doobin

Why is everyone painting their diggers black, they look bloody horrible.

Or the grease tensioner has a leaky seal and is bleeding pressure.

Same, I remember what a revelation it was to be able to move the muck! 🤣 mine came out last week for the first time in probably two years

Thats the 'high capacity' 760mm wide bucket- same capacity as the normal 118cm one. For use when you have narrow access/skinny tyres, but also useful on jobs with a tight corner to swing around. Here is the normal 118 cm bucket on a tight right angle bend before I bought the 76cm one. You can imagine how much easier loosing some width off the bucket makes it. Of course, with a 76cm bucket and wider width wheelbase, you can't scrap against edges any more. You need both mate 🤣

It's weird isn't it, we seen to live in a little warm bubble. Not a hint when I worke up a few weeks back of the snow that was causing chaos on Harting and Cocking hills!

You don't really notice the extra weight (the E27 is very 'planted' to begin with) but you don't slide around half as much.

Misty start though? I stayed at the inlaws last night over near Southampton, came back to Midhurst via the 272. Was an OK ride till Langrish, the sun was starting to peep through and then I hit a wall of fog which didn't lift till, I was back at the yard. Spoilt the rest of the ride, I couldn't see a thing through the outside of my helmet fogging up and it was cold!

Based on those pics mate, you should give Astrak a ring first thing Tuesday after the bank holiday! Unbelievable difference so far. I'm off out today to harvest some ash on a steep slope- will get some pics of the steels in action. They add around 170kgs vs rubber tracks. If I wanted to be squeaky clean I'd have to take the grab and rotator off when transporting....

The above points I've found to be very true indeed. As for those wondering how the mini loader can pay its way- see below. This is the second half of a two day job with two men and one loader. The two trees were removed on the first day, the stumps and soil on the second. This job was quoted at a fair market rate allowing for access. After paying my man and the job costs (grab lorry, a bit of diesel), I made £2200 plus VAT. That's £1100 per day for my skills in seeing how the job could be done efficiently- but it simply wouldn't have worked without the loader. One job like that a year and who cares if you only use it once a month? I'm up to 200 hours on my Sherpa, having had it 14 months. So averaging around 14 hours of use per month. At £260 a month finance (i've done it over five years) it's cost me £3640 so far. Much cheaper than labour.

I love my Sherpa 100. There are a couple nearly new on FB currently with attachments. They've been up a while so clearly they need to drop the price- get over there and haggle! The yellow one has electric start and slightly more pushing power (Sherpa 100 Smal). The red one is the basic model (Sherpa 100 Agri) As stated above, whatever model loader you buy, it doesn't need to be out more than one 'right' job a month to more than pay for having it sitting there on finance. One thing I have noticed though, is that those of us who rave about them buy the lower end models (100, as you are considering) and just treat it as a lift and shift labour saver. Those who spend £25-30k on a larger model with some attachments like stump grinders are often underwhelmed- and little wonder, because the performance will never match a larger Avant or MultiOne. The higher HP models are also wider- so what's the point if you can't get it into tight jobs? On the subject of width- get it with wide tyres and narrow tyres. You will use the narrow tyres much less than you might think, but they still come in handy. Here's the definitive thread- some light Sunday reading for you (with pics!) It's an entertaining read- it only started in 2019, and since then it's eye opening how many have jumped on the bandwagon. It pottered along over a few pages until I revived it at the end of 2019 (yes, I'm claiming credit) and then it's off to the races! You'll see me (and others) start with skepticism before becoming curious, enlightened and then finally evangelical bordering upon fanatical. 🤣

Can’t see that they would as it’s still just laying a track. Motors have relief valves if things get too hard, you will probably find it just relieves rather than spins the track due to the extra traction. you want to run them with a fair bit more slack than the rubbers though I’ve found.

On my own (on concrete) it took twenty minutes per side to swap them from rubber to steel. Battery grease gun and 90 degree impact wrench for the nut sped it up a lot I suspect. I'm expecting putting rubber back on to take a little longer. If you are on your own with a rubber track I like to jam the track motor on a little with a block of wood and then ease the track over the sprocket with a long bar. I really think the time taken to swap tracks will be time well spent, plus you can block steel track jobs together on one week to save time. The difference in traction on hills is insane. Call Astrak- the E27Z you have has a slightly shorter track frame, so you might even be under £800 per track. At least you know they will fit the rollers and idler now I've taken the plunge. Also- steel tracks are great for tracking in stone, which I would imagine you have a lot of up in Scotland.

I seem to end up doing a lot of clearance work on fairly steep hills. So ideal for that. Great for wetter jobs too. I will also be able to bolt on steel extensions I will make up to give more flotation, save getting the bog mats out.

Yea, I noticed that too. the fly killer in the yard kitchen claimed it’s first victim today 👍🏻

Started wet, then the sun came out and my goodness was it humid! A momentous occasion this evening as the kitchen window was opened for the first time this year. Bloody lovely.

Not worth the hassle mate. If you want a cheaper machine the sany and luigong are starting to make names for themselves with a pretty good standard spec and good dealer presence. Still more of a gamble than an established brand, but remember that the Jap makes were all regarded the same way when then came over in the seventies. You’d be better off getting a secondhand known make than a new Ouilde IMHO

Got me some steel tracks on mine. £830 a side, easy enough to swap between rubbers and steels for different jobs too. Came from Astrak.

It's a fair bet that the perps were, shall we say, 'ethinic' and that the lamb was destined (possibly when bigger, possibly they were stupid and assumed that was the right size to steal) for 'smokies'

I wasn't impressed with them. Tried to use them for dispensing things like TRF, gave up and bought a caustic rated pump in the end. Way too slow a flow rate and I still got airlocks.

Those logs are for sale then? Otherwise surely you'd just burn slabwood from your mill!

What were you loading them up for? I agree with the sentiment, but you don't want to be cutting saw logs in half!

I photograph the paper receipts and they go into the same folder as the email ones. Back this up to the cloud and you’re good. Agree re cross referencing the bank statement, but I do this last thing. Usually the ones I find are the bloody builders merchants who I constantly have to hound for a vat recipe after them promising to send via email when I place the order on the phone.

How many of your business transactions do you not have a physical paper or email receipt for? Why are you cross-referencing your bank account with phyical receipts that you already have in front of you? Furthermore, if you are VAT registered, a line on the bank statement is not acceptable to HMRC as proof of a valid VAT deductible expense. So OP may as well get in the habit of proper book-keeping from the off IMHO. I do my books every month in just half an hour with a spreadsheet. Physical paper receipts are photographed to preserve for the required six years, email receipts are saved to the same folder.

I'm on the waitlist.