Matthew Storrs

Hi Doobin, my dad has a 135, I haven’t used it for a long time but I think the Makita has a lower chain speed. Although being electric and not being able to hear the revs like a petrol saw it’s quite hard to know for sure. If you have Makita batteries and charger anyway (the expensive bit) then you can get the mak for £135 or so. It’s absolutely brilliant for fencing and landscaping work (railways sleepers would be its upper comfortable limit) but it’d do them anyway. Like any saw but perhaps more so with electric a tip top chain is the key. I love the fact that I can have all my drills/grinders and chainsaw all running off the same batteries.

Nearest I can find near me in elevation is Holne and that’s saying 466mm in a month- surely that’s not right???

It’s intersting actually. Beau seems to have 325mm of rain in a month near Tavy. Plymouth weather stations are mostly recording sub 200mm that’s a big difference in such a small distance. Must get one up here in Princetown although might just make me depressed!

500mm of rain in the last 6-7 weeks? Blimey that is a lot. Certainly feels relentless. Looking forwards to Christmas break from it now.

I have NPORs excavator- the assessor came to by yard- did a touch screen test, discussed the machine for a bit, then I had to dig and backfill a trench. Job done! Cost me £220! All a bit silly really considering I’ve been operating my own diggers for 10 years now. Still boxes must be ticked!

I honestly can’t believe every one doesn’t have a battery saw in their arsenal. Similar money to a 550xp for example. Ok they probably aren’t the weapon of choice if your ringing up timber all day but just can’t sing about them enough on general crown/brash processing/ hedging etc. I really can’t be arsed with petrol anymore if I can help it.

I was kind of set on the husky simply because of the 9.4ah battery. However 2x Stihl 6.2ah batteries can be had for not much more money. I believe the chain speed on the Stihl is 17m/s compared to 22m/s on the husky. Makita is 20m/s but I’m taking that with a pinch of salt cause it feels pretty slow so can’t imagine the pro Stihl to be slower still...

Interestingly let’s say a tank of fuel costs 40p. A battery is expected to be recharged up to 1500 times .if a battery charge is the same as a tank of fuel as husky claim then that’s a saving of £600. Buying a top spec battery saw pays for itself in the fuel saving alone.

I purchased a makita 36v battery saw back in the spring- I absolutely love it ad as I already had the batteries for drills the saw only cost me £130 as a bare unit. Anyway just been on a eeek long hedglaying job and despite having a 357xp and a 550xp there I picked up the Makita every time. Just perfect for stop and start work, no faffing getting it started or smelling fumes and the noice etc. Anyway It does have its limits -over say 7” dia cuts it starts to be inefficient. It does it but obviously 357xp is far quicker. so I’ve decided I’m up for spending £600 on a top of the range battery saw setup in the hope that it will be that much better than my makita. But technical specifications from all manufacturers suggest otherwise. They all have 36v motors. Chain speed of around 20m/s (I always thought makitas was a little slow but on paper same as stihl and husky) So can someone convince me that buying a stihl msa200 or husky 536LI is actually going to be worth it over what I already have. I’m not overly clued up on battery’s etc so perhaps that’s where the difference lies? Mak runs on 2x 5ah (which are cheap to buy) the other two vary depending on what size battery but both are hideously expensive when it comes to batteries..... My Dad has a 40v greenworks battery saw and it blows my Makita out of the water so perhaps I should go for that...

Golly- reading this thread makes me realise how hideously boring my life has been so far. Grew up on a hill farm on Dartmoor- spent early life messing around with rocks, daming streams and generally making a nuisance of myself. Left school at 16 with dreams on life on the open seas.joined the Navy- left/discharged 5 days later- dream over. Thought I’d go up to Scotland to become a forester- attended 6 months at Barony didn’t really work out. Went to Leamington Spa- trained as a tree surgeon- worked as that for about 5 years. Returned to Dartmoor and started my own business building Devon banks/walling and digger work- been doing that for 10 years now and probably always will until I fall of the perch!

This- definitely hard to keep it going over the winter months when there’s no one to share the strain/problems with or just to laugh at stuff. I work in remote areas on my own and often don’t even see the customer. My wife (bless her) tries to listen any problems when I get home but in fairness she has her own stuff to deal with. So in short working solo and having depressing weather on top, trudging through jobs just to keep things afloat can be be a recipe for loneliness/depression/lack of motivation. There’s always someone worse off of course and the main thing I find is to make sure there’s always something in your life to look forwards to- holiday/nice evening out/going to visit friends/family etc. Make little breaks in your day to look forwards to- I always bring nice coffee and cakes with me. Just the thought of that at the next break will get me through the next few hours and so on...

Agree- that truck just looks very wrong in my eyes- not thought out at all- pickup bed is clearly an afterthought. Wouldn’t mind having a Landcruise Series 79 ute. Actually just looked- some of them have dreadful rear overhang too.

Think you’ve hit the nail on tie ahead- it does take a lot of enthusiasm and motivation for the job to get out there on your own time after time. i always find when I either have subbies with me or working alongside someone else I have far more get up and go- even if it’s raining!

Nope- I get this completely. Splitting your own firewood is a time consuming and dreary business. I can’t be arsed with it anymore- I reckoned it took me 3 days to fill my log shed, from first crack of the axe to stacking the final load- much sooner spend those 3 days earning instead!

Yes I do really. Buckets need to go in tow vehicle to keep it legal with current trailer- there are lighter trailers that could take buckets too. TBH most of the time i use my tractor these days if I’m taking the 3 tonner to a job with attachments and buckets as can get it all there in one go. What I’m really needing at the mo is a decent ‘mobile workshop’ so I can keep all my tools on board and gate fittings etc all with me so i don’t have to spend half my life loading and unloading tools like I’ve had to do with defender the last 10 Year’s. Doubt I’d get rid of Landu, unless I found I wasn’t using it anymore.

Interesting- very interesting actually. Think you might have sold it to me if I can find a tidy one. Thanks.

What’s it like pulling away with the digger can it do it on a bit of a slope ok or do you have to drop the box. I know my defender needs low box to do a hill .start on anything other than a mild slope

Looks superb setup. It doesn’t really bother me as I only do short trips but what sort of MPG does it return towing that digger

Around about £5-6 per meter supply and fit with roughly half off labour and half on materials. Obviously loads of turns of directions and/or lots of stops and starts in the fence will push the price up.

Weather doesn’t help either- I get the slump when it’s grey and miserable. After a while if you’ve been doing anything long enough it all becomes an element of ‘Old Hat’! In the sense that I think if something is new, exciting and requires learning new skills or overcoming challenge then generally motivation comes with that. I totally get where you are coming from Beau. It can be hard to get a bit of get up and go. I do think that necessity is a great motivator-(not applying this to you specifically) but for eg if you have kids or a farm, real money worries etc then perhaps an element of survival mode kicks in. I have no staff to arrive in the morning and work on my own much like yourself-getting myself out the door in a morning is usually trumped by the thought of another cup of tea. However once at work- I have no issues at all and in fact regularly work late into the evening simply because I am enjoying whatever it is I am doing and want to keep going.

Looking at them as we speak. What model Rangey is yours? Another cheap option for power seems to be the Jeep Grand Cherokee- but not 3500kg unfortunately. Do you run yours on LPG?

Actually I walked past a f350 yesterday and I thought yeah their big but not grossly so. I’d feel quite happy with one of them even in the Devon lanes. I mean a Land Rover 110 with an ifor flatbed is a pretty unwieldy beast too and with a truck as handy as a F350 you’d not need a trailer on the back as much perhaps.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/American-Ford-F-350-Diesel-Pickup/113400423607?hash=item1a673124b7:g:ulEAAOSwa3lb-v0C tipper conversion anyone!?

I’m constantly on the lookout for my perfect truck but everything seems to be a compromise in one way or another. Not big enough load bed, big enough load bed but no tool storage/family unfriendly. Wouldn’t want to chuck a load of money away on depreciation so that rules out new trucks- plus far too tarty for my line of work. what did you go for in the end Ken? My perfect truck- 3.5t towing- preferably not squeezed out of a tiny engine. decent long bed- 6ft minimum to get stakes, digger buckets and materials in. Internal storage for drills/saws tools. family friendly ie can put the little one in the back somewhere. is there such a thing?

What I find is there seems to be certain models in each manufacturer which really excel but then other models in their range let them down. Personally I didn’t really like the small Kubotas kx016 &018. The cabs were nice though. Small short blades, rather tinny bodywork and poor bucket-blade geometry. From what I’ve tried I’d go for the yanmar sv26 in the 2.5-3t category