ThrustSSC

No-one going to suggest a 576XP?! Love mine...

My local 'been selling logs to the village for years' guy does the same - only using a processor. My jaw dropped when I visited once to see his processor's conveyor hovering over the bed of the pickup depositing the logs! And he sells them as 'seasoned'...

Spot on. I feel guilty at my pricing sometimes, but I know it's not worth doing it for less, and the customers seem very happy indeed - they come back again and again saying how wonderful the last ones were compared to the competition. I just wouldn't pay it myself (which is how I got started producing logs anyway). But I wouldn't buy a £70k Mercedes saloon, either. I provide a product those folks wish to pay for, and I respect that.

Ouch - not had a lot of use before breaking, has it?!

Glad to hear it's not just me! As they're in my 'patch' I do think I should check them out, but my customers keep coming back saying "we don't get logs anything like as good as yours from anyone else". So clearly I'm doing something different enough that they're happy to pay my price - which is significantly more than that guy!

There's a guy in the Thames Valley - not exactly a cheap logs area! - that sells his for £75/m3 of hardwood, or £69/m3 for two. Crazy prices. I'm tempted to check out his product for quality - if it's as good as my own and the quantities are correct, I might as well just stop processing my own and resell his!

Still sold out, Jon. No change from a month ago :-)

Hey, Eddie, having had some lung problems for the last 18 months and decided to try and nail the cause instead of just using an inhaler when they're bad, I decided to try some Aspen. So, as there's nowhere near us (Evesham) that stocks it, and I had a day-job trip to Henley-on-Thames finishing at lunchtime, I looked up a couple of local suppliers to pop in on the way home. Toad Hall Nurseries didn't have any in stock. The other local guy on Kiln Lane I couldn't even find - so I figured there was no point calling him as places welcoming folks who want to call in and shop tend to be pretty obvious. Kidlington on the way home from there only had 1 litre bottles - and it's expensive enough without buying it in those. I guess I'll be stuck on pump fuel for a while longer! Now, where did I put that inhaler...?

LOL! Although it did look like being another one of those troll threads!

Is there not one for trolls?

Surely that's a matter of your Ts&Cs if you sell it still in the bag? i.e. just like a box of cornflakes "contents may settle in transit". Me, I just use them for seasoning in, and the bags never leave my site, so my frame works very nicely. Alternatively, and I think Alycidon does this, you could top the bags up before you go. With shrinkage on drying you may need to anyway!

No - that's a 'cord'. Or it's variants 'face cord', 'kitchen cord', 'mains cord', etc. Cordwood is strictly wood stacked by the cord. But is often also used to mean "firewood-grade timber". And on here it seems to mean the starting point for processing into logs.

A wise note, sir! Reminds me of one customer who tried to haggle on the price I quoted him. He was most surprised when I went upwards with my next offer. He laughed and went lower still. I went another £5 higher and smiled. He got the message, and ended up paying £10 more than he would have needed to. I did say that I believe I sell at a fair price and the only person who gets a discount is my mum.

LGW is right, I'm afraid. Asking for relief from the processing AND a price well below the local rates isn't going to bring you success. Sorry if that's hard to hear. If someone could get it to your area easily, they'd be better selling it to others at full price than at a marked discount to yourself. And do you really mean 7 cords? That's about 35m3 of loose logs, or 18 tons green... It's an AWFUL lot!

Superb! I reckon that I can either saw 2.5 tons or axe-and-pack 1 ton an hour. So in a 10 hour day I can maybe do 7 tons... Clearly I'm a lightweight.

It's definitely very localised this year. I've landed some for 2014-5, but I got lucky. I think the ever-increasing transport costs are killing any hope of moving it far - arguably a good thing to keep firewood local, of course. What are the predominant wood species round you? Worth branching out (no pun intended) into other local species and making a virtue for your customers out of a necessity for you?

Like the cod, it will be non-existent if the current trends continue...!

Have you seen the price, though :-(

And me, please :-)

Clearly firing the moron who signed that deal would be cost-neutral, or possibly even cost-positive... But I'd investigate them for possible fraud (i.e., backhanders), too. If identified and proven, end of contract, hello refund.

Same model here. It's fine on power, the only thing to watch is the clutch: it's easy to get it smelly when reversing, and definitely not in the same class as the Defender. But the Defender doesn't get 40mpg in the slipstream of an artic on the motorway...

Indespension 8'x4' plant trailer with added mesh sides. Not sure I agree with your figures for the wood - yes, when unseasoned, but about 60% of that when properly seasoned. I allow 1200kg for the wood, leaving 600kg for the trailer. And one thing I will say about it is, it's light, but excellent for the job. I'd prefer something a little more heavily built, but I can't afford the weight penalty.

Exactly. It's what I did with my 576XP-G AutoTune. Works just fine.

Another good reason for using a 3 Series Touring, as I do for the long-haul jobs. 1580kg, plus 25kg because I'm fatter than BMW's standard driver spec, plus max 1800kg on the towbar = 3405kg train weight at the absolute max.

An interesting thread this one, but let's get back to the original question... I've got an 8'x4' 2-axle Indespension trailer with mesh sides - the base trailer is essentially a plant trailer, with the meshes as an add-on they sell for it. It's excellent - light, tows well, great 'follow' on corners, and holds exactly 4m3. As long as it's well-seasoned hardwood, with 4m3 in the trailer the whole thing comes in under the 1800kg limit for my smaller towing vehicle. What bothers me about it - and about a lot of the trailers in the market - is the noseweight. Many towing vehicles can take a max of 75kg, and even our Defender has a maximum of, I think, 150kg. The A-frame towbar on the trailer would account for that 75kg quite nicely, but like many trailers the axles are not central, they're slightly rearwards of centre. The upshot is that if I load it evenly, the noseweight is too high - so I have to load it carefully with the heavier logs to the rear. That takes time and planning. As I unload at various drop-offs I have to re-arrange the logs each time to keep the noseweight in range. So... my question is (and my steer to the OP to look out for this, too): are there any trailers in the market that don't have this axles-to-the-rear feature, and hence don't overload the towbar when the trailer is evenly loaded? Or do folks ignore the problem? Or is there another answer (like "always use a vehicle which takes a massive noseweight")? I know the noseweight is essential to avoid snaking, but it would be nice to have something that I can load evenly to any depth without it increasing the noseweight!