farmer rod

Your going to have to feed the groundy much better if you want to shift these:lol:

Steph I am prepared to be corrected, but I think that the green elements contain more chlorine, which can attack the insides of boilers and hence why generally unwelcome in the chip. My boiler has a metal grate with primary air drawn up through holes in it, whilst Im not entirely sure, I think it was a combination of dry wood with too many fines that would slow the cooling air, but some have said it could be moist chips with an increased quantity in the hearth. Once the things alight its a bit difficult to examine whats going on. The problem manifests itself with the tipping grate sticking on a bit of slag as it opens or closes. For the last 6 months it has behaved very well (touch wood) Ive just had my wood chipped for this coming year. All of the trailer loads that I have tested work out at below 36%, but in the shed the pile is steaming. I hope that this is the excess moisture rising up and the pile will cool down and be dry at the end of the process. If Ive got it wrong then Ive got 50 tonne pile of compost. A lot of the wood is given to me, (collected from Arb jobs) some I pay for and I cut some on the farm, it is valuable, but more or less valuable depending where it is and how wet!

has anyone actually been to a Mazola party?

they dont like the itchy stuff either:lol:

Hi Andrew, sharp as ever! fuel costs only, I reckon the RHI takes care of the capital and running, in order to make any sense of running the thing efficiently I have to start with keeping average fuel cost as low as poss, some is free dropped off, some is collected with obvious costs which comes very close to just getting it delivered in. Some is cut on the farm. 2). No just for stacking on the farm, pallet forks are ok for occasional use

I have to agree with all of the above

Our Eta was commissioned a year ago today, it has run very well with only very minor cause intervention. I have just added up the costs of the wood, the machine thinks it got through 46 tonnes of chip, I thought 'I had a big pile of wood, the day the chipper came he had shredded it by lunchtime, and to get to the end of the year I had to buy three 8 wheeler loads. So the cost works out at between 2.4 and 3.2 p/kWh which about the same as gas and half the price of oil. I have been collecting wood since last aug, and the chipper came on Monday last, again the shed is stacked, but i have spent quite a bit of time and effort and some money getting all these bits of timber back here. I wish I had a trailer crane like your difflock that would make the whole thing a lot easier Ive tried drying woodchips and its quite possible, but not easy to achieve without spending even more money.

We coppiced a bit with some polpar and it suckered like a forest in the hay field next door, but mowed it off a couple of time and it doesnt come back anymore. Not so easy if in woodland perhaps, just grazing with sheep would be better. ps like the book, proper job

could you illuminate a bit on the chipper please, cant seem to google it at all

thanks, I just had my pile chipped on Monday(similar outfit), 150 cu m of chip but quite a bit of that was on the brash pile so output was bound to be lower. I stack my woodpile on railway sleepers to keep the dirt out but I could see some turf getting in from the brash, difficult to avoid. Which part of the country do you operate?

sorry for the derail, but which chipper do you run, and how many hp/kW? thanks Rod

just so you know, cool vid (on steam driven pc)

with some sort of appropriate headgear, perfect:thumbup1:

A drum mower will leave the grass in a row, much easier for picking up, finger mowers are so slow and prone to damage. ah, edit , how wide are the tree rows? maybe not a drum mover in an orchard

Its amazing it hasn't been sorted already, I suspect some companies think they benefit from their customer gear disappearing in the night

Hi Dan we hired one of these the other day, I was interested to see how you used yours, but only 15 seconds of the machine working at the end of the vid. The vizibility from in there is not brilliant is it, but I loved the level guage, my 530.70 loader has a line at 5 degrees, the skid steer had a red mark at 45. Thanks for posting Rod

i agree, having fallen foul of the whole bat thing myself , I would recommend you quote for the job and find a bat up there when you start, that will give you 6 to 9 months more enjoyment of the trees and thinking of your next ploy to keep them there

:lol:

It is the best way to feed people at a party, and possibly the cheapest. I made a spit roast out of my fathers 1936 bicycle and my brothers windscreen wiper motor, One revolution per minute about right, get a pit dug plenty deep enough and light well ahead. You could borrow mine if you werent so far away. A pig is far too long to go over a barbecue, and they take a bit of turning because they get unbalanced when they cook. (balance up with mole grips etc clamped to the shaft)

out of curiosity, how do you make wine out of birch?

going to be a bumper year for apples according to the news, get scratting:thumbup1:

I think my tines are made of cheese:001_huh: Got an Albutt bucket though and its tough as old botts and still straight:thumbup1:

those ones look quite straight compared to mine..... oh moving timber on rough ground , that would explain it:lol:

does the site have a section 106 agreement any any or all of it?

It is just as depressing for the kids that have just worked their a.. off to get through exams as it is for those who went through the mill all those years ago when only one really clever guy in the whole school got straight As. there should be a non government body to ensure a gold standard for A levels and GCSEs, then politicians would have to stop messing about with the education system for their own ends (i didnt realise I felt so strongly about this to type that much)