JimM

Just had my third OEM securing bolt sheer off. Fortunately only one of these was whilst driving, it's a scary sight seeing the chute wobbling about. Now have standard type 8.8 bolts securing it instead. Common fault? If I didn't tighten the originals up enough the chute would eventually rotate, which is also somewhat disconcerting on the road.

Standard caps on mine. The only saw I've had with a flip cap is the T536LiXP

Will do Jon. 07 Ranger Supercab mate. PM on its way

Still got the winds up here and the temperature is dropping through freezing. Clearing windthrow near Aviemore tomorrow. After I get new boots on my truck. Snowy drive down I reckon.

Good topic. I was wondering much the same. Not so much for the chainsaws, but more for between the Silky's teeth. Scrubbed it out the other day before pruning.

Cancelled felling pines today. Far too windy. Been a while since our roof tiles rattled this much. Toasty bed for an extra hour and then wait to see if we get a callout.

It is, Pete. Cockpit is all intact as is the bog. Behind that he's converting it into a bar. Makes a change from a summer-house.

Stairs are definitely over-rated Maximalist Got bored of rigging over sheds and greenhouses. Couple of leaning Scots Pines to get rid of. Freezing morning in the hills.

Not expecting it to be great. Normally run it on a 13" , occasionally 15". Trying it out of interest for climbing, instead of carting my 576 on 18 up the tree. As long as it chugs it's way through it offsets the pain of the 576's weight. But has anyone done the conversion to heated handles?

69m . One of my favourite numbers :-))

Ace winch which is another name for the Jet winch. Had it over 2 years now 1.6 lift, 2.5 pull as mentioned above. Cant fault it and has been used many times. Get a bag of shear pins if you get one, although I've only burst one, and that was with two of us pulling on the handle at full extent. Easy to dismantle, clean and regrease. Securefix Direct as the link above. They do strops too. (other shops are available - think Jonesie does them too)

OK, 18" bar on my 346xp to try up the tree tomorrow. Scots Pine dismantle. Has anyone bought the parts and converted one to a heated handle version?

I can live with that kind of mileage. My Runway HT's are on 19,000 and have a few mm left. But not enough to keep me happy through the winter, and certainly not enough for when it gets a bit boggy. I'd love to have the luxury of price matching, but the few pounds saving up here still leaves you with a big whack on top compared to you guys in the deep south where there's loads of competition. Still, I'd rather live up here

Could buy them cheaper, delivered from a couple of places, but then they wanted another 40 -50 for delivery up here. And then fitting on top. Just settled for ATS in the end.

Cant find BFG's at 245/70/16, but can get the GG AT's for £512 fitted locally. Not bad really.

Popped in to my dealer on Thursday. New version strop fixing loop on order under warranty. Want it done now rather than wait for a failure up the tree.

Bump. Any updates on your All Terrain tyres please, guys? It would be appreciated. I'm about to swap out Runway HT's on my Ranger. They've done OK for two years with about 40% off-road but could do with a bit more grip in the muck. Cheers Jim

Not using recalled PPE myself. I reckon the answer is no on both counts too. But I was interested to see if one of the brokers on here would make a comment.

Press and Journal today has another numpty saying don't dual the A96 but instead have dual train track. It's the main commerce route between the north's main cities, Inverness, Elgin and Aberdeen. Every bit as important to us up here as the A9. Utter muppet.

Done. I've been driving the A9 for the last 24 years and watched the traffic get worse. Asda and Tesco lorries and their ilk end up with huge queues of cars behind them that cannot overtake safely due to the winding nature of the carriageway. I've lost count of the number of lunatic overtaking attempts I've seen on this road over the years. Drove down on Friday night and back up today. It's even worse in poor weather when the drivers try to get past with even worse visibility. Add tourist caravans behind the lorries in the summer and overtaking becomes an impossibility and frustration goes through the roof. So glad the Scottish government chose to have trams in Edinburgh rather than spend the money on dualling it several years back. That worked out well, didn't it?! It's not the lorry drivers fault as they are just driving to their rules and can do little about it.

You can't say that and not pass on the grisly details. :-) What went wrong?

I agree also that the zigzag, and devices like it, will become the norm. Some of the work I've done in the past few months has emphasised for me how important it is to have one in my arsenal of climbing kit. I'll climb happily all day in hardwoods with a hitch-climber and distel knot on an eye to eye. But my big concern was during full spread Sitka dismantles. Three quarters of the day through doing one my hitch was so jammed with resin that I was fighting to free it off with almost every move. And that was with a cambium saver in place to try and reduce the effects. I was actually getting quite stressed with the fact that if something went wrong my ability to get out of the tree safely was compromised. We are seeing more work in removing inappropriately planted large pines from gardens up here, I guess from a time in the 70's when planting them in your garden became more commonplace. So, for me, getting the Zigzag back is a way of mitigating a risk when working in these trees. I am also appreciative of the fact that climbers have worked in these trees for decades and I am probably missing a technique that reduces the resin effect.

Just this particular circumstance. The rot had left the sound wood as an horseshoe shape. Gob In the top of the hoop and a wedge, then wedges, in each of the legs. Just wide enough sound timber to take a high lift. Carefully matched the depth the wedges went in in each side until it went over. It would have failed "safe" back and left because of crown weight, but would have damaged a number of young plantation oaks. Had used a rope and winch all day on others but didn't have the straight pull option on this one and reckoned any sideways stress would have burst the hinge in the wrong direction. I'm certainly up for some bottle-Jack action though.

Brought over an Alder last week with hi-lifts doubled up. Couldn't have used a jack because of where the rot was. But not often though.

A bit cloudio today, certainly not scorchio. But the wind had died by this morning and we had a great day and caught up with our job after yesterday's wind.