doobin

Council housing built en mass in the 50s (a lot of it for returning veterans- home fit for here’s etc) set the stage for one of the longest periods of stability this country has known. Like it or not, we live in a society. @AHPPlikes to espouse anarchy as a suitable soloution, but let’s be realistic. The government dissolves- unless you band together with other like minded folk then you are toast. So you team up with others, and agree to their rules. Walking Dead, anyone? Hey presto, you’re in a society again. So that argument is just as utopian bullshit as the idea of socialist utopia. As a nod to this though, I could get on board with the idea of extreme devolution, and free movement for those originally in the union between devolved states to find one that best fits their ideals. I don’t see the United States lasting in its current form, the Southern states are just too different and will secede. Unbridled capitalism doesn’t work either. Vested interest always start to take over and subjugate the weaker- and by weaker, that can just be those who were born a few years too late (see housing crisis. If you are living in a council house now, what chance do you think your children have?) This model of passing down ‘housing wealth’ to help your children buy their first house isn’t good for society as a whole, it leads to a schism between the haves and have nots. That’s not ‘socialist bullshit’- it’s reality. Take it to its logical conclusion and in the absence of alternative governance (most likely, we are at a tipping point now in terms of voters with/without housing), you’re either at French Revolution or more likely a dystopian sci fi scenario. I think the only way this can work is with the whole country pulling in the national interest. Obviously some hard choices have to be made, immigration is the obvious one for me. Cut it totally. You’ll never hear a ‘stereotypical’ socialist say that- in their utopia this country can support everyone. Well, it can’t. We should be looking to maximise quality of life for those already here.

Let's hear your alternative plans? Like it or not people need housing. I used to be all 'oh, free market', but eventually you come the realise that a free market will never exist. As one group grows more powerful their vested interests take over, as we see now with the dominance of developers. My political tendancies align very strongly with the SDP. This problem can be fixed, but it requires a nationalist and socialist response.

Ash for delivery. 8 cube going out today.

House prices are a product of how much people are allowed to borrow, and the system has gotten out of control. The house now takes less man hours to build- new builds are thrown up without any care or attenton to detail. What costs more is the land with planning. If you let people borrow more, they bid more. Developers pocket a bit more profit on the way, but as house prices are bid up the value of land with planning also rises. With the stroke of a planners pen, land that would be worth £15k per acre is now a million per acre, and the landowner rides off into the sunset. This is all paid for from the future earnings of the first time buyers, enabled by the aforementioned deregulation of income muiltipliers, coupled with criminally low interest rates. These poor misguided fools think it's wonderful that restrictions are relaxed 'so they can borrow more to buy a better house'. They don't join the dots to realise that they are being shafted, and that had things stayed as they were then the same job would have bought them the same comparitively massive house that their average earner teacher and postman parents live in. @pleasant- you are correct, it was 30 years ago (early 90s) that house prices were 3.5x average wage. The 90's was still twnty years ago to me v🤣 This correlates perfectly with my point above- the average 30 year old is now looking at the same houses as their parents did 30 years ago, but it's just not happening no matter how many avocado toasts they forego. That's because the same standard of living now demands more than twice the effort (wages) at 8.5x average earnings for an average house. Put in the simplest of terms, you now need to be a junior doctor to afford the house a dustman did thirty years ago. The country is ****************ed, and 850,000 immigrants a year coming here are tipping us over the edge. We can't recover from this without a massive socialist intervention along the lines of the council house building program of the 50s. We're in a stalemate, where those with property (including myself, before anyone tries that angle) are either sitting pretty or getting stinking rich via rents off the labour of everyone who came afterwards. Rents are at an all time high, and all sucessive governments have done is funnel yet more money towards landlords from the taxpayer, via housing benefit. It's the same thing- if people can afford more, the price goes up and they end up no better off.

A gold backed BRICs currency (especially with OPEC trading oil in it) would signal the start of a terminal decline for the Western world. Bring it on, I say.

Yup. The more people are allowed to borrow the more they will bid. It’s all gone to shit since. The banks have got people right where they want them on the debt treadmill, with abnormaly low rates pushing up the capital cost higher still. The introduction of buy to let mortgages fuelled prices, and help to buy added £50k straight onto the purchase price of a new build (and Persimons profit per unit) in just two years. These misguided government interventions over just fifteen years have led to a massive divide between those who were born early enough to buy a house at sensible price to earnings ration and all those who come after them. Landlords have skewed this even further, with a few becoming shockingly rich at the expense of future generations. Buy to let mortgages were always an abomination. It never made sense that a landlord could put down ten percent on an interest only mortgage and cream a couple of hundred a month off from the difference between an abnormally low interest rate and the rent. Banks lobbied for these changes. Suddenly anyone could become a landlord even without an income to support the loan, and the artificial increase in property values due to government intervention has saved their bacon from reality. Anyone remember that scene from The Big Short, where the guy is in a strip clubhouse and he realises that a stripper has mortgages on six houses? This country needs a return to house prices as a sensible multiple of income, sensible interest rates that provide a return upon capital, and an economy based upon producing and manufacturing things of substance. Recently we as a country have lived in a dream state- a financial merry-go-round supported by artificially high property values, selling off national assets, importing cheap tat based upon arbitrage of third world labour, and unrealistically low interest rates allowing us to pretend that we are rich. When countries who sell us the things we are totally dependent upon (and that’s oil) start to refuse our currency, people are in for a rude awakening.

I run all types too as per my post with pictures earlier and I love my grapple with hydraulic backstay for the reasons you mention- you can get the weight right back under the dipper. I still don’t like a thumb as they are a bodge to me when it comes to tree work. I’d sooner take a couple of minutes to change attachment to something more suitable. Were I trenching all day and having to frequently remove rocks from the trench, then a thumb would be ideal.

3.5 times the average wage, as it did twenty years ago.

Help to buy? Don’t make me laugh. Help for developer to profit. A fkin scandal.

Yup I’d say that’s a fair assumption. That’s the 2.7t, photos earlier in the thread were the same grab on the 1.9t.

I only work local. Yup, a lot of timber and machines to move.

Scrub clearance is way easier, neater and precise with a fixed rotating grab. Can’t imagine doing this with a thumb and bucket, it would be a nightmare. You’d leave half of it in the ground sheared off, or turn the lot into a ploughed field and have to move tonnes of mud. One hours work.

Missing pics (you’re viewing the job backwards, sorry!)

Crappy on the fly pics, but a two day wind blown oak removal. Processed 12 cube of firewood on site and salvaged 4 ten foot milling butts. Not the best quality but better than firewood. Another three loads of rings back to yard. life much easier with machines. Had all the toys out, gave the 881 a good workout too.

I’ll take that cold in the summer! I always have one in the fridge at the yard when it’s hot.

If you’re ok with meh ground clearance but want exceptional off-road ability in the snow and mud, the fiat panda 4x4 is surprisingly good. I have proper trucks too, but as a commuter I love it. Especially with 60mpg average from the diesel. The traction control is incredible, I’d much rather be in it than a pickup in the snow.

Any instant coffee. I’ve given up accepting unless I know the customer treats coffee with the same respect that I do.

I've never tried a thumb but I'm convinced I'd always prefer to put a proper grab on!

It’s all a compromise. Even if you spend big bucks on a fixed rotating grab, then a little machine will run out of lift height quickly and will also struggle to lift much extra weight- an intermecato grab and rotator will weight in at over 100kg. A fixed grapple or intermecato type grab without a rotator will stack logs as well as you can wish for with a 1.7t. It’s a mini digger not a forwarder. Still beats doing it by hand. I’d start with a quality grab such as Intermecato. Then if you want to add either a fixed or dangle rotator (plus extra aux lines) you’re halfway there. that wsl grab will be utter shit. It’s what they sell on the wanky single cylinder Chinese micros. Won’t even fit a normal digger, don’t waste your money. Get a fixed grapple made up to fit your digger if you want to go down that route.

Option 1- you mean a grapple with a backstay? If you make this backstay hydraulic it becomes surprisingly versatile, allowing you reach right out or bring the weight back right under the boom. You can knock lengths into the right angle to pick them up- I did five years with one and became surprisingly adept at it. Very good at handling lumps of concrete etc. But a basic fixed backstay grapple was £400 ten years ago so not sure where you get that figure of £260 from? Option 2- with a dangle mount rotator, you'll still have the problems of adding a second pair of aux lines that you allude to in option 3. OK for handling timber but limited on a 1.7t. Massively increases the stack height, you won't be able to swing very long lengths about. Momentum will rock a little digger about. Option 3- you will need a 'fixed' rotator- that is to say, one that is axially rated for the load. This will cost you £1200 on its own so I'm not sure where you get the overall figure from? Most versatile, you can grub out things and reach out further with it, subject to the limits of a 1.7t machine. If running a fixed rotator then you need to spend on a decent grab too, Kelfri will just bend as soon as you show it a reasonable load. The stack height is a big issue here too, 1.7t machines just don't have the lift height as they are desined to dig deep as possible. I speeced short dipper on my Bobbcat E19 and it's still a right pain the in arse compared to the same thing on the E27. Option 4, which might be best for you, is something like an Intermecato TG12. Picks up on the quick hitch, you can hold it out in front of you or back under the boom (but with lots more leverage acting on it than a grapple). You can mount it in either plane, tines top and bottom or either side. Easy to share between machines. Can be used to grub out and handle concrete. I run all these types, I'll try to find some pics.

How many hours are you up to on that? Any issues?

Sounds like a needle is the answer here.

Currently people are getting away with winging it. Very little enforcement and indeed the law itself isn’t totally clear.

Love dry larch offcuts from my sawmill. Even the spruce is OK.