Matthew Storrs

Agreed, I still can’t help thinking I’d explain very politely, that “whilst we arnt going to be able to agree on the tree/cost in question, I won’t therefore be able to cover the cost of waste removal and im sure you can appreciate I will return the waste for your disposal, thanks for your ‘buisness’”!

I’ll try it next time- your likely right as long as you know where the tube is sucking from, my one has a length of tube but the memory of the original coil in the plastic makes it quite hard to target a particular low spot. I know when i did the hydraulic tank recently more came out when I undid the drain plug.

Whilst I have used a vacuum pump recently to remove 70+ litres of hydraulic oil from a digger I’m not sure I would want to do the same with an engine, if an engine is drained when the oils still pretty warm I think you’d have more chance of getting g the most oil drained using conventional sump drain- gravity would mean the warm oil would drain to the sump off all components whereas I’d worry I wouldn’t have got it all out with a pump.

My thoughts so far, Tunisia= dirty players...

There are a lot of ways of looking at machine ownership so everyone’s approach may differ. personally when I buy a digger and Iv just got a new one on order so this is fairly relevant to me at the moment. Look at what equivalent machines are going for in say 5 years/10years or however long you would plan on keeping the machine before replacement. This will give you a good idea of how quickly it will depreciate and from this you can work out how much the machine is going to cost you per working hour (for example). Once you know this figure you can add profit as you see fit/usual buisness running costs etc. You should be able to work out your overall hourly running cost for the machine and thus whether that is a figure you think you will be able to achieve. Hire Purchase is a good way of looking at it as has already been mentioned- I would want the machine to be doing enough work for itself to cover the finance repayments, once it is paid off this is when it really earns you money. If you say plan on keeping the machine for 6 years. Pay it off in 3 via HP and the following 3 it will earn you money. When it comes to replacement the resale cost should cover deposit on new machine and off you go again. works for me but as said plenty different ways to look at it.

Pedant?

And we all know assuming makes an ass out of you and me!

Gravel would be for drainage. I’d expect there’s a pipe at the bottom of the gravel to take the water away so that it doesn’t build up behind the wall- looks like it’s a dry stone wall though in which case it would drain anyway. tidy job Bob. Nice to see work still looking good years later

Try farmers and the like. Some might have spare barn space-old shed or something which may suit. Not sure about price as depends on what they’re offering and how official the whole thing is- perhaps £200 a month, possibly more if there is electric-water and other facilities.

yeah agree, Abba knew how to put a song together alright, they have recently written a few songs for Steps and you can hear the abba in them- quite like it actually. The thing about music is so many people seem to restrict themselves to genres for various reasons, putting down bands they probably havnt even heard much of. I like variety myself and my cd (I havnt moved on from CDs yet!) collection contains more or less everything from Bach and Black Sabbath to Sophie Ellis bexter and Duran Duran. id get bored of the same music all the time.

Basically I have a new digger coming shortly, but I have a slight issue in that I will be running a powertilt hitch on it which will run of the standard breaker lines. obviously this is great if I’m just using standard buckets but I want to run a grab and auger off it too which will need hydraulics too. Is there an easy way to install a divertor on the existing hammer lines so that I can switch it over to then operate grab/auger. Could have ordered the machine as a speacial with dual auxiliary lines but couldn’t handle the 9 month wait! machine is a Takeuchi TB216

How come these timber trailers aren’t 4 wheel braking as standard? They are on most Agri type trailers arnt they?

The trouble with having lots of gear on the drip and overheads is that you only start making money once these costs are all covered. If for the sake of arguments your overheads a month are £1500 (not including wage bills) which I’d say is probably to be expected for your average one man band setup running half decent machines. You still have to pay that £1500 whether you work 5 days a month or 25. So by working an extra day or three a month you end up making a lot more money for yourself as your expenses are already covered by the ‘regular’ days and the extra ones are when you can make yourself some decent extra ££. personally I like to be able to cover everything by working 4 days a week. 5th day can be either a sorting/quoting day, a chance to make a bit extra or just a day out with the family. i don’t think Iv ever been considered expensive- but not bottom of the pile either- I think everything in moderation.

I have no real memories- aside from being allowed to watch it at school in 2002- the school made us all bacon baps and set the big screen up in the gymnasium. Not being a sport fan I’m afraid I can’t even remember the outcome. Iv never followed any sport of any kind and barely know the rules of football, but this WC Iv decided I’m going to watch all the England and Sweden (wife is Swedish) matches and see if I can get into it.

For me, I always prfer to be on the job doing it myself, consistent quality of work and all my kit is looked after. Iv been going nearly ten years on my own and it’s still only me and another lad as and when. I like the fact that if I finish the job earlier I can either just have the day off of if I’m feeling productjve- go on to another one, but with out the obligation to find and organise the work for lots of staff. Il never be rich doing it this way- but I enjoy, it pays the bills, I can take take pride in my work and my machinery, and my stress levels out lower. There is enough headaches just dealing with customers without added stress on top. Also keeping it small scale means you can pick and choose jobs that suit you rather than having to take on all sorts of crap to keep lads and kit busy. The grass isn’t always greener comes to mind

Duran Duran for me this evening! They came out with some cracking stuff.

Although lack of blade in the ex100 is a bit of a shame. I use the blade a lot for self levelling particularly if ditching and grading

The ex100 on steels would be my choice out of those 3 if it’s in tidy condition. dont go for zero swingers myself- I’m nearly always using a digger at full stretch with granite boulders for walling etc- the difference between the two is considerable espeacially at full reach. They’re for urban work and that’s all there is to it. Steels grip better than rubber and I find better for ‘tracking in’ aggregate. Not sure on replacement costs though as only ever used hired steel machines.

Cornish crimp is a thick roll of pastry around the side- I believe so the miners could hold their pasties with filthy hands and eat their lunch. Devon being perhaps more the land of the ploughman rather rather than the miner put the crimp along the top of the pasty. There is no thick wedge of pastry, rather the sides are brought up together in a simple crimp. Of course all the above is irrelevant anyway as they are now saying the ‘cornish’ pasty originated from Devon anyway!

Yes, I do get all your points. And the market may dictate how much you can sell a chipper/digger for, but VAT has still got to be added on this if your registered or buying from a dealer. And even though I can put the VAT against AIA allowance I’d still prefer the £3400 to be in my bank so I can buy another non VAT item. That all being said- Iv done the calculations over and over again and certainly with diggers and I’d imagine chippers too, given the decent resale value the cost per machine hour tends to work out better buying new vs a used item- particularly if you plan on keeping the machine for 5 years plus.

Brilliant- people were stronger then- chucking those logs around like they were polystyrene.

This has me confused. When I said about the 17k digger (new from a dealer) I’d have to pay VAT on top of this of £3400 and not being registered it is money il never see back. My point to the OP was that if he was to buy a tidy used chipper from someone who wasn’t VAT registered then he’d save a fair wack. Also if you have to use finance generally you have to pay the VAT up front leaving you with a much smaller deposit and larger repayments.

Now your talking! My neck of the woods that is! Malcolm Barnecutt makes a very fine pasty. I quite like a Devon crimp though too be honest- less pastry- more content.

Fleetwood Mac tends to be cd of choice at the mo. Crap video though!

Arnt you moving near to Cullompton? I believe roads tend to improve and be a bit more mainstream out that way. I wouldn’t know, I don’t venture beyond Ashburton