JimM

Yup +1. Those plastic things are useless

I have Personal Accident cover in case I suffer injury doing my job. Supposing I climb with a piece of PPE that has been subject to a safety recall and suffer injury through failure of that equipment, would the insurance company pay out? If the answer is No, then would the insurance company have to prove that I had knowledge of the safety recall in order to refuse payment?

Run a 26" on a 576xp (not autotune though) It pulls the 26 with ease. My major weapon on big elms etc since I got it nearly 2 years ago. Now considering trying a 28 or 30" bar on it.

Cheers

Pm sent Mark

You guys have given me some food for thought. I bought my 550xpg as backup for my 346xp for all the groundwork I was doing, but it's the 550 that comes out the truck first nowadays. I was getting concerned about how long the 346 was idle and stale fuel issue. I've been using my 576 up the tree on 18", then 26" and it's a big bugger for that. I'm going to get the carb serviced on the 346, run on aspen only and fit an 18" bar 325 for use up the tree. Offset the 576 weight and accept the slower cutting.

FR Jones phoned me about the recall. I would have hoped other dealers would make the same effort in the interests of their customers safety, not just leave it to chance that they might read it somewhere. Roll on the ZZ2. Whilst I moved on to the HitchClimber and like its versatility, for me the Zigzag was streets ahead in climbing ease.

I know there's older and wiser than me on here... but anyway. I've done a heap of the buggers this last few months and rigged a few. Rigged big bits down from a 3ft elm, final fell and there was 6 to 8 inches of holding wood all the way round, nothing inside, but it took it amazingly. All the rigging was done with the whoopie and block on the main stem though. Its hard stuff, but brittle as hell and I wouldn't trust the limbs at all. I am happy as a sandboy spiking up the stems, but don't like straying outwards. Big limb at Dufftown last month about 10" and cracked with me barely on it. All seemed sound and no visible cracks. Puckered up so tight I produced a diamond. Thing is, if you don't rig, the bits break on the way down and have amazing ground penetration. Ex-monk who's a gardener friend of mine says the old term for elm was "enemy of man". I can quite believe it. Best of luck with them. Jim

Good saws for starters. May you earn loads of money with them.

Felled a load of these over the past couple of months. Some 85 footers this week. There seems to be a bit of interest if it's decent diameter without a shake. Or it's literally coated in burrs (had a 4ft one of those which had instant interest). Otherwise it's all firewood.

Using 91VXL on mine and its a lot better.

Somebody commented a while back that they had a duffer battery and got it swapped out.

Cheeky bugger! I've only just hit 30.......

That's the plan for tomorrow, Stevie. 2 stems left from today's elms and a big bugger further over. I'll work up a sweat on the winch :-)

Dealer reckons gunk round the carb causing valve to stick. Air hose and carb cleaner applied. Makes sense. My 346 still going strong without any of these issues. Sometimes I think we try to be too clever. Would buy another 550 tomorrow though.

Grin. More practise required tomorrow then.

You must set the rules from Day 1, Minute 1, otherwise you end up in situations like this. Take 10 minutes to find out your new guy/gals's background and life issues. Give them your history. Tell them how the tasks are arranged and what is expected of them. Let them know that issues should be raised with you before they go home. Taking things home just multiplies in their heads overnight and everyone, family and colleagues, suffer more. Make them understand that YOU WILL LISTEN and do your best to fix their concerns. Present team members get a gentle warning to take it easy to begin with. Set boundaries. If you have this in place, the banter will be there, and in time can get more lively without the effects described by the OP. If you're in the dwang with someone like that, then take them aside, something along the lines of "I think we've got off to a bad start......" and then state your rules for them and you. Personnel management is a really difficult area, but hope this helps Python?

Thought this thread needed bumping. So... Jack (another Arbtalker) helping me out on a local estate all week, felling dead elms. He'd climbed on the stump, so I wasn't going to let him away with it

Down on the Findhorn River today next to a fishing bothy. 3 multi-stemmed Elms to bring down. All in the vicinity of 85 ft. Great day by the river in the sunshine. Working in locations like this is what makes this job so great.

Was wondering from the aspect of the heat in the back handle having an effect. But it does seem unlikely.

New fault for me today. Delimbing a cherry, running down the stem happily enough for a minute or so. Then the saw refused to throttle down from full power. Stopped, restarted and still at full power. Stopped it and had a good check over but couldn't see anything untoward. Restarted and has been fine. Only thing I have done differently in the past week is to have the heated handles on for long periods. Possible reason, or just an unlikely coincidence?

Blimey. Those Alpin look smart but the price is certainly eye-watering!

Careful with that description. That's 2 batteries dismantling a crown, moving, repositioning, rigging and then cutting. It works out at around 1 hour of cutting for the two batteries, although, as I said, one battery is certainly better than the other.

That's poor. I get loads more than that. One battery is definitely better than the other, but two last us the day in the crown. Worth getting that battery replaced.

+1. My mate just bought one for the reasons above. His 560 was a mite heavy over the day. 550 is a 346 with a tad more bite.