doobin

Looking at that, drainage is your main issue. I wouldn't mess around with anything until you've sorted that. Even your track has a bank draining onto it! It's a lost cause until you fix that. If you are near to a quarry, then the easiest way is to dig a V-ditch and fill with 75mm clean stone- like track ballast. Ideally wrap the bottom section in terram and then have a few inches of clean to run on. This ensures you can still use the area as part of the yard. We did this for a customer who's drive was very similar water running across it from the bank when it rained. Completely solved it.

You never regret having more horsepower. 6hp does indeed seem rather lacking. I'm a big fan of the Hakke Pilke Eagle, the saw and guarding is well designed and the cone splitter is a nice addon.

Whenever I read articles like this, my brain automatically replaces ‘she’ with ‘it’ I can’t help it. It’s just the way I’m wired. I identify as a bullshit hater. It’s my human right, innit?

I’m assuming you want rid of the tractor bench as it’s the old school table type with maybe a sliding carriage? I have no experience of that sawbench you posted but there can’t be much to it. Honda copy engine (reliable enough), some bearings and a blade.

For gods sake guys, sticks a Tile on your key rings!

Absoloutely fascinating (in a geeky kind of way!) Thank you.

Very. It's over near Coates. @stere- you are correct! See below. Also take a close gander at the pic post flail collecting- you'll see some heather that I deliberately missed. The grassy patches in the other photos are areas that we cleared a year ago. They have come back (along with supplementary bracken rolling and flail collecting) to a good variety of fine acid grassland, which along with some heather is just the ticket for the field cricket- what this is all about. Of course we're balancing other interests here too, so there are some scrapes for lizards, beetle banks from the scraped turf, plenty of scalloped edges, various growth stages of scrub, some deadwood and some songposts for the birds. Acid heath with the right boxes ticked is worth £700 / ha /year under the new stewardship options. Yet desite this, correct manangement is very often lacking. Sometimes just a pass with a topper so that if they are ever inspected for compliance it still vaguely resembles heath. I'm torn between being grateful for the work, and wishing that it was just maintained correctly in the first place. When it gets too far gone, capital works projects like this are applied for. By pulling the scub out by the roots and moving it to a dump site, you remove the potential nitrogen loading that would arise from just mulching it and also end up with randomised bare ground- which luckily is exactly what heather (the seeds of which can lay dormant for 80 years) needs to germinate. Basically, if heather was present in the past (and it was here before it was all put to pine plantation) then it will come back given the right conditions. It's quite an interesting job. I really like it- it's a long run of work, nobody bothers you, you deal with one set of staged payments, it's reasonable money. And if you take a little bit of time to understand exactly what is required and learn some plants you can do a really good job. Quite satisfying when you're ripping out the gorse taller than the machine, and you come to a little patch of heather just hanging on. So you clear all around it and give it space to breathe, along with some bare ground to spread. Not all the gorse needs to come out, and the minor gorse can be left wherever it is found.

Acid heath.

Some scrub clearance. Both the alpine and multione flat out carting to the dump site, this is pretty dense. The site scrubs up well with a pass from the cut and collect. Might be just in time to save the habitat.

Every day of work. 8hrs is normal. Use decent moly pin and bush grease.

Love it!

^That looks perfect on those flotation tyres.

The 180 will run .6 quite well, as you probably know what is important for bodywork is how low you can turn the welder down. From memory the 180 goes right down to ten amps, whereas many cheap machines bottom out around 30 amps.

I'm a big fan of rent free bottles. Hobbyweld or SGS. You pay a deposit and then no rental, just the fill/exchange fees. You get your deposit back when you don't need a bottle any more. Most motor factors stock them, I like that they bring them out to me, it saves a lot of hassle. You won't look back if you switch to gas- particularly for jobs such as welding a broken bolt, where the gas shield ensures that the weld is solid from the start- ciritical if you've only got a small amount of area to start with (that broken bolt!)

Gasless MIG is a gimmick. I don't know anyone who uses it professionally. It's basically an auto-feed arc welder, with none of the benefits of a stick welder such as bending the rod around corners or easily changing between different rods for root and cap. It's aimed at DIY'ers who think renting a gas bottle is expensive. If you are insisting on using it and having trouble feeding, check your feed roller channel diameters. 0.8 and 1mm are standard wire sizes. For fluxed wire you need 0.9 (from memory)- obviously it won't feed well if you have the wrong roller in. The Rtech 180 MIG is a great tool on 0.8 wire and does all my little bits and bobs. I keep the 250 on 1mm wire for larger work.

Way more than your grant scheme will allow unfortunately. Done right, it is very expensive. I'd want £18-20 plus VAT, but I don't do fencing any more as there's not enough in it unless it's a posh back garden with a view over a field.

I'd buy or hire in a flatbed tracked dumper. Add some pins. Load it in the woods, tip in a windrow where you want it and tidy up with digger if neccessary. You'll get a lot more done. Alternatively- have you considered just skidding whole trees with the digger? You can move a surprising amount with a 2.6t particularly if working with a gradient. Makes it quick and easy- track to tree, use digger to assist the fell and then reverse back with tree to processing area. All this assumes you have a proper fixed (not swinging) grab and rotator though.

That’s exactly how I see it

You’ll be ok around yard but slow. On site with gradients and turning I wouldn’t bother, especially as you want ‘low impact’!

Treat yourself to an Rtech, they're not expensive and give good results.

A decent inverter mig is still pretty small (so long as you go for a 5kg reel model) and will also do arc. No issues with it outside so long as you are sensible with positioning etc. Agreeed a small arc is ‘handier’, but for me the better results I get with mig far outweighs this, especially on larger jobs.

From Esso: "Although our pumps have E5 labels on them, our Synergy Supreme+ 99 is actually ethanol free (except, due to technical supply reasons, in Devon, Cornwall, North Wales, North England and Scotland). Legislation requires us to place these E5 labels on pumps that dispense unleaded petrol with ‘up to 5% ethanol’, including those that contain no ethanol, which is why we display them on our Synergy Supreme+ 99 pumps." Is this accurate?

Why is mig so inconvenient for you?

Esso premium petrol, branded E5 by law, is actually E0, except in cornwall and parts of the north.

Frankly, you can't really upgrade from a GH1054! My money is on the ball height. Lift it up and see if the problem dimishes or disappears.