UK sales of Best-Grip screw in boot studs, UK sales of studs for boots, sports shoes and waders, Simms Hardbite Studs Believe it or not my biggest grip with Meindl is how the soles wear out. Vibram soles are supposed to be the best around however. I guess it's all the work on concrete I do. I'm hoping the studs (30 per boot, NOT CHEAP @ £1 a stud!) will prevent the soles from wearing. They improve grip immeasurably on everything from concrete to timber and the tungsten carbide just doesn't wear out. I have had issues with them not staying in the soles. For this new pair of boots, I've put 30 rather than my usual 15 in, to spread the load, and I've coated them in vulcanizing soloution prior to screwing them in. Three days in and all still present and accounted for! For God's sake make sure you don't wear them when working on expensive York stone though!

No such thing for me when it comes to boots. If I had to spend £500 to be comfortable I would. You need good boots, a good bed and a good woman, as if you're not in one you're in the other! I'd like all three at once, but she draws the line at me wearing the Meindls in bed!

I bought an Echo blower and vac brand new three years ago. It was a POS compared to the Stihl SH86's that I now run. It was £10 more than the Stihl also. The Stihls outclass it in every way, vibration, airflow, ergonomics. Sorry! I'm genuinely not trying to make this a Stihl vs Echo slanging match. But I find the price/performance/residual ratios of Stihl kit hard to beat. TCD- I understand the anology. Is it really better than a Stihl? Or equal?

Are the dog's bollocks, the mutts nuts and the canine's gonads, all rolled into one. Why have I not gone for these before? The WoodWalkers are good (I've had four pairs) but these are in a different league. My socks are noticeably drier when I take the boots off, so the air pumping thing would seem to be working. The support is amazing and the memory foam seems much better than the WoodWalkers. No rubbing or pain in the wearing in phase so far. I'm hoping that they will keep their shape around the toacap better than the WoodWalkers. The trouble is I'm always kneeling down, so they bend there and it's kind of unavoidable. All in all, a huge thumbs up. As a general safety boot for all kinds of work, plus chainsaw protection, you can't loose!

Thanks for the link. How do you reckon it will hold it's value compared to a Stihl? It's pretty much the same money, if Stihl made the 341 still that's about what it would cost.

The 270WES doesn't appear to be a current model. The 280WES is unbelievably light as it's a rear handle model of their tiny topper. I was quoted £249 for it. Trouble is it's only 0.9KW. A Stihl 181 at 1.5KW and £200 will outpace easily unfortunately. Seriously light though, and quality seemed good.

Anything 12v will wire up directly, or via whatever switch you chose. Unlike a normal bulb however need to have the polarity correct. You won't kill them if you get it wrong, but they just won't light up. That LED strip is about 5x the price it should be though. Look on eBay.

TCD, what's the best price going for an Echo 610, and from where? I run 2x 034s at the moment, it would be a like for like swap power wise. Fitheach- Stihl chainsaws oil off the clutch also- that's what the little notch on the clutch cover is for, it drives the pump.

If you don't have chips in your beard, you're not a proper lumberjack...

Why didn't you just stick the spreader behind the tractor?

I was contemplating Echo in the local dealers yesterday. The 680 on paper is the opposite number to the Stihl 362. 3.3KW and £599 best price from dealer. Does that sound about the right money? If it is, then it's no contest I'm afraid. That's the same money as a Stihl MS362 from FR Jones, and I know which will be worth the most in three years time! The Stihl is also 0.1KW more powerful and 0.6kg lighter. Shame, as I have fond memories of my Echo 660EVL.

Seconded. Couldn't believe it when my new boots turned up the next day, six days from Chirstmas, and with FREE POSTAGE! Good job.

Best place is the firewood pile. Theoretically I'm sitting on a fortune in yew, but nobody wants to offer decent money. I think it was gensetsteve on here who said he likes to play a game with wood turners, stuffing yew and blackthorn into the processor and watching them try desperately to yank it back out!

Do as I did and do it for the community. Always useful to keep in your local police forces good books also- may well turn out to save you a lot more money than charging for the job would have made...

In that case you had the wrong staff. They sound like freeloaders, and without being too critical of your judge of character, I'm surprised you hadn't sussed him after 2 years. However, decent staff are very hard to find. Had you found a guy who realised that you were being fair to him, and was grateful for the free ticket, he would probably still have left you, but after a further year and to start his own business. It's finding that diamond in the rough, who's grateful for the experience and skills, then wants to stay employed Basically, it seems that anyone who is any good with any sort of morals ends up running their own show. I'm sure many of us here can relate to that, as it was once ourselves! I don't thrash my guys, and we run a flexible sort of work day. Get to the yard, have a look through the calendar and decide what we fancy, over a hearty breakfast and two pots of tea and coffee. Mind you, we are often gardeners doing lots of small jobs, and I imagine my staff are cheaper than tree staff When we have bigger projects on, particularly conservation and clearance jobs, we run a much tighter ship and I'm in the yard at 5:30 each morning to make sure everything is ready.

Balance isn't brilliant but a shorter bar will sort that. It feels plastiky, but no worse than a Husky tbh! I will post a review once I get it. I don't blame anyone else for refusing to take a chance on it, but I won't be relying upon it and I trust my local dealer.