spudulike

Done a bit of beach casting, enjoyed the casting technique, got up to over 150 yards .....well over the length of a football field but not had time to do it for years. Fairly amusing seeing other anglers running at the sea and giving it their all to make 50 yards and then wacking my own weight out 120 yards + with little effort.

Just rebuild the 026 unless it is a right old state. They are usually pretty robust, piston skirts wear in extreme cases, the older carbs can go a bit off piste but apart from that, pretty solid. Other than that, you are talking MS241, MS261.....Stihl has a really silly pricing structure on these two saws...the 241 has a plastic cradle and clam engine, the 261 is more like your 026. I still see 261s with clutch drum issues where I have almost never seen wear on the 026 ones. £120 for an OEM 44.7mm cylinder and you could probably pick up a secondhand carb.

What about Delrin, always a good material. Get some pics up, I am sure some ideas will flow. You mention 1/2" and 12mm......call me stupid but 1/2" is around 12.5mm so 0.5mm of wear, seems pretty small to me. Probably best to drill the wheels out slightly and push in some bush material or turn the axle down and push on a bush.

Blimey, I thought I had clicked on Mumsnet for a moment.....Kettle choice, who would have thought

Allen Scythe even....good call though! The Grim Reaper of long grass.

I never like it when the top end comes off and the land around the cylinder base hasn't been pre cleaned, all that chip and oil falling in to the main bearings

I had one in that had been in to a number of dealers who charged the owner for not fixing the problem. Always an interesting one but on this one, I found the generator loop behind the flywheel was loose. The symptoms were it was rough running and sounded like it was four-stroking (running rich) but it seemed to pull reasonably OK. You may find the screws that hold the generator in place are mullered and it may be a JB weld fix but worth checking this as it is mostly overlooked. These machines did have issues with main bearings - difficult to tell from your vid TBH.

That's eye wateringly expensive, I wonder what the mark up is.

No chain brake, reckon the H&S would take a dim view to giving an employee this saw!

No idea but do remember the "Really Free" single....interesting pair!! Just looked it up and John Otway did it.

The rubber boot joins the flywheel air injection to the air box, the manifold isn't safety critical and is unlikely to impact the performance of the saw. If it worries you, just change it but you are unlikely to notice any difference in performance or have any safety implications. The other bit....it just locates the exhaust cover and is the AV movement limiter....yours looks to be at the bottom of it's limit and it should sit in the middle, something looks to be pushing the handle upwards.

GIve up........here you are.......

No rubber insert should be in that hole and the little boot, wouldn't worry about it unless it gets really bad.

Cor baby thats really free

Possibly the brake actuation spring is weak, sounds more likely than the band unless it is very worn. You may have a lot of oil around the brake, degrease with a bit of brake cleaner.

eBays new payment is a joke, you get your money as a seller 2-3 days after the sale and now have to take eBays instruction that they have the money, not like Paypal where the money is in your bank before shipping. The way these organizations make out that financial transactions take 2-3 days is a joke, it takes a minute to BACS money over and is every bit as fast as Paypal now.....so why the wait??? So eBay has millions in their bank account now at all times!

Cant talk about Stihl but believe it is dealers only and it is probably like the Husqvarna CST system where you can only get access being a dealer using their online access. The manufacturers shouldn't sell the interfaces if you can't get the software. TBH, much of the diagnostics can be done with normal methods. The electric stuff is where I really miss the Stihl interface/software but that's life, move on.

Had the first cucumber off the plant, lots on the way. The tomatoes are forming and the spring onions are looking good. On the spring onion front, last year was a disaster so this year, I mixed a load of sharp sand in with the soil and planted in clumps, they looked a bit iffy for a couple of weeks but now, they are thickening up a treat and doing well. Onions like free draining soil, too much peat and they get mildewy and rot.

Glad it ended up OK. One up to you and a loss to the neighbour that doesn't know what the regulations actually state.

Try L&S, they stock Makita spares.

Pretty much what I did say - let us know how it goes, should be interesting.

Don't consider doing anything to the bloke who has complained. A better tack is to show the council guy that all you are doing is parking your work vehicle in your drive and trying to minimize any effects of doing this by doing your land mods etc. Prove that you have business premises elsewhere and that you do no work activities from home apart from your books etc. The council fella will be rolling over all the items I have listed and being open, friendly and positive is more likely to get the result you need than being down right aggressive. Once he has made a judgement, it is unlikely they will get involved again. If any of the things I have listed are happening then try to minimize them. In my case, a simple one was customers only parking in the drive, sending out a number of parcels via one courier pickup not many plus no noise at the weekend. It works for most but you still get the odd annoying fecker complaining.

Interesting post as I had to look at this carefully when I started up my business from home. Firstly, if you ignore it, it will get worse and is likely to make you look guilty so talk to them, be polite and be open, no hiding vans round the corner on the day of the inspection. From what I learnt (you can look at your local councils web page) , councils to determine there has been a change of use to a property will be looking for: - 1) No excessive visits from your customers or deliveries or pickups. 2) No blocked roads with excessive customer parking of vehicles interrupting neighbours access. 3) No excessive noise from visitors or running the business - milling in a residential back garden for instance! 4) No excessive smells from running the business 5) No advertising boards outside the property 6) No change of structure to the house or land to accommodate the business - having a four pillar hydraulic ramp, inspection pit and cars parked up and down the street will be a red rag!! 7) The time that anything happens for - a couple of deliveries a day is pretty average for an eBay fiend or a lady that likes mail order clothes..........etc Getting on with your neighbours helps a lot but it is often not them but the neighbours neighbours or even people further away. In your case, I would say you are OK if your wagons are only parked on your drive with nothing else going on. If you are maintaining chippers, taking the vans apart, having a load of workers coming and going using up the parking spaces along the road, it may be viewed differently. Your business yard will be a big help in your defence. It would be good if both wagons were parked up the side of the house but guess that can't be done. You could phone the council, express to them your current usage and then see if they still need to come out and see you. They may just need a letter from you stating your use of the property and it may go away if you don't deviate from it.

Well....saws deposit greasy oily chip all over your workshop and tools as few arb types clean their saws regularly. Stone cutters deposit fine gritty dust over everything which is much worse and it takes forever to clean up plus stone cutters are cleaned even less and they always have shot main bearings and bores. I have a dislike of working on them, especially the knackered ones!!

Bloody stone cutters, detonation is the best thing for them, destroy themselves in a puff of stone dust.