blazer

If you have a 'good big un' let me know, of a modern type with product support, so I could at least rebuild it if needed.

spot on - the Victorians planted hedges to look old by using many types of shrub. One clue is to look at the field pattern and see if it's made up from straight lines meaning post enclosure act. Some have a field higher one side than the other from soil movement over time. A boundry, even a ditch and bank from an old wood enclosure, or parish etc, or along a old route could now be a bridle way, wide hedges could mean an old drove road route. The OS maps go back to 1799 onwards, and were drawn up for military use hence the Ordnance as in field guns, so the military knew the ground in case the 'Frogs' came for a visit. I have a copy of the original 1" for Banbury but it doesn't show hedges.

you really must have had a bad day - I just like the welcome my dogs give me:thumbup:

Sorry to hear about your shoot, odd that they have allowed the two other shoots, not many people walk about during the winter anyway - have you found another site? It's hard work setting up a shoot. We went from a small walk up, to say 20,000 birds with over 70 acres of cover crop, but it pen building that I found hardest, cutting through overgrown woods.

With the xmas snow our helpers day was shifted to 31 Jan, boundry and keepers day main drives 1 Feb. I didn't do much good on the first day, although over 100 birds shot. I had 9 high birds on the next day, still with over 400 birds shot for the normal 1600+ carts, sounded like a remake of the 'Alimo' (still not a good idea to wear a Davy Crockett hat with a squirrel tail). Took my 2 black working cockers out on Sat Mon & Tues - so much energy they wanted to go again. Now over it's woodland work and vermin:thumbup1:

All I can add is my wife is a nurse and said the 'eye wash' has the same saline content as used for wound cleaning (not for IV), so eye wash can be used for wound cleaning (if required) and from recent papers so can clean tap water be used to flush a wound. A friend who was SAS in NI yrs ago, carried 'tampax' to put in bullet wounds, so can they be carried in your first aid to pack a wound to stop heavy bleeding? from following the thread I'm sure somebody has the answer. I think most people have never had to deal with a heavy wound, so can the guys with field experience give us a few tips, as it's very different in field conditions compared to a fully equiped hospital.

try tools on car boots where one guy has a weekly stall, look at older bilhooks with a tapered back this means it was forged into shape. Most will be well blunt and will take about 4 hours of careful grinding and oilstoning to get the right edge. You should be able to cut through a 1" hazel stem with one cut and little effort. I have about 50 most picked up this way, bit tired now but will look up some better quality names in the morning.

Today it's 'tickets' to do anything, so chatting to a student working on a farm during holidays (hedge cutting etc) using a 'basic tractor' course is not that expensive, colleges will vary. It could be a way in as many employers especially estates want multi tickets. I work as a sort of 'hobby job' on a large private estate and do fallen trees, vermin and gamekeeping, others do farm tractor work, quarry work with 360 diggers, restoring buildings and a bit of tree work, even the stockman has all the different tractor/loader tickets. I chatted to a couple of guys working for the NT in N/Wales in the summer and they cover alot of sites doing tree work, grass cutting, fencing etc. I'm don't know like the others on how to get tree work but it seams today to look wider as you may not get what you want for a start. My son doing A- levels wanted to join the police but they are not signing on so he may look at the RAF etc - good luck:thumbup1:

Maybe get a basic tractor ticket, so you can multi skill on an estate - once in they may pay for more tickets for you:thumbup1:

[quote name=Recceboy;I apply the same to weapons. It's not the equipment it's the person behind the equipment that is dangerous. I've taught countless new recruits weapon handling skills and the correct and safe way to use a rifle' date=' yet i would not pass them on there weapon handling skills as they are still dangerous in my eyes and would not take them on the range. Some people just don't have the skill for manual handling of tools/equipment. .[/quote] Agree, I work P/T on an estate and the people with large cal rifles for so called 'foxing' is really scarry how little they know and gun apptitude. I can't understand how they are allowed to have these weapons, if they were army training tested they would all fail. I have both shotties and rim fires on ticket - I don't need larger cal. When I started my son off with air-rifles, he also doing weapon handling with the army cadets, so he was safe from the start, we applied the same with chainsaws. It got him into a safe working culture.

I'm with you on this approach Andy, but I'm different in the fact I have no 'ticket' yet but on a 30/31 course soon, so I have a neutral view on saw safety. I have used saws for 15 yrs and use all the PPE, but I have alot of industrial power tool/ construction engineering experience. I can truely say, I have never seen a 'Pro' working in an unsafe manner but I have seen many 'home' and say 'users with tickets' (estate workers), never using PPE (not even ear defenders) or have a safe approach to trees. So why not more accidents? I can oly assume, like driving alot of people accept life with constant near misses, and appear to 'get away with it' but I believe just like driving it will happen in the end. I have always had a silly saying for safety, 'god looks after us and gives us a few chances to escape injury if we learn and spot our mistakes - but not for ever'

One fit looking horse

It's simular questions on shooting forums - airguns .177 or .22. How do I apply for a FAC/SG and how do I get permission to shoot on land. But we all have to start somewhere, at least this forum stays focused. Ok going off topic for a moment but can't help it. I just saw a hospital letter complaining about heating - the last line. 'the hottest place is the little corridor between Matron & sisters office' Spare me the 'slammer'

Maybe 10 yrs ago I was helping out doing some axe demo's for a college to show arbo students - how it was done, and they found a man who worked his horse pulling trees, so we could axe fell and extract say 15 inch dia trees out of a wood. (The horse man also used his horse with a cart collecting recycleable waste form houses, which like milk float horses keep stopping). At another college, they had set up a man with a his mobile bandsaw with trees brought to him by working horses, ok chainsaw felled. In both cases it was interesting how trees could be quietly extracted along little more than a footpath with no damage. The power of the horse was amazing to drag logs, some have made two wheeled supported aids to reduce friction. Say ploughing horses are now only seen at ploughing shows but often seen with two men to operate, instead of the traditional one man. I haven't seen any since but I'm sure they must be about. I just 'googled' - horse logging - loadsa info and images, good luck.

no leaf unturned - saping resourses - root of the problem

I like it - real engineering. My wifes grandad was a self employed woodworker before the war and made up a 'treadal lath' (like an old sewing m/c) with large concrete blocks on the head stock(to hold the momentum) and powered by his three kids all going up and down, while he used he worked the wood.

ok in my opinion the focus on chainsaw training is fine but for me the real danger is the tree itself. On the estate I work on all the guys have taken 'training' but once over never wear any PPM, so it's not habbit formng training or seam to know how to approach a difficult tree job, so for me the risk is still there for an accident as before training. The real danger is the focus on the chainsaw and not on the 'physics' of the tree. Being an engineer by training, and working on heavy engineering construction; rolling mills, ships, high voltage construction etc, I transfer that experience/training into assessing the forces involved in the tree and the release of energy on felling and removal, ok pylons don't have a fungus problem - so for me trees are far more dangerous to access. So for me I started with the physics, then the engineering learnt from experienced men/college. I couldn't face learning by,as my son calls it 'death by powerpiont' and alot of the modern training (not just tree work) seams to be detailed in a way that covers from legal action for managers from the HSE. Not that I'm against the HSE - working in the early 70's was dangerous.

From working on a few 'hot' 2-stoke bike engines yrs ago, some hi-reving bikes had only x1 ring, with 1-ring it doesen't seal so well but has less drag. Some had an L-shaped top ring, so the pressure forced the ring against the cylinder wall. I had one bultaco 250cc that wore the rings where they pass the exhast ports, so if compression dropped, I changed the rings. Some bikes you had to be careful not to have the ring joint running over a port - as the ring could break up, so look at the piston by the cylinder and position the rings away from ports. If you had a piston ring compression strap it may prevent broken rings on assembly. Good luck

I'm finally down for a CS30/31 in March, ok I've used saws for 15 yrs and engineering for decades ok you may say but I may be old enough to be the other guys grandad at 62, not sure how the others will react but I'm not worried. I have always taken up tasks on my own for years and found if I act myself then it all goes well and others with experience will help you along.

I brought a small pick-axe (off the front of a jeep) for my son say 6 yrs old. He asked his teacher if he could bring it in, she agreed but was shocked to see it was a real one - I told her he doesn't do toys. He has used axes since 5 yrs and built up with safe techniques, his best was to buy what he thought was a 'fire axe' with a spike on the back at a car-boot but it turned out to be a battle-axe head on a new shaft. One day his primary teacher collected some leaves and asked the children to identify the trees they came from - he then told her she had got one wrong, saying he should know as he had chopped down more trees than her:thumbup: When a bit older I brought him the smallest chainsaw boots I could find to protect him using his axes, by 11yrs old he could use axes both left & right handed. Yep I was always worried about accidents so learnt the correct techniques from the 'old boys'. I reasoned that it would be impossible with so many sharp tools for him not to get hold of some - so I might as well teach him how to use them safely.

I have an old 266XP and noted the fuel vents on the righthand side, it bubbled when working on the saw - take a look on exploded diagrams of your saw, it should balance pressure both for using fuel vacuum and for heat increasing pressure. On the oil side is a granulated bronze bush. Hope this helps

It's no use getting married either, as I brought in the first armfull of wet muddy kit my wife told me if you want to have a farmer lifestyle buy a farmhouse - leaving the door open to get the next armfull she barked out, "I'm sure you were born in a barn, and if your mother wasn't 93 with dementia - I would ask her".

I'm not sue on some of the technical terms but I have dropped a few bigish ash trees with a big lean. being a risk I wrapped a few 1 tonne slings around the trunk just in case. Cut out the front wedge and put the saw through at 90 degrees to the henge to take the centre out, then reduced the sides at 90 degrees to the henge. This left two sections under high strain acting like big ropes under tension behind the henge. Then reduced the width of the two tension sections untill they started creaking - then went for a short walk. As the fibres started to break under strain, the tree finally dropped with out splitting the trunk leaving two clumps of broken fibres on the stump. Ok I admitt it I have trapped a few saws, so I always have a spare saw at hand and unbolt the trapped saw leaving only the bar at risk, lucky for me all recoved ok - so far. I use pull lines when needed on trees to prevent hangups and save work by making sure which way it goes, I have put in 3 - 1 tonne slings back to the rear winch on my pickup say 35 m away and put a small amount of tension on, the slings act like a 'bungy' - giving it a small pull in the right direction. Best one was a guy who had a leaning tree over a farm workshop - so he roped it back to his tractor, hoping to hold it but the weight of the tree pulled the tractor back as it went through the workshop.

Many thanks sandbach-sticks, the back of my pickup will be full of my families gear on the way up but I have noted your number so should be in contact

I'm off on holiday in mid Feburary to the Harlech area of North Wales, and will need to buy 1/2 or a pickup full of firewood or just wood ringed up for the cottage, I can pick it up in my own pickup + put some splitters in. It's with all the gear that my wife, son & his girlfriend bring, they will fill the back of my doublecab L200 - you just have to see how much they take. I work P/T on a large estate so have plenty of firewood at home:thumbup: Happy new year to everybody & thanks in advance