AHPP

I can carry the box without the sack barrow but wouldn’t want it any heavier. Getting it in and out of the van is fine. It’s been in a few arb 3.5 tonner tool boxes too. The saws are only small ones, 170 and 020. I occasionally tap a wedge up a tree. Why the maul? Because I only got the axe a few weeks ago. I’ll keep using it for steel wedges rather than kill the axe too. That was its last aerial outing in fact. Why the axe instead of a hatchet? Because I don’t have a decent hatchet or smaller axe and I can use the axe for other stuff. It’s only about a 2.5 lb head.

She’s right like. Don’t tell my neighbours I said that.

Yep. Neatly matching the axe and maul eyes for when I climb with either.

Honestly, it keeps itself tidy. It’s so little effort to put stuff back in the right place. Even with the top handle that has to have the chain brake squeezed in to drop into that spot or the axe that only fits in that exact orientation. I’m single.

I’ve got a jute bag from the Taxpayers’ Alliance hanging in my living room. I used to keep the Maggie quote about there being no such thing as public money facing out but then remembered I live on a County Durham coal mine and turned it round to avoid the house being burnt down.

Well isn’t this a pleasing image. Two saws, fuel, oil, axe, maul, wedges, toolbox, bag of tat (spare gloves, hi viz etc). Straps onto a sackbarrow that you then also have for moving chogs. My climbing stuff goes into one rucksack and my rigging stuff goes into another box (with wheels). Everything in its place and often in and out of a site in one trip.

I bet they’re pretty thick leather though. Completely agree about the saw snagging, although my bar usually wraps itself in my lanyard too.

Just another crane vid. Too much electronic music, Protos helmets and heroic picks and not enough on setting slings to balance pieces and logistics on the ground.

Better yet, a friend is about to throw away a leather sofa. I'll have as much fetching red leather as I could possibly need.

That's an excellent idea. Much obliged.

My mother has a sewing machine and is entirely used to being given saw trousers to fix. I imagine she’d stitch into the existing inside and outside leg seams. Chaps would be too much flappy clutter.

Has anyone added leather to saw trousers to stop them wearing out so easily? I’m thinking of doing the front of the thighs (resting saws, wood etc on your lap), hopefully to below the knee (kneeling down) and maybe some around the ankles (brambles and spiking yourself). Not sure about type and thickness of leather? Any experience or thoughts?

And then patiently rebuilding it six weeks later when a twenty-three-year-old has rolled it down a bank of stumps and into a river. The twenty-three-year-old couldn’t fix it with a felling lever so he put that through a chipper and went home.

Why on earth would anyone want more government interference in their lives? They’re shit at everything.

An excellent demonstration of the pointlessness of the sort of legislation Big J wants. All this bollocks does is keep politicians and civil servants in jobs and everybody else paying for it. We need less micromanagement, not more.

That looks excellent.

This is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that will set you apart from every other fucker with a Transit tipper and a six inch chipper. I don’t know your exact work but I reread the thread and I’m not sure you need a tipper for so little chip. Maybe think along the lines of a panel van and wheelie bins and supplement that with a quad bike (can live in the panel van) and/or something like a Rav 4 or Vitara. Either or both supplementary vehicles can tow bins of tools or chip off road and be equipped with winches (as can the panel van for that matter, probably giving enough confidence to go a bit off road). Or have one winch that can fit into a receiver on any of the vehicles or be used independently. Whatever. On street jobs, chip into bins, builders’ bags or an old tent/lorry canvas in the back of the van and pull it out with a rope at your chip tip. NB I can lift a 240 litre wheelie bin of wet conifer chip into and out of a panel van and I’m 5’8”, 10.5 stone and dislike exertion. Or get a ramp. Tyres make a lot of difference btw. I’ve just driven my panel van up a slope into the garden and will be using it to skid logs tomorrow. It’s raining now and the garden is still wet from the snow etc and muddy from a digger and dumper recently. I’ve done it loads before and never needed towing out. My tyres are only all season road tyres so imagine what you could do with mud terrains. Also, Land Rovers are shit.

Mine was a week or so driving an ex utility 110 roller shutter tool van for a mere two hours a day. On the last day, third or fourth gear disappeared. Explained to the boss back at the yard, expecting him to be angry. “Don’t worry. They all do that. I’ll just rebuild the gearbox. Probably due soon anyway.”

Even better.

I’d not considered anything so easy. Much obliged.

I’m sure you appreciate that many will object to being forced to pay to heat the aforementioned peoples’ houses. If we’re going to be taxed like gang bang subjects, it should go on actual realm defence and not these perks.

Someone suggested them earlier. Will be investigating in the morning (through gritted teeth). I went to A&G earlier. That was bad enough. Not bothered about make but want cheap (£100 ish), size medium, type c. Cheap because the expensive ones are so super stretchy and light that they fall apart if you concentrate your eyes on them too long. Oregon Yukon or the basic grey Husqvarna ones are likely contenders.

I need to buy some saw trousers in a hurry but there’s some infuriatingly protracted festival on that apparently means everywhere (that I usually buy stuff from) is closed. Mail order/online or East Anglia/London environs. Who wants my money?

You’ve probably got C1+e and B+e on your driving licence. That’ll go in your favour. Get good at sharpening saws and running rigging and you could be very handy groundsman (as well as climbing if you like).