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Almost exclusively online now. Partly it's convenience - particularly with small items that come through the post so I don't have to go in (usually twice, once to order, once to collect), and partly because it's quicker. I ordered just a replacement inlet needle valve for my 026 from the local dealer last Monday, arrived Friday. I ordered a complete carb kit on Wednesday, arrived Thursday. It's also cheaper, and the local dealers aren't very competent when it comes to diagnosing saw problems and fixing them (preferring to sell me a whole new machine), so they go to Spud. As such, if the local dealers can't offer me an advantage on speed, price, convenience or maintenance, realistically they don't offer me anything and it wouldn't make any difference to me if they went out of business. Alec

There are two used ones on ebay, from the US. It's the same tank as the 075, or if it's a late model the 076 (or TS760). I might have one of the latter. Alec edit - just checked, L&S Engineers and Mister Solutions still list genuine for the later pattern as available. Part number is 1111 080 1825 for just the tank on its own. The whole assembly is 1111 080 2110.

Nice job. You'll get less problem with cupping if you place the boards so that what was the outer part of each board is facing the wall. Alec

Figs - they normally need their roots restricting anyway and should do well in your part of the world. If it's wild then anything. If it's a bit more domestic I'd go for named varieties - Brown Turkey, White Marseille and Brunswick are the classics, Rouge de Bordeaux and Osbourne Prolific may be worth a punt if it's south facing. You could even chance an olive or two - they probably won't crop but should grow well enough. Alec

Thanks Rich, I'm good at swearing but some extra practice always comes in handy. Alec

And use rainwater. Tapwater in a hard water area is one of the quickest ways of killing them. Alec

As above - sapwood will vanish to mush inside a year. Heartwood will last a good few years. 4"-6" long, and bed them on a few inches of crushed rubble/gravel which will help water drain away from underneath so they don't rot so quickly. Alec

OK, 026 again. Carb is very clean and rebuilt, however the saw won't start (although it will if you put a teaspoon of Aspen in through the carb) and there's petrol under the carb, so that would be leaking impulse line/fuel line (although the fuel line certainly didn't leak before as it sprayed me with fuel after standing for several hours). New lines on order, fuel line is easy, but which bits do I have to dismantle to do the impulse line? Alec

If you're not using the saw much (and that's why it's sat for six months), you might want to consider an alkylated fuel such as Aspen. It's expensive per litre, but can be safely left in the saw for years. Alec

I've bought various things from the US over the years - partly on price grounds, partly availability. The biggest is the 066 which was the early US spec Magnum (dual port muffler and heavy duty crankshaft), but I recently bought an extra long bar (longer than available in the UK). Shipping is surprisingly reasonable - I tend to use TNT through an agent as they seem to deliver efficiently and be reliable. They will also let me arrange the shipping from the US, whereas DHL will only do it if you're the sender from the US. Obviously it's slower, there's no back-up if there's a problem, and it gives issues with CE marking, but for non-critical, unusual items, particularly parts for older models, I've found it works pretty well. The worst bit is really cheap, small items which just creep over the £18 (inc. shipping) threshold and get taxed by the post office, including their £8 "handling charge":sneaky2: That said, when 'real' customs assess things, i.e. when there's no additional charge to be considered over and above the actual duty owing, I've found they quite often take a slightly lenient view as to whether to collect the tax or not, which is much appreciated Alec

Well, I ordered the carb kit yesterday morning. it arrived in today's post. Excellent service. Now all I need to do is decide which of the huge selection of bits in there I actually need to use.... Alec

Thanks All, Rowena it is. It's for the 026 - inlet needle rubber end has broken up and it's £7.60+VAT for that part alone from Stihl, hence thinking about whether I just re-use the diaphragms. If Rowena come up with a decent price I will put a whole kit on, which I suspect won't be much more than the above single part. Alec edit: just ordered from Rowena, very helpful man, £24 for two kits, one to fit the 026 and the other for an 070 which is gradually being put back together as the missing bits show up on ebay.

If you do decide to fell any of the bigger stems, I would get them down asap as the sap will be about to rise. Leave them long, cut a few of 2-3ft lengths of something else - about 6in diameter, cut one end off each of them on a long tapering slant, then roll the log up onto them to keep it off the ground. PM sent re. milling. Alec

Apple will never get overly tall, so I would imagine it will stay below the oak standard canopy. It's an interesting tree, so I would be inclined to leave one stem as a standard in its own right. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but it looks like the one in the top picture is a twin stem with the one on the right being vertical, and the other is multi-stem with a nice clean stem up the centre, so there is an option to do this. The alternative would be to try leaving the twin-stem one as a single-stem standard, and coppice the other. With regard to use, this is where you need a portable mill. How far down into Sussex are you? Alec

I never had that problem with my old 064. Not sure why you should - although I used to run a spur sprocket which probably gives a bit more clearance? Alec

Any opinion on carb kits? Aftermarket ones seem to be about a tenner, genuine Stihl branded seem to be in excess of £30. Is there any difference? Thanks Alec

Is the brake band actually shot? If so, that would explain why the mechanism isn't working properly, if not it might be worth posting up some photos of the thing (nicely cleaned up) for comment. Have you downloaded a parts list, extracted the part number and tried typing it into google on its own? This sometimes turns up obscure parts sources, in foreign countries where the part name doesn't match. Also worth searching ebay.com directly and enquiring whether the person will ship (sometimes will if asked and the part is small) and, once you have the parts list, try ebay.de and search on the german name for the part. Also worth looking at L&S Engineers if you haven't already, and typing in the part number. It may match a different, current or more recent, saw - a good clue is if they share a common clutch drum. Alec

Have you tried dropping Spudulike a PM to see if he has anything around that may suit your budget? He tends to buy and refurbish (when he gets time between fixing forum members' saws and doing outrageous porting jobs ) It won't be new, but it will be properly fixed and you can have confidence of help in the event of any unforeseen issues. Alec

Unfortunately I'm the wrong side of the country, and can't exactly stick it in the trailer! Otherwise I'd be very interested. Alec

The next set of images are about tying down. Mark went through this procedure in detail (one of the things I haven't used before - I've been aware of it but the techniques are better shown than read about). The aim is to use upright or incorrectly placed branches, and set them where they're wanted. In the branches shown this is to form the structure of the tree, but it can also be used (as on the Bramley discussed above) to make use of the rather upright, vigorous young growth and bring it into bearing to re-clothe the longer limbs when they've only got fruit growth at their ends. The trees we're looking at are some dwarf St. Edmund Pippins. These are much like the Worcester Pearmain above, but at an earlier stage in redevelopment. They should have three or four main branches from low down, but most of them have lost some, which need replacing. In the picture with Mark holding the branch, you can see it being tied in. Note it forms an arc, which is OK here. However, on the other tree, you can see a similar branch being tied in which would benefit from a shallower angle at the base. To do this, making a series of horizontal saw cuts on the inner radius of the bend makes it much more flexible. The cuts close up as the branch is bent, and will soon heal over when the tree starts to grow in spring. You can see the shape of the bend achieved in the final picture.

Next set of three images show the same tree - a Bramley on crab stock, so it's vigorous. In the first image you can see layer after layer of long, slightly hanging branches, all on top of each other. This means they're too dense and crowd one another out, so no light and no decent fruit. It also results in a dense sail, and a lot of leverage, so more likely to damage the tree or blow it over entirely. In the other two images you can see the branches in that area have been thinned out to form a single layer. This is the layer that was underneath (keeps things lower), having removed everything on top of it. The only thing you have to watch in doing this is that the layer you keep isn't actually dead! You can also see a load of young, vigorous branches growing up off the tops of the old horizontal limbs. In the later pictures you can see these have been thinned out, the strongest ones having been removed. The ones which have been left will be tied down to promote fruiting (more on this later). Note the brash pile from the tree, which considering the thinning of old branches isn't that big. Take too much off and the tree will stop fruiting and go over to wood production only. If you look closely at the second picture of the Bramley, low down on the right hand side, you can just about see several branches tied down with strings. They won't grow towards the nut trees by themselves, but by tying down it's possible to re-form the structure in a more balanced form. Finally, note this tree was pruned from ladders, which is standard for fruit. You want the branches clothed with fruiting wood, so there is nowhere to climb. The ladder I'm up is set in to a fork, pointing in towards the tree. It goes up above the fork by enough that it won't slip out and, importantly, if the fork I'm in fails it will fall into the bigger fork you can see behind (I've stuck the ladder up an extra notch to be sure of this).

OK, I'll give it a go (if Mark happens across this, please do improve on my comments). Treemoose's first picture shows a young Duke of Devonshire. This hasn't yet reached full size, so is in the later stages of formative pruning. You can see it has a clear stem of about 3' (bush form), and a 'goblet' shape to the top, like a red wine glass. This has been thinned out a bit, anything growing into the centre removed, and the whole thing balanced up. What you can't see is that the branches have a tendency to grow away from the large plum behind, creating an imbalance. This has been corrected, by pruning only. Talking to Mark, this will have a few branches tied down to promote fruiting, and to improve the balance that way, rather than having to take so much off. Treemoose's second picture shows an old (planted 1919) Worcester Pearmain, which is also shown in my second picture. This tree is full size, and is therefore being maintained pretty much as it is, with enough pruning to maintain vigour and fruiting. This consists of keeping it down to its current height, which you can just reach from the ground, cutting out cankered and dead spurs, keeping the structure thinned out where the spur system has become too dense, and training branches to fill in any gaps. What you can't necessarily make out from the images is that only the first three feet or so up from the ground is old. Everything above this height has been renewed over the past 20yrs or so. You can also see a few young branches low down, which will continue this process.

The most important thing I found was to water with rainwater. Most species don't like the lime in hard water areas (such as Essex!). I've had a few, all of which have since died. I found yew particularly good as it is relatively tough (until, as seems to have happened to many, someone else fails to water it while you're on holiday). It's a bit of a trade-off really, between growing them fast in big pots and then training (commercial) and growing them slowly from the beginning. The latter gives more opportunity for shaping, but does take longer. Alec

This one is a Rosemary Russett. Treemoose (John) is about to set about it in the first picture. Second shows the finished result.

Thanks John for sticking up the pictures. I've also got some bad pictures - the weather was more overcast than it looked, but I thought I'd stick them up to try and give 'before and after' where possible. I've got some more 'before' but I didn't get 'after' and the weather was so foul on Sunday I just cracked on with pruning. I'm back down there in a few weeks to get a bit more done (and get out the baler twine) so I'll get the 'after' pictures then and put them up as pairs. In the meantime, a couple I did get. The first is quite a long way before, of the Worcester Pearmain in Treemoose's second picture, taken last spring.