pgkevet

I have two walnut trees.. a few years back both developed brown patches on most leaves that then turned black and shrivelled. Neighbours were nagging me to destroy them so I rang the agricultural college at Brinsbury and had a long chat with the folk there. I've monitored it since then and it only happens on wet springs..indeed is just starting in a small way now. Some years it's fine all year if dry - so fungal and now settled in the surroundings. Do you guys ever get involved in treating trees with injected drugs?

Kids today don't know they're born! Chainsaws? All I had was a hatchet... :-)

Cheapest (I understand) is sainsbury's basic vinegar....smaller bottles but the right price :-)

On my helicopter petrol 2-strokes we wouldn't dream of using a piston stop..far too likely to do damage. The nylon cord down the plug hole works very well and distributes load nicely (when you can't place a crank lock). Obviously heat the nylon cord end first to lose any stray fibres. I also use a thinner, softer cord rather than the fattest thing you can get through.

That's mean:001_smile: I don't know how much i can help.. not owning a chainsaw yet but I do fly r/c helicopters including a 2-stroke petrol one (as opposed to nitro) and they are modified strimmer-type engines Zenoah with walbro carbs and 2 needles.. low and high... albeit modded and ported fro the zenoah heli engine base. Irrespective of all the different opinions one gets it is a case of both needles need to be right. Yes you can close down the high needle and get an idle going but as soon as you give any revs it's going to be lean as all heck. The plug is a better indicator than exhaust (unless using exhaust gasses) and your most important consideration is the engine temperature. The oil you use is another argument..don't grab just any old 2-stroke oil. Ideally one uses the manufacturers recommendations but with our heli engines we're trying to get max performance and oil brands become a big issue as well as oil percentages when pushing the limits. I actually have a thermocouple temp readout wrapped around the cooling head though most folk use an IR gun at second fin space from the bottom on the carb side. For our engines we avoid going above 260F and try to shoot for 230F - but we are running them pretty hard. For the low needle we aim to get a good idle with comfortable transition and a little stumble about every 20 secs. And on the high needle lean it just so as it backs off on throttle it's a clean return without stumbling or over-revving.. the check the plug and adjust the high from that. You often have to start with one needle change then play with the other needle then go back to the first and repeat.. messing with both at the same time leads to madness:001_smile:. Listening to the engine under load and with load removed...checking for over-reving as load comes off.. usually richen on the low for that. Higher oil percentages on the right sort of oil can help one avoid cooking the engine by going a touch lean - obviously too high an oil of the wrong sort and it's a stuck ring. We reckon it takes 2 gallons of synthetic oil mix fuel to run a gasser engine in before dropping that oil percentage and getting full power.

cricket bat willow? <sorry>

Thanks for the additional comments.. all good stuff to think about. It'd be nice to use own timber but reality is that if this buy comes off then there's too much to be done too quickly to be able to 'play' at it. That's not derogatory. I fully approve but I'm going to have to get a couple of decent sized insulated sheds up fairly quickly because the one really good barn is ear-marked for big stuff and too large to heat and the house isn't big enough for my other toys indoors (i have my own hobby room plus my own office here where I am now and a garage workshop) - and a lot of preparatory stuff to get done outdoors preparing orchards and growing areas and putting up glasshouses.. The monitor lizard went for research at London Zoo..swapped for a free entry for the family (well - more a case of go in through the research building and out their back door)

Badgers will get anywhere! Quick Badger story: I cam back from holiday to find a Badger cub needing it's leg fixing and my staff had arranged for me to do it with a TV crew filming for a kids programme! Jeez, nowt like a bit of warning.. So we knocked it out and started cleaning it up.. took 45 mins to get all the parasites off it and shaved and clean enough. I'm scrubbed in and about to start cutting when nurse in charge of anaesthesia whispers she's worried about it's breathing. I'm checking it over to see how best to help it when the TV Producers voice booms out loud and dramatic "Is it going to be OK Mr K" Now frankly that wasn't the time for that and I don't take cr@p. So i stared straight into the camera and said: "It's a win-win situation. It makes it and I'm a hero. Or I get a new shaving brush" The producer called 'cut' and they left... Betty the badger was fine:

I can relate to that! Wife once thawed the sunday joint to find it was a very large Monitor Lizard I'd been keeping for the zoo:biggrin:

I did look at some of the old construction methods and design a while back. some interesting approaches. Particularly on old mills. No way was anyone going to handle timbers that size without being sure it was all going to work! The simplicity of wax coating I like..won't soak in like other proofers. Burying in shavings...simple so long as you keep working in a mess :-)

I'm sorry to hear that. Losing a close friend isn't easy. I get the horrors whenever I see loose dogs near machinery or vehicles. Even the best trained dog can get easily distracted by exciting things for dogs or have a dumb moment. It's what leads and locked cabs are for.

..except the inside of what you build outside is inside.. and possible heated? Differential seasoning? That sounds rather cool. Mean some interesting joints to pull it together and presumably some math on the shrinkage amount? Rafters for instance could pull those walls right in unless the end walls join the march? And that means thinking through the base/foundation. If memory serves then lime mortar took literally years to fully cure and was used more as a levelling surface than a 'glue'?

I can't speak for your profession, but in mine it's a combination of what they can screw you for, who is up and coming as competition and whether they've snuck some reductions in cover in there..increased excess and reduction in total cover. We only have 2-3 main players and of them one has traditionally doe their best to defend the professional rather than just pay out 'cos it's cheaper: and they are losing market share just because that approach costs more in premiums. The only time I was ever involved in a claim for personal injury to one of my employees it was an opportunistic suit using an injury away from work and claiming it as a work-lace injury...odd that it took two days from the claimed episode to actually bother the person! Odd that the aggravation happened after they apparently fell from a horse in their own time? Nevertheless when the insurance investigators came down to interview me they started by admitting they were going to lose because the claimant had a better legal team! They put in a claim for 2 million and settled out of court for £64K..less than the legal fees would have been - so much for justice.

This is probably an unfairly big question but I'm curious.. I've stumble across some web articles that imply folk have been building cabins with fresh felled timber, milled and profiled and used rather than left to season and refinished. Is this a matter of species selection, just a shortened form of the truth or disaster waiting? In a similar way one comes across green carving and turning discussions. Now I understand that turning it green will spin a lot of the moisture out and with that and carving it may be necessary again to rough out the work then out it aside to season before going back to finish it. Is it true that with smaller articles its often adequate to wrap in newspaper to slow the process to avoid splitting? How far can one go with the finishing before this stage? Are you guys using moisture meters or just winging it form experience? I do appreciate a lot of this is 'how long's that string'.. but comments welcome.

..makes mine an angel..

D@mn, I could have done with that £400:00!!1_smile: Does he have the 'wrinkly face'...genetic smile that scares the sh*t out of visitors?

One hammerhead... or you could use a mullet?

You don't have to stuff dally's.. they have the greed gene and do it all themselves:biggrin:

Dogs, cats, small furries. I haven't touched a horse professionally in years. What's the problem?

Cool animals,goats: climb anything , eat anything and make the best curry in Jamaica! ..just they have a wicked sense of humour... pgk

..we're not there (yet) but keep in touch... my two dogs will jump all over visitors..my wife won't. So you have to like the dogs:lol:

Near Croydon at the moment... It will be Llanfyllin later this year if the purchase keeps moving on...

First question. Yes I am planning on getting some chainsaw lessons before I start waving one about...so where does someone 6 foot 8 inches and almost 17.5 stone with size 13 feet find PPE to fit? Second Question: The farm has a dutch barn 1/4 full of timber potentially for firewood...but I'm told it's got woodworm. Advice? The House does have 20yrs left of a 30yr woodworm guarantee.. Third question (then I'll leave you guys alone today:001_smile:) This was just an impulse purchase because the place is beautiful. I haven't had a chance to really go throgh the woodlands but much of it is on a slope, vey mature and undergrowth heavy going. There was a 1-2 acres of new planting of Silver Birch that I'd guess is about 8/9 years old now? About 5/6in diameter?. One of the tentative thoughts I had was to coppice that at that size..as a source of timber for building some fruit cages once those plantings come on. It may not be the most suitable timber? But free...

That's about the fastest most welcoming, welcome on any forum! Thanks guys. I'll field small animal questions in exchange .. but as in your job... eyeballs and hands are way better than remote exchanges...and just as for you 'my tree looks ill..what's wrong with it?' isn't much help without details. I'll put the beginner questions in a new thread... pgk

I'd just like to check that I'm not treading on toes or feelings by joining here. I'm a retiring vet who fell in love with a chunk of North Wales that includes about 8 acres of broadleaf and hope to be moving in later this year..so I have a lot of questions. Yes, I do my reading and research but as you all know there's no substitute for professional advice when it comes to sorting out truth from fiction and fantasy on the web. So can I lurk and pick your collective brains with a mix of basic questions or would folk rather I left? pgk