difflock

Cept this joke fails on two points. (i) A bullock is a castrated male bovine! (ii)The Old Bull will gore any young pretenders, rather than sharing or offering advice. just saying . . . mth

Well ! ! ! ! After a 3rd trip to the local saw-doctor, but all for the princely sum of £20.00 (plus my time and mileage and frustration, it must be admitted) Zero carburetttor issues, so most probably stale fuel, which I fully declared when I left the saw in for the 2nd time. In hindsight the 20 litre Jerrycan has probably been sitting about for a year +, could be 15-18 months ( since I "lost" a 12-month post retirement) Lesson learned, so I will now only buy 5litre pump petrol at a time, like wot I just done did this afternoon but Only problems were over-revving, like when "running on fumes" using the last dregs of fuel in the tank to finish a cut, and conversely, and intermittently, "bogging down", i.e. refusing to "take" the throttle. i.e. Zero catastrophic saw failure issues (but my saw probably not being worked hard enough for these problems to occur) N.B. First such problem in 20+ years, with the same saw and fuel management regime. cheers mth

Fair enough reply, needs must bytimes. cheers mth

Bish, Bash, Bosh, And with the thimble fitted, 100% job, I re-tensioned the bundle until the timber creaked, strapped up, then wondered if the bale spike would be able to penetrate the much-tightened bundle, without toppling the wooden bundling stand?. But, hurrah!, still surprisingly loose-ish in the middle, certainly sufficient to allow for easy penetration of the bale spike, this despite the outer layers/skin being drum tight, the bundle did not sag or distort in the slightest, which was/is good. On reflection, the outer "ring" of billets compresses radially and in so doing form a circular "arch", which once compressed, limits the inward reach of the compressive force. From my perspective a very neat effect. P.S. Despite the bundles being "tight", I have absolutely zero concerns about passage of the drying wind being in any significent way restricted, since my timber is far from straight there are plenty of unavoidable voids throughout the bundle. PPS too bloody cold to be out so otherwise productively occupied in my shed cheers mth

Just needs proper fat low ground pressure tyres, not those hard/everlasting Industrial types as fitted. mth

Rightly or wrongly my local father-son digger-dealers state that the recent Hitachi diggers have pins made of "cheese", it must be said I could not figure why such a reputable company would allow such a manufacturing defect to reach the market in sufficient numbers as to get noticed, or or get a change in the specification of their pin steel so wrong, but I do suppose "shit happens" bytimes. mth

That is truely appalling, for a major multi national manufacturer. Apparently zero primer/phosphate on the bare steel, just a passing lick with the "top" coat. Scheesh!

Meh, the open fire in the bungalow I grew up in had an underfloor air supply, with a sunken ashbox as well. The bungalow was built in the middle/late 1950's. All our Morso stoves draw air from the room/house, though a 4" duct lurks beneath the recent garden room extension, I tiled over the top of it and marked the tile with a drill bit, just in case. It was not needed. There is sufficient air leakage about our 1995 built dwelling to provide sufficient combustion air. Burning this internally sourced air probably, hopefully, may also removes some of the doggy odours. The 3 recently installed state-of-the-art CO alarms have never even whimpered. P.S. I recall a figure of 30% efficiency, for an open fire, compared to say 75% for any decent stove. I always intended to get a temperature reading from the gases exiting the top of our flue, after they have travelled 10 to 12 m up through a clay lined, but vermiculite insulated traditional masonry built flue. Be interesting. P.S. Since I had, on several occassions, the 5' of single wall flue pipe directly above the Morso stove in the living room glowing dull cherry red, I therefore suspect our stoves, bytimes, or even mostly, run hotter than 250 deg Centi. mth

Gents, If the UK wide roads maintenance "Council" operations are a badly run and staffed and executed as here in Northern Ireland, no bloody odds. Despite the glaring obvious problem with an annual financial year ending at the end of March, which results in monies being hoarded for about 9 months, until the worst of the winter is passed, then funds need to be spent in Feb March, which results in Bituminous Macadam being laid in on cold wet roads, which results in a lower quality(and probably not to the pertinent British Standard specification) job that is guarenteed not to last. Senior Staff lack the brains or will to change their financial year end, to say the end of Sept. Then year end money could be spent during the summer months, in better weather, for a higher quality job with longer hours of daylight, for safer working. Plus, the disgracefully few kerbs DoE staff ever laid in a working day, & witnessed with my own eyes, compared to private sector workers. etc etc etc

Ah always liked the Scottish verdict "murder not proven!". Which would be highly applicable to several high profile murder cases around the world, and neatly lend support to an ensuing Civil claim for damages. The civil claim relying on a lower level of proof, i.e. a simple balance of probability test, would almost certainly succeed. Which would, all in all, be a good way to balance the scales of justice, for trials involving the rich or famous. Who otherwise "get off" mth

Hush you! I still like playing with matches. But Back in our barbacuing days I used a cheap hair dryer to accelerate the ignition of the charcoal. And I always fancied a MAPP blowtorch for that application. Some of better gasifying logwood boilers, uses a hot air gun for ignition, however one of the best designed (with respect to easy cleaned from the front flue tubes, and I have foregotten the brand, DOH!) simply uses an inbuilt propane blowtorch, which is pure simple pragmatic genius. mth

Ah well some o us got bog all but conifer to burn, without complaint. No kindling needed, a few handfuls of scrunched up newspaper and a few casually selected likely looking sticks, picked from those brought in for burning, i.e. 1/2 rotten, or thin section, or splintery or a hydraulic wedge split & "ruffelled" knotty Lodgepole pine. A few minutes later with the door "snibbed" open, a roaring inferno. Simples! mth

Since salt only works to a few degrees below zero it is no use in the Scandinavian climate, I think they use grit for added traction,(from various images I have come across) possibly moreso on their gravel roads where it does not need to be removed post thaw. P.S. Would the wood chip not also cause BOD pollution issues when washed into watercourses. mth

Since I have been used to visiting the factory and wandering around, I will take a long hard look, and ask re other local purchasers, I know their buckets are good enough/tough enough for some serious diggers, and they have been steadily expanding this 30 odd years. Classically a firm still young enough to still be able to meet and talk to the owner, who I imagine is about every day, or was. Despite being an agricultural area, or perhaps exactly because of the agric background, we are surrounded by such SME family run engineering businesses, covering a wide spectrum of engineering needs. But perhaps no area/region is any different. mth

And, of course, spending that wonderful free money, i.e. from someone else's swingeing tax contributions, or indeed possibly from a very expensive money tree. mth

see link; http://www.brianscottengineering.co.uk/sub-products/tree-shear since this firm is dead local, I would prob give their product a serious look, and for my little more than hobby use, prob OK.

But "buy British" was, in part, what did for our Motorcycle and car businesses, or the idea that we could produce shite (when not on strike) and the British consumer would by it, simply because it was British. Being a life-long staunch believer in a free market economy, world wide, let each person in each country do what they do best, if they can produce a better product and ship it 1/2 way round the world, for less than a local producer, tough! marcusthehat P.S. I was perusing an article on the Quora site, about the production of wartime German arms, & specifically tanks, and why they simply could not compete with the UK, let alone the USA, due to the German lack of production line output, essentially because the German nation prided themselves as craftsmen, who would not stoop to work on a production line. All very interesting stuff, for someone who has always had an admiration for German engineering excellence. Whereas the Soviets bought into the "quantity has a quality all of its own" And having crawled about below a Soviet era(prob 1970's/1980,s 6*6 truck, & probably a knockoff copy of a US Lendlease )truck, being used in a forestry environment down about Enniskillen, boy did the Soviet engineers know how to keep them tough & simple, like with the air brakes, where the air was used to apply the brakes, loose an airline or air pressure, you can still drive. A sump like a bathtub to light a fire below for well sub zero starting, and no virtually electrics. And of course shod on "Russian" tyres.

In hindsight I should probably bit the cost bullet, and installed a Froling boiler, or similar quality=purchase cost. But, when I was attempting to decide, there were so many snake-oil salesmen, it was impossible to see the wood for the trees. (& pun fully intended!) sigh.

Being near 60 years of age and recently retired, after 32 years, with "cutting sticks" as a lifetime hobby; So I got my tractor(s), PTO winch, crappy, but sufficient forwarding trailer, PTO 17 tonne vertical log-splitter, PTO rocking cradle cross cut saw and elevator. To process mostly windthrown Sitka and Lodgepole. I am in the process of buying a 8-13 tonne tracked digger, and will prob also source a fixed grab and a set of 200-300mm tree shears for wor digger. So? What am I missing? Marcusthehat

Whether particularly pertinent to this thread or not; I ran a so-called "Solarbayer" gasifying logwood burner for about 10 years, & I hasten to add, NOT under the RHI scheme. I now reverted to heating with kero, a 500 gal fill (2250 litres to younguns) has lasted about 18 months, courtsey of self installed underfloor heating, 15 deg Celsius in the hall stairs and landing, and a woodburning Morso in the Garden room, which easily sustains 25 deg centigrade. Woodburning only makes sense, either on the Micro scale=woodburner in the room, or the Macro scale, but WITHOUT subsidies. marcusthehat

Thanks for the helpful response, since my questions/queries were indeed more than a little tongue in cheek. And for all the limited amount of fuel I use, even the shocking price premium could probably be tolerated. Especially if the wee 260's current running woes turn out to be in any way fuel related. Regards Marcus

So, really if Aspen is so much cleaner than Petrol, why are are cars still running on disgusting dirty petrol, zillions of litres of it every day too! So petrol cannot be that bad health wise. And per recent Government advice, petrol is so clean to burn in vehicles, well compared to diesel. And if cars were made to run on Aspen type fuel, it should be better for us all, and it would be much cheaper and more easily available Or forecourt staff would have seriously shortened life expectancies, if petrol were so dirty. cheers marcus P.S. Does anyone know what price Aspen, or an equivalent Alkylate fuel is in the United States.

Woodworks, "I see what you did there . . ." but one cannot let the winch control rope go, and continue to hold the log or ring stationary "in limbo" to then manhandle it into position for splitting. Which one could with any hydraulic winch. ***** Anyway, I revisited my 17 tonne pretensioner. And See photos below. A few comments, I might need a better/heavier wire rope, this bit was a very old cutting. I forgot to buy a thimble to protect the wire rope going through the eye at the wedge, this was then the weak point. I might fit a pully to the inside of the 90 deg pipe bend, the only location the rope changes direction under load. Again I deliberately tested to destruction, and as I surmised, the rope broke at the eye without a thimble. BUT the creaks and groans of the bundle of billets was impressive, plus the tractor had started to feel the load, immediately prior to the failure of the wire rope. Which failed with very little fuss being contained inside the steel tube. Note, I had previously put 3 No polyester straps round the bundle, tightened them up alternately, while bashing the billets in with a light sledge, until they were absolutely "pinging" and could not be got any tighter. I then put the wire rope around the bundle and tightened it with the hydraulic ram, the polyester straps were then very loose again.(note photo of fingers behind) And the wire rope cut into the log beside my fingers, tight or wot! So pretension with the hyd ram, then strap up with the polyester. No more saggy loose bundles. The wee Kioti will easily stack them 4 high, possibly 5, but 5 high could start to get unstable=unsafe. So well pleased with my afternoons work.

Sigh, Der Daughter bes in Austria (the one down under), I could however artfully arrange the 2 piglets* she bought 3 days before leaving for her 8 weeks away, across the bonnet perhaps? *Piglets being 11 week old Bulldog pups, but despite all the paperwork, ah hay me doubts? there's definately Porker breeding in there somewhere. Especially in respect of their fondness for rooting through the compost heap, and eating what they find!, no matter how disgusting. This despite being fed the best of puppy grub, lovingly cooked by Senior Management. They also specialize in synchronised snoring. I shall delight in having them trained to answer to "Pork Chop" and "Lard Guts" by the time she returns. tee hee marcusthehat

I will attempt to establish the unladen weight, that's the tricky one innit?. but definately not full time 4WD, i.e. the drive to the front axle is not to be engaged for on road driving, since no centre diff. cheers mth EDIT See link; https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-weights-explained