Daniël Bos

I've no tickets, been working trees and hedges for twenty-odd years.

Maths: Say you use 3 saws, daily. They'll have cost a little over £700 each. Total cost of three saws, £2200. At two years old, they'll be worth at least half as much, so £1100. You don't want to work too hard so you use them for 175 days a year, slightly less than every other day. So 2200 outlay Minus 1100 resale value =1100 cost over two years. Two years is 350 working days. 1100/350= £3.14 So each saw cost you just over a pound per day of use, using very low resale values. Count on two years, every day longer is nice.

Two years. After that you're out of warranty. If it lasts longer, nice! But budget for two years max

Can't be that surely? Trigger is in the handle with no way out, and certainly no way to the flywheel?

Seems like you just need to make sure the bar groove is clean, clear and the right size and make sure the oiler holes join up.

Does it have the tensioner built into the cover? If so, it's not too hard to adjust the tension with the bar nuts a little too loose. Then when you tighten them, the conical pawl of the tensioner moves the bar so it's s bit tighter still.

It's the correct chain for the bar, though not sharp. Doesn't look so blunt as to start smoking though, what were you cutting?

Kill switch?

Take it back, surely it's under warranty?

Should work ok, just make sure it's in enough moisture to stop it drying out. Normally when I cook stuff for long periods (lambs neck at 60c) it's essential to keep covering it in its own juices as it'll come out as leather otherwise. If you can keep the moisture in, you can get very tough cuts of meat to a tenderness where all you'll need is a spoon.

New saws come with good warranties, 2nd hand ones come with none. Any manufacturing faults are normally apparent within a few hours of use and will be fixed under warranty, 2nd hand saws may have developed faults in their lifetime which will mean you have to spend to fix those. New saws are cheaper. Husky 550 or 560xp (g) cannot be beaten for shear power, and are built to last. As far as "working on them" what are you expecting to do with them? Normal routine maintenance (filters, plug, cleaning, greasing etc) is easy on all modern saws, with hardly any differences between the main rivals. The electronic carbs on these new huskies seem to be very well put together indeed. As far as major surgery on any saw (piston replacement, etc) again there is not much difference in working on pro saws, though some of the entry level domestic saws can be a bit more of a pain to work on. Just buy a 560, you'll enjoy it for many years to come, it'll do most trees you're likely to encounter and won't need hulk-like muscle to carry.

Bloke down the pub said they may be available in may, dealer said perhaps in July, husqvarna uk refused to comment, so for the moment you'll have to wear stihl.

Most if not all wood will keep well if split stacked and kept dry. Sycamore burns lovely, easy to process as well.

Nonsense! Birch will rot very quickly indeed, but if you cut it, split it, stack it and keep it dry, it'll keep for a few years. I've had birch stored for over five years with no rot.

Yes, probably, but neatly loaded is not really an option when loading a bulker with a telehandler.

If it was quick and convenient -which it appears to be- then there's a good market. Obviously not for everybody... How many people pay the Latvians a fiver rather than scrub your own car?

I would.

Good on you! I planted a load of trees in our field when my girls were three, they put most of the spirals on (some 3000-odd!) and whenever we had a friend helping they'd show them how it was done!

Cheers Nick. That's what I thought, but then I figured it would also create much more air in a load?

Hi all, I've got a nice pile of wood, but nowhere near where I want it. I've also got a mate who's about finished carting sugar beet and he's got plenty of time and a couple of lorries standing idle. So he's going to move a load or two for me which led me to the question of what would be more efficient: leaving it all as cord (of irregular lengths) or logging it all up? It'll be a 50mile trip. It will be logged any way so the time spent on that does not matter. Cheers, Daniel.

If you're going about giving signs away, please can you bring me one with: I am Rover, I'm a petroholic. I've not used any pump fuel for __ years, __ months and __ days! With either flippy numbers or a full set of magnet ones!

Surely hauling chip from sites to sell for fuel is not moving waste, it's moving a base product?

I reckon blocks are better than alternating when close planting as you might end up with very stunted oaks overshadowed by acres either side. If not planting within a day or two I normally heel bundles of trees in in fairly sandy soil. Ps. Straight lines are boring!

It is indeed, the hessian does not block out all the light as its quite an open weave, they normally take it off again in autumn. Lime wash may work, but would it not mess with their ph balance? I've only seen lime washed trunks in eastern European orchards where the winters get proper cold. They paint the trunks of apples etc, as its supposed to stop them cracking when it gets below -15 or so?

Round where I was born, in the tropical sunny Far East...of the Netherlands, beech trunks are often clad in hessian after a decent crown lift. This is on long avenues where the difference in sun on the trunks is quite a lot after the work though.