Spruce Pirate

I haven't done any real planting for a few years now, but when I was planting used to average between 1200 and 1500 a day including site supervision, 1800 to 2000 a day if I didn't have plants to lay out and checks to do. Bare root conifers on mounded sites, no tubes, spirals, vole guards or any of that kind of nonsense.

We normally just end up with two 5 ton tirfors and a couple of snatch blocks for that sort of thing.

Two of us on it. Would have been a lot of work for just one.

Trees to clear out of a burn today. They'd blown a while ago and have been gradually silting up the burn. The heavy rainfall recently brought matters to a head when the water started spilling out, running down the hill and through the back door of someone's house. Anyone who's wondering about getting a Tirfor type winch....... Don't do it - you might end up with jobs like this one!

Think it's to keep it fresh Steve. Stops it drying out, makes it easier to mill and keeps the value of the sawn timber up. A saw-miller may be better placed to comment.

Thanks guys, it's a bit dirtier that yours Andrew, but it wouldn't take much to clean it up. A good clean and a new plug and it should be a good saw. Compression is good on it. Did the £180 include bar and chain Andrew?

Difficult as it is to believe, I've come to the realisation that I've too many saws! There's a boy down the road looking for a new (to him) saw for cutting firewood, only for part time use. I've an old 266 sitting on the shelf, always kept as a back up saw, but realistically it's not been used much in the last couple of years and I don't really see me using it much more. All I need to figure out is how much it's worth. He's looking for a cheap saw, I'm willing to sell it, so anyone any idea how much to ask for? I see one on e-bay for £175 at the moment, seems a bit much to me, am I under-valuing it?

APF - Association of Professional Foresters. From memory, they merged with the TGA (Timber Growers Association) a few years back to form Confor (Confederation of Forest Industries). I think I've got all the acronyms right, but stand to be corrected. I presume the show retained the APF prefix for marketing.

What's the infection Mick? Good bonfire and very thorough looking job.

Sharpening? Most likely time for a left hand to come into contact with the chain, and amazing what damage a non-running chain can do. Depends on how the statistics are compiled.

I find legislation very difficult to read, and even harder to understand. In the event that I'm involved in the cutting I'll give the TO a ring and get their opinion on it, if the customer is doing it themselves I'll advise them to do the same. I value the opinions of the Arbtalk collective, which is why I asked, but I'm afraid I'm not going to take them as gospel. Yes I am in Stirlingshire and so are the trees in question.

Thanks for the replies, can always rely on Arbtalk for a stimulating debate. The consensus would seem to be that: Measure at 1.5 (despite coppicing being a forestry operation CA regs work on arb measurements). If any stem to be cut on any stool is greater than 75mm a notice should be submitted to the LA. Have I got that right? Now, as I like to take things to the nth degree, if only one stem on one stool exceeds the 75mm, would the notice only have to be submitted for that stool or should it include the whole operation? Any and all further input welcome.

Resurrecting an old thread here, but has anyone any further thoughts or experiences on this? I've a customer who has planted a small number of willows and hazels, probably around 20, in their garden which they intend to coppice (I'm not sure for what purpose). They're a couple of years away from doing their first cut at the moment, but when time comes..... will they need to notify the LA? Should stems be measured at 1.5m as per arb or 1.3m as per forestry? My way of thinking is that if it's less than 7.5cm dbh then it should be fine without submitting a notice, regardless of size of stool, but any experiences would be gratefully received.

A bit of old technology, but I find this works well:

Chainsaw Protective gloves are one of the most useless, ill thought out products on the market. To answer your question, no I don't think we need them in the modern environment. Reasons: 1. Chain catcher and rear hand guard provide protection for the right hand. 2. No protection in the right hand in most chainsaw protective gloves, so a normal (better fitting) pair of gloves provide the same protection. 3. Inertia chain brake and chain brake with integrated hand guard on modern saws provide protection to the left hand in the event of a kick back. Chain does not come back and hit left hand if it snaps/comes off (unless you've got a saw that works in reverse!) 4. Protection rating (only on the left hand, remember) is inadequate in any glove I've seen on the market for current chain speeds. Left hand normally rated only to 16m/s and right hand is, yes, not protected at all (beyond what a normal glove would offer)! 5. They are crap in the wet, increasing the risk of your hands becoming cold - white finger and loss of control of the saw. I am prepared to accept that we should wear gloves for saw work to protect our hands from cuts and scratches and to keep them warm to reduce the risk of white finger, but these should be well fitting and easy to work in - two things it is very difficult to achieve in a chainsaw protective glove. Several pairs a day may be appropriate if working in wet conditions. HSE and FISA both acknowledge that "suitable for task" gloves should be used, not necessarily chainsaw protective gloves. Unfortunately for you, if your employer says you need to use a piece of PPE then you need to use it. They make the rules for their employees when it comes to this sort of thing. What you can do is try to convince them otherwise, point number 5 in my list is probably the most worthwhile argument as there is a very genuine increased risk to H&S in this case by using the prescribed PPE. All in all, it is very tiresome having to constantly risk assess chainsaw gloves out. It would be much easier if everyone would just accept that they are useless and move on to requiring a pair of well fitting protective gloves.

They probably quite simply haven't thought about it. People generally plant trees and forget that they grow, sounds stupid, but it's quite true and has generated me, and plenty others on here I'm sure, a lot of work over the years. As far as the roots go - they're out of sight and out of mind, very few people will give even a moments thought to tree roots (until you start mentioning things like subsidence and house foundations). They sound like nice neighbours, just not switched on to trees and their irritating habit of growing.

Is it because our leaves are too wet Tom? Edit: Agree though, a good idea. Uses for leaf bales?

Biggest chog I've done is probably about 5.5m when we were dismantling a spruce and trying to get 4.9 saw-logs out of it. I've seen one of the boys doing bigger, probably 6.5 to 7m but not as much as 9m. Done some fair size tops too, but nothing like the size of Mick's pic. Big pieces are always an adrenalin rush.

What a good and interesting project. Well done for all your contributions.

Heard today they've started down in the Borders- commercial restock & beat up, don't know of anything round here started yet.

Not so much today's job as this week's job. Off-rooting for the harvester. Would have been beautiful timber if it'd stayed on it's feet.

I used to be involved in NF foliage for wreaths. Very rarely enjoyed it. Always found it difficult to make money on it when cutting it, bundling it etc. There are, or at least were, several different grades of foliage, I'd suggest you speak to the prospective buyer and send them some samples of your foliage, see if they're interested and what they're paying. We always cut foliage from the standing tree, either with a lopper or climbing, I've never cut from felled trees. The foliage had to be cut as a minimum of 3 branch whorls. I would think that damage from felling may be an issue, but I do know that others harvest foliage this way (a mate of mine did a bit the other year from felled trees). Overall I think it would be hard to add sufficient value to the job you're talking about by cutting foliage to bring it into profit, but I could be wrong. Sorry if that's all a bit rambling, thoughts as they come to me.

A couple from today, above Callander.

It is, but I manage.

A couple of years ago now, but I still like it. Taken up at Tentsmuir Forest.