agrimog

countryboy, the use of red doesnt bother me, if I'm doing forestry biased work, I run red, if not I run white, price jobs accordingly, not a problem, my gripe is the speed thing, If as a motorist you constantly ignored speed limits and ran 10-20mph over the limit, you wouldnt have a licence very long, but drive a big shiny tractor towing a massive big trailer, and nobody cares, just dont ask them to stop, I've seen to many accidents with big tractors, heavily loaded trailers and inexperienced college student drivers on a summer job, not to let up on this

RCO, I was involvedin the toolmaking side of the electonics industry, when the uk still had one, we produced the tooling for the production of populated circuit boards, lead times were caculated in hours , stock of raw materials had always to be on the shelf, and components had to be readily available, designs could be changed half way through a production run due to customer changes, it was a cut throat market, little wonder it all ended up going to eastern europe, lower production costs, so I have experience in the market and know what is involved, maybe a different market, .....a simpl;e question, an all metal wheelbarrow, doesnt cost £400, so why does an arb trolley, with a similar amount of work involved in its production?

oh the excitment of nightime motorway work...lol.better than the movies

thats correct, two tank systems were outlawed, so in the fields, you can use red, on the road, you must use white if your a contractor, catch 22 , your supposed to drain, clean, and then refill every time you change, aye, right, so there in a no win situation, price for white, too expensive, loose the job, run red and risk it, make a hefty profit, thats why most of them run fancy new 40kph and now 50kph tractors, ignoring the rules, hoping to get it finished as quick as possible, have you seen one of these trying to stop from 30mph with a full sillage trailer on the back.....interesting is not the word...so when it catches up with them, they get hammered, as I said before, time the playing field was levelled, give everyone a fair chance at a bit

taken in the spirit it was meant, having worked for a time with a fabricator, I found the easy ways of working with box section steels, and ally extrusions, the degreasing trick is once cut, a rag soaked in gunwash(cheap paint thinners) cleans it in a couple of rubs, before placing it onto the welding table/jig, at this point the next bit is usually falling of the saw, quick tack up, check square, and weld, ( the trick here is cut the sizes exact, saves a lot of time in prep work, and no de-burring the cuts, the weld pass flows the ends together), when you lift it off the weld table, 90% of the time its ready to go straight into powder ( dont believe what the powder coat guys tell you, they do very little, if any prep work, thats the beauty of powder coating..lol), a quick pre-heat removes any grease and oil that was missed , then BLAT, sprayed with the electrostatic powder, (first chance you get, check the types and finishes available, its unreal, you could spec your trolley in a leatherette finish if you wanted), another heat to set the powder, let it cool, knock in the plastic plugs, these are really cheap when you buy std sizes to suit box section, pop on the wheels ( can be sourced at your local re-cycling place for a song, quick word with the guys that run it, and its amazing the things that turn up in exchange for the odd bag of logs!!!.....barter at its best), and bingo a trolley, does help to have mates in the powder coating game, but I still pay the going rate for steel, ( common sizes are not expensive, and usually available ex stock) a quick phone call and find out whats available at a good price and the design can be ammended to suit, a bit of paper and pencil drawing, and your ready to go.....its easy

only thing to be wary of, if your using synthetic ropes, they dont like the heat that comes with the electric winches with a lot of use

its not dead, just not very well, squirt with wd40 and a little rest till you can afford a new (bigger) pot and piston, it will live again

Treequip, half a day? ie 4 hours, from raw metal to ready to paint theres 45 mins, if its being powder coated, between 15-20mins depending on the type and cure temp of the powder, and as for £45 for the wheels, stop looking in B&Q, a good hunt on the web gets them delivered for £15 each, ok, maybe a bit more than £40 for a finished job, and as for intellectual rights, on a trolley, sorry no, change 1 bit of the design and its different,same rules as copyright and patents, not a copy, slightly different, but anything with around a 1000% mark up is still ripping the p*ss out of us. I work for myself and as such any equipment I purchase has got to be value for money and anything like this, I'll build it myself during a slack period, I pay the same prices for raw materials as the guys building the equipment, same electric prices, same consumable costs, but I dont have to sell at a massive profit

£400 for 40 quids worth of material and an hours time, not worth it to me by any stretch of the imagination, this is one of the reasons things get so pricey.....yes pay for its value, but stop ripping us off

yup, rules on red use are quite clear, contractors are not allowed to use it on the road, specifically covered in the rules, they've been getting away with it for years, glad its finally starting to catch up with them, just got to convince mr plod to start hammering tractor drivers exceeding 20mph now, time everybody was competeing on a level playing field

which winch, lol.... I run several, uniforest 30e on the pto on the mog, a 15000lb hydraulic mounted on a tpl bracket on the mog and a 12000lb hydraulic, again on a tpl bracket, the 15k one has 100 mtrs of 10mm steel on it for the akward pulls, the skidder is the most used and the "little " one is a backup, to be honest since the uniforest was bought the others do very little work these days

for arb work, its got to be a pto winch, or a hydraulic one, any 12v electrical winch has a duty cycle that is very small (loaded pull + current = heat, the more work, the hotter it gets, so much so that it is possible to melt the insulation varnish on the windings ! ) with a pto version, you have a much more controllable winch, engine rpm controlls winch speed (fitting a modified cruise control governor will maintain a constant speed irrespective of load) , likewise a hydraulic unit

and the biggest question that none of you seem to ask...how many charges before the battery is fubared.....or how may seasons till its obsolete

yes, the appointed directors are all volounteers, but who gets to oversee there"expenses", and when do they get replaced by someone who actually has a clue what is going on, and can actually do some good, its going to turn into another farsical quango with some fat cats getting even fatter at our expense, the initial "thing " was mentioned a couple of years ago, but they didnt want joe public getting involved, still the same, thats what I inferred by the saying "jobs for the boys".....the little clique looking after themselves

Bob, VOSA is now a self financing body, and as such, they WILL try and bully, and twist the rules, but they need to remember, they DO NOT make the rules, and must comply with what is actually written down, not there interpretations of them, check into the road traffic act, you will find that as long as your vehicle is capable of maintaining a speed over the minimum posted, is insured and complies with the relevant taxation class for which it is registered, its allowed on the motorway (colour of fuel is irelevant) to many folk seem scared of VOSA, all you have to remember is that they are public servants, and as such YOU are there boss, never let them forget it, even by threatining legal action against named individuals if required

the rural parliament is a good idea, unfortunatlly it is already turning into another "jobs for the boys" group, there has been very little notification of it and its all been kept "in house" by a very select group......more waste of the tax payers money

aspenarb, I think if you do your research, the unimog IS allowed on the motorways, along with fastracs and trantors, the agricultural machines refered to are tractors, and any ag machine restricted to 20mph and as for the contractor being forced to change his vehicles, he actually fell foul of construction and use with his fastracts.......hydraulic steering sytems......20mph limit again. You need to remember the unimog is built to comply with TUV regulations, and as such is more than compliant to anything our muppets can throw about. as you say, there are no grey areas, its all in black and white, correct, all you need to do is find the appropriate legislation, print it out, keep it in the cab, and when you get hassled by a a stroppy plod, or VOSA official, present them with it, and tell them that they can only enforce what is actually written , not what they want to make up, and demand to see a senior officer. there are too many wannabe clever tw*ts in office, the rules apply to them as well as everyone else, learn what is applicable to you and dont try to be clever about what you can or cant do, for every dozen muppets in enforcement, theres always one who does actually know and understand the RTA and C & U rules

check the brake setting on the drum, if you've used it a lot, it might need resetting, our one , on its first outing tangled the cable on the drum, but after a lot of swearing and faffing about getting tie cable back off, and re-winding it under load, hasnt missed a beat, check your manual for the brake settings, its not to difficult, or time consuming to re st

why the front, 4wheeled trailer, european style with front axle steerable, pto on rear 3 point linkage discharging back into trailer, remember trailer length doesnt include drawbar, and max train length is 18m, you've just got to learn to reverse steerable trailers!!!!

with your mog, classed as an agricultural machine, you are allowed a gtw of 19.4 tonnes and a max trailer length of 12mtrs excluding drawbar on a minimum of 4 wheels, thats a awfully big chip trailer !!!

any vehicle than can exceed a minimum speed of 25mph is allowed on the motorway, the ruling saying no tractors was changed some years ago(tractors, farm ones with no suspension on the back axles are restricted to 20mph by the road traffic act)

as its not being used for one of the exemptions allowed, must use white fuel, also the driver, with a full licence must be over 21, as the mogs fall into the larger class of tractor licencsing(yes there is an age limit)

its never been a landrover, some muppet's stuck the tinwork from a rust rover on a bv202, about as usefull as a black nail, very limited on speed, need group h for road use, and with a jap 2.5 engine, about as economical as bugger all squared

if you do not know the swl on the cable, do not use it, for the sake of a few dollars is it worth the risk of a break and possible whiplash injury ?, most winch cables are a 7/19 cable, that is 7 twists of 19 strands of ht steel, arranged 6twists around a 7th core, stainless just does not have the tensile strength at the same diameters

fell, mill, process the timber into cladding, hot tubs, and garden products, (sheds, decking, furniture, etc) and get your money back plus, larch is a very much under utilised timber