Matthew Storrs

Mighty Zetor 7045- £169 Trust

If its raining hard before i leave home and im climbing i tend to reschedule, if it rains mid climb i just get on with it. I do 50/50 tree work and fencing and id sooner be doing ground tree work in heavy rain over fencing or climbing. Plus living on the hat of dartmoor tends to be a case of living with your head in the clouds- quite literally- so rain can't be avoided. Sometimes when it rains mid job and i get totally soaked through i almost get motivated by it and find im quite enjoying myself!

For post and rail I would always just backfill, but for closeboard with wooden posts- concretes the only thing that'll stop wind rock, I personally don't find it a problem to use concrete but the main thing is not to concrete to ground level as that is where the water will gather, I stop 10 inches or so short of ground level then backfill the rest.

nice one- do you have the auger on the front of the tractor and a knocker on the back- thatd be quite a good setup really

a few more- don't tend to do much domestic fencing but everynow and again seem to end up with one

Well, as suggested in another thread il show mine if you show me yours! A job i did back in summer with telegraph strainers and chesnut stakes, the conditions were hardly ideal, either granite EVERYWHERE or just soft peat- got the digger bogged down to the doors!

Iv got an auger on my mini digger and with a 4inch auger there isn't much ground it won't pilot drill, in fact i would go as far to say it'll do pretty much anything short of bedrock. augersizes goes all the way up to 16". Trouble is the 4 inch one has been used so much its probably nearer 3 inches in diameter now!

Yep gripples are a great time saver and the t gripples save so much faffing around tying that fiddly wee knot to tie the netting off, I don't tend to use the t grips that much because im always trying to keep material costs down, probably saves that in labour tho. The kiwis i notice tend to knock the stakes in at 90degrees to the slope as opposed to all vertical like over here, in a way makes more sense because more of the post is in the ground, I think my customers might raise an eyebrow or two if i i started doing that tho:001_huh:

yep, rained orf here too! nasty stuff, I get all twitchy when i cancel a job and keep looking out the window to make sure its still raining so i don't feel guilty for taking the day off! Got the fire going instead and sunk into the sofa for the day! You need a good book on the go for days like these.

yep, i find cheap netting a real pain, you can strain it up all tight with clamps yet for some reason some of the strands are still slack half way along the line somewhere really irritating. Don't seem to have this problem with better quality stuff

thats ok, Its one of those jobs where everyone seems to have there own methods, I guess as long as the outcome is good it doesn't really matter how it was done. i love it really, I can spend hours on you tube looking at different fencing machinery/techniques etc and i can never walk past a new stock fence without giving it a pluck to see how tight it is- drives my misses insane when were out on a walk!

Hmm, it seems you all do netting 1st. I use the boundary strainers too and usually strut the strainers unless its soft ground then i use the box strainer, with netting I always strain longer runs in the middle as I find its easier but also gives a more even tension throughout the run, although I usually pull the barb from one end. The reason Iv always done the top wires 1st is that I find particulary on long undulating runs the barbs get caught up in the netting as you are pulling it up plus I usually use the barb wire to give me the line for the stakes so Iv always just strained it up to get it out of the way when unrolling the netting. I don't know if hi tensile can be overtightened but i usually tighten it untill the ripples in the wire netting pull pretty much straight. Another thought being that time of year whether to strain up in frozen ground as you can't guage movement untill the ground thaws by which time it may be too late...

Take your average hi tensile stock fence with pig netting and two strands of barb/plain wire. Id be interested to hear what order other contractors strain up ie strain the netting tight then add the two top wires afterwards or do the top wires first then netting last. Iv been fencing for quite a few years now but can never decide which is the best method. It would make sense to do the top wires first as these have the most pull/leverage on the strainers but then it stakes more strain to get the netting tight so more chance of the top wires losing tension. Im talking nice and tight not some half assed tension job that sheep can push under. I have always done the top wires first but i always feel id could do an extra chain link tighter when it comes to doing the netting but don't want to risk slakening the barb. P.s my strainers are always knocked in by machine and strutted properly before someone makes that comment!

The old stanleys may well be very good but Iv had 3 in as many years and they have all been totally useless, 1 worked for 6 months then failed to keep anything hot more then a few hours and another didnt work from day1- didnt keep anything hot any longer then a standard china mug! Shame- they look cool but am happy with my 1liter tesco stainless flask which keeps things hot hot all day and only cost me £5:001_rolleyes:

I see no wrong in sycamore myself, why be so fussy when many trees seem to be in decline anyway. Id sooner have a wood full of sycamore then no woods at all. Sure they need managing with the amount of self seeders they produce, but thats a good thing, makes great firewood. Alot of people are negative too as they are not native species, but 400 years in this country now, I think we can let that aspect slip. A veteran sycamore is a mighty fine tree and I would argue for a sycamore to stay just as much as any other appropriate tree in the right place.

Sure- that works, but why go to all that effort- if you leave it in the washing machine for long enough it will just get done by her anyway:thumbup1:

Its a women thing, they get so excited about shopping for gifts, when ever I go into town with my women it always ends in an argument, usually from my side 'theres too many people' 'its too hot and stuffy in this shop' 'I aint paying £20 for that piece of crap'. So now im banned and she deals with any shopping/presents- result!

yes thats a good idea, but surely you'd need a plywood sheet of the same size to fix the chequer plate too, or did you just let the chequer overhang the plywood by an inch

I replaced by 8x4 plant trailer floor with a ply sheet, lasted about 6 months before it started splitting into layers, then eventually broke when i loaded my mini digger onto it. So im in the same boat as you, i thought about eco sheeting but doesn't look particularly convincing if you load heavy plant onto it. Trouble is the Ifor 8x4 trailer requires a sheet an inch or so wider then the standard sheets to fit properly, standard sheet still works but looks a bit sloppy!

great cheers, the tp website states 40hp as minimum but not sure whether they mean at the PTO or not, mine gives 53hp at the PTO apparently. As said not too fussed if its slow chipping the full 8inches but would be great if it pulled in the brash wihout too much bother.

As above, I have 70Hp tractor and wondering if that will comfortably run a TP200 (8inch). Used to use one on a mog 1000 and it was a joy to use and I love the big hopper. I doubt i ever chip bigger then 5inches max but could do with the extra inches to drag in bushy hawthorn that i so often get from hedgelaying/scrub clearance. cheers Matt

that buzz you get when you do a big fell (particularly a stunt fell) and you get it spot on. P.S that makes it seem like i don't get it right very often- haha:biggrin:

incidently, I ran the tractor mounted splitter of the mini digger just to see what it was like, much faster and more powerfull then the tractor, Im now thinking of getting one with brackets for the mini digger to run it- uses less diesel then the tractor and i can have the grab there to do all the pre log moving/sawing up then put the splitter on and crack on! (sorry for the pun)

Get one- best investment ever for a mini digger, I have an augertorque one with 4/6/8 inch bits tugsten tipped running off a takeuchi tb016. the 8inch will go through almost any hard ground- compact shillet is the hardest work for it but compact subsoil is no bother at all, drill a 1.2m hole 8inches wide in less then a minute, always handy to have a pair of shuvholers or clapper spades just to clean any soil out the hole which doesn't get lifted out with the auger, I did a job for another fencer the other day just drilling the wholes, I dug 20 70cm deep holes in the most compact ground in under an hour including cleaning out the holes etc. Im not sure how well a 12inch bit would go through hard ground might struggle a bit but average soil wouldn't be a problem. If im knocking in large strainer posts into hard ground with a hydraulic postbanger i predrill all the holes first with the 4inch bit, just gives a free run for the strainer to be knocked into. Paid £1500 for mine brand new with 8 inch bit from augertorque 3 years ago. If you get one make sure you specify a cradle hitch, makes travelling with it alot more controled and also makes positioning the auger prior to drilling alot more accurate.

And did they? whats to say the redirect would be pulling inline as well, i would say you'd almost never find yourself in a situation where you were able to get a direct pull when self recovering no matter how many redirects you setup, I always think there should be some kind of play on lever to allow proper spooling on. Call me OCD but as soon as iv recovered myself i pull ot the wire again and reel it all on neatly again, I hate seeing the wire all crisscrossed:001_rolleyes: