Matthew Storrs
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Everything posted by Matthew Storrs
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All relevant- someone working on their own- no staff is doing well to be near the Vat limit, even if you have a load of machinery etc- its staff thats the killer:laugh1:
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This is topical for me at the moment as i'm tetering around on the Vat limit at the mo- I think i prefer the idea of going on holiday more and earning less to save myself the hassle:laugh1: Do you think that being Not VAT regeistered really prevents commercial work?- I seem to get a fair bit of council/national park and the like and don't think that not being registered prevents this, They are more one off jobs though rather than a long term contract though...
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I couldn't agree more- even '30 year guarantee' softwood timber is questionable considering how far the treatment goes in. Creosote is great but nasty to deal with. I use almost exclusively Chestnut now for fencing stakes. And would be interested in other options for naturally durable (and easily accesible) timbers too.
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at least its flatish!!- my current job is stock fencing on hellish steep clay hillside- slighest drizzle and its game over in that landrover/tractor will just slide all the way down and your lucky not to turn over in ther process- even my digger slides happily sideways down the hill. All good fun though.
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We had a string of sizeable river clearance jobs a few years ago to improve salmon spawning grounds for Westcountry rivers trust- to date they ahve been amongst my favourite jobs iv ever done- nice big bonfire, digger and grab to pull it all out of the water and load the fire- we just had one of us down in a river with a saw and another in the digger up on the bank in the field- simple setup but got loads done in a day- then had to fence all along, couple of km in some cases:thumbup1: Seems to have gone quiet though on that front- think funding dried up a bit.
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Was on bbc4, called engineering giants, they basically stripped down a boeing 747 which had to be done as a service for british airways- quite interesting actually, the diggers were breaking an ex service one.
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Also, was looking at the new Hanixs the other day- seemed well built machines at good value. similar build to the Takeuchis in that they were made up of steel rather than plastic casings, can only be a good thing in tree work.
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Anyone see those 2 big CATs dismantling the Boeing 747 last night on TV. dream job surely.
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Bank account advice for Small Start Up Business
Matthew Storrs replied to BackoftheWoods's topic in Business Management
Interesting that many are using secondary personal accounts for their buisness- The bank pretty much told me 5 years ago that they would not allow me to use a personal account for buisness use (on reflection not sure how they can enforce this) so have been paying £20 or so a month to HSBC for the pleasure, doesn't sound alot but id prefer £240 a year to be in my account than theirs! -
Yes, its catch 22 though, getting in customers is one thing- being able to hold onto them when you treble your rate over the first few years is another. generally most will start to look elsewhere if there is such a big increase.
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Seems some people confuse a wage and actual buisness running cost. £12p/h might just be ok if it was all money in your pocket, but to run a buisness at that rate can't possibly be profitable. I get the attraction of luring in customers who only want a cheap rate just to get the work in, i'm sure most of us probably started in this way, but eventually when the work is flooding in, it will be very stressfull working for such a low rate. Don't forget how much 'behind the scenes' work goes on with running any buisness- if your working per hour you will be working for free an awful lot
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Thanks. Bucket warehouses scandinavian bucket appears to be the same width as the normal style for a 3 tonner, perhaps it gets narrower as they get onto bigger sizes. Also I would have thought the conventional one is going to be better for ditch cleaning, that said- I,m quite happy with just a non tilting one for ditch cleaning as the blade provides sufficient adjustment in most cases, so perhaps Id be better getting the scandinavian one- I hate desicions.
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A work of art- i,d prefer a picture of that hanging on my wall than Monet! Okay, I'm going to buy myself a tilter on Monday (before the tax year ends:thumbup1:). Couple of questions if you mind- Eddie or anyone else wh uses them. 1) Its to go on a 3 ton machine- Is it preferable to have one with the twin rams over a single ram. I will probably just go for the conventional style as i think that will suit my needs fine- I didn't realise the scandinavian ones were narrower- thats kind of put me off a bit. Any makes in preferance/ orto avoid- I realise Geith always get good press but don't want to wait ages for it either... Cheers.
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looks good, I notice some places are selling the 'scandinavian' style tilting grader. Are these better than the standard for general landscaping tasks and are you still able to ditch with them due to the different profile overv a standard ditching bucket?
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Yes, I guess it comes down to the added traction you get from all that weight behind it particularly on the rear wheels. I always find a tractor spins out far too easily when pushing into a pile of soil. What size dumper is that 6 ton?
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Nice- how does the digging power compare to your big Cat you had? Would you say similar? You must be getting the hang of the new controls allright...
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Best 7 or 8 ton excavator for forestry work ??
Matthew Storrs replied to njtimber's topic in Large equipment
On reliability, Iv had 2x Takeuchis that have both done 3 years graft with neither needing any more than basic servicing, oils etc and tracks, Also they are beautifully basic in terms of fit and finish which may suit a forestry enviroment well.... Flat panel glass is easily and cheapily replaceable and the panels are all metal- no nasty plastics to crack and cost a fortune to fix! Some say that they wear quickly on the pins, but i'm convicnced this is down to lack of grease (being a common hire machine). cos neither neither of mine have worn badly at all- but i'm OTT with the grease:laugh1: -
That looks great Eddie, far more convincing looking for real world field situations i undoubtably would find myself. The dealer selling the JCB i posted said it was possible to switch the controls anyway (??) if i really did find JCB to hard to get on with but i'd be determined to persist with them much like Stephen will with his:lol: I actually kind of relish the thought of learning on something new to me alltogether! i assume though with all these extra dig models that the idea of a fixed grab or even a thumb is not possible as your bracing back on to the staionary part of the dipper? In all fairness id probably look at demo grabs anyway.
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We were doing a tree job on the main road accross dartmoor- had traffic lights set to all red and this bloke comes through them as if it doesn't apply to him- climber was halfway through a big limb coming off- what a plonker!
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I went to look at this old beast the other day- took me a while to get hang of the JCB controls but opened my mind to the backhoe route, This is going for just under £14k with new tyres basically needed all round. so probs another 2.5k.. Seems alot for an over 20 year old machine, but perhaps for good reason. http://devonplant.co.uk/detail.asp?ID=1234
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Steve,If you did go down this route then if it was too wide it might require some bracing/gusset on the thumb to avoid the twisting when the force is on the outer edge- Im sure RSL will come up with a solution. If you look at that thumb on the Neuson i mentioned above- the profile of the tines are quite curved/as opposed to the normal straight ones on a lot of thumbs, something like this but wider and with filled in gaps would work well Id have thought for your application
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Yes, sure. but a demo grab like you had on that Neuson or that Stephen Blair has on his Cat are £££. I think SteveA is after something rather more cost effective? I still think a Thumb made to suit his application ie wide and almost like an opposing side of a clamshell would work very well and not cost too much either.
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Sounds like a good plan- I,m particularly interested to see how you find it in the wet- thats my main concern at the moment. I,m sure you will get a hang of the controls soon enough once the muscle memory kicks in! I had a go in a 1994 JCB the other day and no word of a lie it took me about 20 mins to get a coherant operation out of it:laugh1: I honestly think someone who had never driven a digger before would have been better than me cos my hands kept trying to use a normal digger. I,m wondering how easy it would be to have a quich hitch on the 4 in 1 bucket with quick hoses so i could use other attachments on the front- in my case a post knocker- but all sorts really- log grabs etc.
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don't think a grab is the right tool for you by the sounds of it- you can't grab loose material unless you had some sort of add on plates made up to make it more clamshell like- fairly sure you can buy clamshell grabs in the same format as the fixed grabs.... Yes, I think if i was you Id look at getting a fabricator to make me a thumb to suit your application- ie wide as you say but with the tine filled in to assist grabing loose material- or rather keeping it in the bucket.
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depends what you are doing really- if your just after a general purpose handling tool them the thumb comes into its own- as its always there on the machine and obviously you still have the bucket on- if you start doing a lot of dedicated handling whether its logs/rocks/scrub or whatever then a proper grapple is much better- stronger- and you can really get a good grip round things where the thumb would flounder a bit. I think a rotating grab is really only worth it if your into forestry/timber handling in a big way- a fixed grab will go far once for most things- use ofset boom etc to get the log at the right angle to the stack- and you can use the grab to 'knock' the log into the right position if your not quite lined up right- you soon get the hang of it.
