Spruce Pirate

It's a mini-skidder. Czeck machine, imported by RIKO. Winch rated to pull a ton, can pull a wee bit more, but not much (1.2 is the record so far. Pretty mobile, easily transported, good for small scale stuff.

I use two Quick Fists. (Google Quick Fist). Could be mounted either vertically or horizontally, or anywhere in between for that matter.

Got one of these if you're interested. Low ground pressure, crosses soft ground pretty well. Could travel to the islands if necessary, drop me a PM if you're interested.

Know a few folk who've done it with these. Supposed to be pretty good and do courses all over the place so relatively easy to find one. https://www.cafirstaid.co.uk/about-us/

Ah, the dulcet tones of a rock breaker! My favourite time working on roadlines is when they stop pecking and go back to stripping. Scenery and tree size here not quite as impressive as yours but the soundtrack is similar.

I had a lot of bother with the ear defender popping out when I first got the Husky Technical helmet, then one day it just popped back in perfectly and been fine ever since. Not sure what I did differently, it looked alright, but was forever popping out. Must be something subtle I'd missed.

I've heard it suggested that modern two-stroke oil is good enough that you could actually mix it at 100:1 and it would be fine. I'm not about to try it out, but it does suggest that the oils themselves have developed.

Wow! This thread grew legs since I last looked at it. Can only find one picture of serious blow on the computer, taken by the harvester driver. I'm the little orange blob in the middle of it. Serious blow is best described as "challenging" and it seems a lot of people are worried this is what you're getting yourself into. By the sounds of it you're not actually going to be dealing with any serious windblow events - the landowner will do that, so you're really looking at single and a few trees down at a time which should be bread and butter to your cutters if they are experienced enough (no need to post a cv, I'll believe you have access to proper cutters). FISA guides, as I think I said before, are a pretty good starting point for generic stuff, and available for free from the FISA website. Other than that, as said before, shut the trail first, keep it shut until the hazard is removed. No lone working. Cutters to be fully PPE'd up. Saws and equipment to be in good working order. Emergency access agreed - location, type of access (4*4? Mountain Rescue? Helicopter), nearest hospital etc. Assess tension in stems before and during cuts. Restrain root plates with winch if required. Re-evaluate after each cut. Banksman/woman may be required. All these in no particular order.

Why aren't your cutters doing this for you? Sit down with them and the relevant FISA guide and you should be able to knock something up as a generic. Leave plenty of space for writing up the job specific details as each tree could be very very different depending size, species, location etc.

Excuse my stupidity..... but what does this actually mean? I've read it three times now and I still don't understand.

20" is fine, I've always found they'll pull a 24" alright, but wouldn't go as far as 28. Always found them good reliable saws.

3rd for Pfanner here.

Woods and forests haven't seen a sharp decline over the past years. Been steadily increasing since 1919!

Dunno, I'm just a woodcutter, not a statistician.

I'll be less gentle: Forestry is brutal, your back will hurt, your hands will hurt, your knees will hurt, you'll be too cold, too wet, to hot, you'll get scratched, cut and bitten. You need a lot of knowledge on specs, trees and treatments, you'll have unreasonable people making unreasonable demands of you. The money is often not great, sometimes still on piece work so you really have to go to make your wage. If you do it for long enough you or someone you work with / have worked with is almost certain to have a fairly serious accident and you have to deal with that. It is certainly not for everyone. I have folk looking for work from me on a fairly regular basis, they all have to pass a few subtle tests to get a chance - not that I think I'm special and like putting people to the test, but it's a waste of both our times to have someone who thinks that commercial forestry is going to be all swanning about a wood like Winnie the Pooh looking at butterflies and bluebells (you can of course find ways of doing this if it is your thing, either recreationally or professionally). New starts always get the crappy, repetitive, monotonous jobs (stacking, banksman, re-spacing, clearing ditches, the list is practically endless!) - if you can cope with that you're worth developing, it's normally an excellent way of learning the whole job from the bottom up, it also makes most people far better at doing jobs further up the chain as they have a decent understanding of the work and a certain empathy with anyone who you may later be asked to look after / supervise. If after a day you've decided it isn't for you then it probably isn't. If you decide to go back then take the time to think about the job and ask questions. How much is the chip actually worth? How much will be chip produced? What other markets are available for that size and species of timber in the volume it will be produced in? I'd be very surprised if it turned out to be a waste of money. If you've got this far I'd stick with it, you never know you might be one of the perverse bunch of people who actually enjoy forestry work. If you don't you've only lost a week or so out of your life, shame to give up after the first day though.

Forestry work is normally pretty brutal, he probably figures if you can make a go of three days stacking and still able to hack it and willing to stick around then you're worth something. If after three days you've had enough and want to jack it in then you'll both have learned something.

I had exactly the same problem. Hot day, put the saw down, think it got knocked over onto the side so it was resting on the plastic, seemed to be enough to get the plastic to contact the exhaust and melted. I'd had the saw a fair while, just assumed it was an unfortunate incident. Plastic cover is now off, saw runs fine - just got to be careful to not touch the hot exhaust against anything. Should probably get a replacement cover really.

Much the same as above, I used to use canes and tape (easily carried on a re-stock), put several out in the row if the ground undulates and you can't see from end to end. Measure distance between the rows and in the row with the spade, two spade lengths gave about 1.8m spacing, can't remember the exact measurement now. If you need different spacings it's just a matter of adding a handle or some other mark to the length and you're good to go. Very satisfying now looking across the hill and being able to see all the nice straight rows that I planted. It was Hell at the time of course!

I've had racking in the last 4 or so vans, the first two done DIY by me, the last two pre fitted. Racking is great, makes things much more secure and give you much more utilisable space. Best advice if you're getting a custom system is to think what you want to carry, what you need to be handy and what can sit at the back until it's needed. Spending a good it of time at the planning stage will save you going into the back every time and cursing yourself for not thinking it out properly in the beginning.

Wish I'd known that a week ago! How much would that be going for? Or is it for your own use?

Yeah, I think it's just horses for courses. When I started on a saw it was thinnings, normally 40cc - 50cc saws, 13" bars, 15" absolute max. Most of that work has now gone to machines, hand cutters predominantly left with the big stuff.

I used a 6100 for a wee while on demo from Shavey. Quite liked it, but it was a bit clunky for serious snedding, I didn't think it revved up as well as an equivalent Husky. OK for felling, OK for snedding, good all round farmers saw, not fully up to speed for proper forestry work, although if money is tight and you're after a single saw to use as a jack of all trades then it would be good. Might depend on what you're doing with it, I'm mostly softwood (ie Sitka spruce), if you're doing hardwood might be different. Have to disagree with that a bit Jonathon, depends too much on what you're doing. Small stuff small saw is alright, but if you're doing a lot of felling of larger trees - which is what forestry mostly consists of around here - then a big saw is, in my opinion, better.

Ahhhhh. Fair play.

£30 an hour not including travelling between jobs? Hardly daylight robbery!

Each to their own, I listen to a saw practically every day, I like a bit of music every now and then. Got to love the outsiders with the big limbs! 2 - 3 fills per tree and you know you're working for your money! I've seen us two man it with one going along with a wee saw knocking the branches off the another following with a bigger saw trimming the paps back flush with the stem.