teepeeat

give her a bit of the agave nectar - the right dose should take care of the fear of flying :-)

thanks Big J Someone heard your plea and we had quite a pleasant day out, round our way at least :-)

love to do something like that Is this related to the 'Explore the ancient trees of Africa 2013 expedition' I have noticed on a number of members titles?

That would be my general comment of having seen a number of reports - again this is marine based. Most cases I recall seem to have resulted in significant internal trauma rather than amputations. Mind you, we are talking about large wires, often with large lumps of metal in the form of sockets or hard eyes attached. From my experience, at sea and ashore, too many people also are far to brave/thoughless about where they stand in relation to snap back zones!!

Having seen the state of the wires a lot of people continue to use, its surprising there are not a lot more incidents

Indeed and ever changing as well

Hi Rick Apologies for the very short, simple question - posted in a bit of a rush with my mind on other things. Luckily, you seem to have picked up on what I was after and made some very interesting points. Like many, also found the program very inspirational on many levels. I dont have your technical knowledge or experience of these things, but am looking to build something in the future and am therefore asking a lot of silly questions. As I said, a number of interesting points, but just wondering if the time taken to scribe joints and pack floors etc can be offset against the time you have spent hewing and squaring timber? Have you seen the detail of Ben Laws joints - one was called the 'butter pat' joint. Blimey - just realised how well named that was as it just popped from some dark recess of the head from a few years back looks exactly like a pair of butter pats Anyway, it seems to be a good solid joint requiring minimal removal of wood, presumably to limit weakening the timbers too much? Will look it up and post something if you havnt seen it. As you say, round vs square timber will depend on personal preference, but would have thought only to a certain degree as it may also be dictated by what timber is available. In Ben Law's case it is predominantly coppiced sweet chestnut, but I guess he is also looking at expanding the market for coppice products which does cloud the arguement slightly. I have to admit I do like the aesthetics of the round wood and was under the impression that it would reduce the overall labour required in a low tech build?? Regards Terry PS, your build is doing a fair bit on the inspiration front as well - for quite a few on here besides me.

Bit of an issue in the marine world - numerous sailors and even more fisherman not with us anymore due to both wire and synthetic ropes popping. A trawl through MAIB (marine accident investigation branch) reports should give a bit more detail, albeit only covering incidents in UK waters or on UK registered vessels. Seem to recall some more recent events reported by the Marine Safety Forum.

Rick, did you ever consider building using timber in the round - ala Ben off grand designs?

vapormatic is about the best quality in my opinion, even when brushed on it leaves a really good finish, painted my landy winch bumper with a bush and you can hardly tell it wasnt sprayed I know a few people in Herefordshire who are a bit tight with their cash, but thought it was just them. Seems it is a bit more wide spread :lol:

Cheers Tony, much obliged

Cant seem to open that Tony, do you have a web site? After a quick google seem to be a few of these going on around the country. Which event does the poster refer to?

its not ament to root as quick underground in the damp Pity - seems a nice idea to have a tree root out of your coffin

Should have known Tony would be good for a book recommendation - cheers for that Tony and LWWoodlands as well

Nice thread Backpain. Looking to learn a lot more on this subject. Any recommendations for a good book for identifying UK wild plants. We have all sorts growing around us that I know nothing about.

Lots of sound advice above. I am not professionally in the tree game, but do deal with newbies at work on a regular basis, so a bit of general advice. If you are new to something, dont rush at it, go steady. You have the tickets, but not the experience. Be humble, ask questions, know your limitations, be open to learn - I regularly read comments on Arbtalk from clearly experienced people who admit to learning something new. Dont judge people based on their day rate - the lowest paid on site are there to do a necessary job.

see all your posts above and raise with the planning department - they also seem to take an interest in what goes on in these matters and are currently looking for any excuse to charge a planning fee. We got stopped putting in a track along the edge of a muddy field as it was agricultural land and needed permission to do it!

Ty, I suspect in this case PeteB might be referring to the manufacturer stiffing him after he had honored the warranty with the end user - his customer??

Just going off on a tangent, but do you specifically want to carry everything, or would a hand cart or converted golf cart be an option. Gives the possibility of taking other gear that might be useful in some areas?

Steve - sad to read your comment; sadder still that it is accurate and needs to be said. Dont think the press has ever been squeaky clean, but they do seem to have plumbed new depths the last few decades.

mmmm - how much does topography effect prices - ie steep sloping site vs flattish Also a site with access to a road vs one with none?? Another idea for income from the patch is glamping perhaps - seems to be popular at the moment.

Good comments Will An unfortunate human trait is that we make a decision about any particular issue based on 'facts' or whatever and then defend that point of view regardless of any new information. We need to remember that science has only learned so much and there is a lot more to learn before we know how everything works, so we need to be adaptable in our views. Human history is littered with the fall out of arrogant humans making decisions based on scanty information. Human learning is like trying to get to the top of a mountain and just when we think we are getting to the peak we realise it is just another ridge with a good few more to the top. As we tackle each ridge it consumes us, it is all we can see and we lose sight of the bigger picture. As things get more and more complicated we tend to get more easily lost in the limited detail and lose sight of the bigger picture and grasp at any handy 'facts' to steady ourselves. I don't think our conscious minds are able or even designed to cope with it all. There is a lot more going on between our lug holes than many would like to admit (not enough facts about it probably ) and we need to harness intuition or what ever it is to guide us rather than a very limited set of facts. As I said a few days ago, we are along for the ride and nature will decide what is going to happen to us while we are still arguing about it all.

Tony, this is hardly surprising. Take a patch of healthy earth, do your best to crank as much growth out of it in an unnaturally short period of time. To compensate, feed it a bit of artificial fertiliser based on current, incomplete scientific knowledge and nutrient deficiency is bound to be the result. Look at the agricultural revolution in India in the 60's and the fallout and current concerns. This has helped create a huge population who will not be able to be fed when nature shows her hand. Complete disregard for natural cycles and time scale because we are such a clever bunch arn't we. As they say, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I am not saying we should not be learning and experimenting, but the current human preference is for squeezing material wealth out of every scrap of knowledge we gain.

I think there is enough in the one square mile around my house (or anybody's house for that matter) to stimulate me for the whole of my days on this earth - socially,culturally, scientifically or in any way you can think. Why do you feel travelling the world and doing all these things is what we should be doing?????? Will they really make you happy??? I have tried that for a bit and found it very unsatisfying and would be happy to stay around home for ever more - if I could and is in fact what I am working towards within this very crazy world we are living in. Your previous comments regarding capitalism concern me. Our current version of capitalism is hardly a good, democratic one. In fact it is complete pie in the sky. Perpetual growth in a finite world??? It worked sort of OK for a bit when a handful of people benefitted at the expense of the majority, but now that the majority want their share, we realise the problems and this is the biggest logjam in getting things going in the right direction regarding Tony's original topic of climate change. The current financial crisis is the natural evolution of an unsustainable capitalistic system that has been twisted and turned in every possible way to squeeze a bit more out of it, but there is nothing more to squeeze.

It would be nice to believe that we did live in a democracy, but we dont. Democracy is supposed to be governance of the people, by the people for the people. Lets look at who we are governed by - a handful of people who are at best selected by local party structures, but increasingly imposed on us by party central office's. Hardly democratic. In fact party politics itself is inherently undemocratic because any MP dilutes the representation of his constituents by showing allegence to a party. I accept, that pure democracy has its problems just as pure communism or any other idealistic system and pragmatic measures need to be put in place, but I would not call our system democratic. The current Levinson inquiry gives us some interesting insights into how things work behind the scenes. We are also all probably aware of a number of 'inconsistencies' in our local government practices where ever we live in the country. The reason people dont believe in the power of democracy is that they know, either consciously or intuitively that it is corrupted. What I find particularly interesting in the west is that we bang on about the blatant corruption in places like Africa, while a far more sinister form of corruption takes place behind the scenes under our very noses. Its all about power and control at the end of the day rather than good governance. Anyway, this is a bit of a hijack, so back to the main thread.