tree-fancier123

I liked the quantitative analysis and you do have a point about the impact of having fewer people per house, but when you talk of population decline - it's like you're recoiling in horror at the thought of it. What are the dangers of population decline? Not enough money to pay pensions etc? Danger of being invaded by a more densely populated nation? So I was exaggerating saying the population has nearly doubled since 1911, but it is still an extra 24m. Quite some acreage of building been going on. Can you extrapolate the growth into coming decades without tower blocks on the village green?

I did learn the knot - handy for tidying a lanyard. I don't doubt BigJs ability to build a superior dwelling to what the PLC builders offer - what I am pessimistic about is the idea of taking less profit and offering a bigger garden. You can do that locally, but the idea can't be scaled because of the sheer number of people coming to live in the Uk. If the figures are right net migration since 2000 is average of a quarter million per year, so surely that means another 100 000 new homes approx, just to house new arrivals. Now the issue is with the size of plot for these new arrivals. The countryside has no say in it, only humans do.

The declining size of a houshold does add to the problem, but the Uk poulation has nearly doubled since 1911, wouldnt have been anything like that without immigration. Graph shows just Polish, let alone all the Romanians, Bulgarians and others from far away lands. Those 400 odd thousand Poles even if packed in 20 to a house is a lot more land gobbled up

The Times article I linked to says otherwise and I beleive what Migration Watch have presented. I would like to see a similar article, using national statistics and not just guesswork to illustrate your point. The sheer number of new arrivals and their offspring once settled must account for whole cities by now. Look at Birmingham for example.

If the figures are right and the population increased by 6.6million between 2001 and 2016 that is a lot more rabbit hutches

No. And yes. You may call it propaganda, but article linked says 82 percent of the population increase due to immigration. People living longer adds to problem, but lets see figures. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/migration-linked-to-82-of-growth-in-the-population-t8tr99f6v

If a hard right party came to power with a commitment to ban immigration that would also help in the quest for houses with bigger gardens. Sure you will have some success in your area making a few nice homes, but the overall picture is bleak. 'Net migration to the UK, the difference between immigration and emigration, was estimated to be 282,000 in 2017. This is down from a peak of 336,000 in the year ending June 2016, immediately before the EU referendum' Of course land is going up - more than an extra 2 million people here now, compared to 10 years ago. If the politicians can't manage to cut immigration right down, then what we need is a plan to make the UK land area larger. For example a few trillion tonnes of rocks and soil from some far off land brought here on a big sailing boat and dumped around the coastline

the reason private services don't always come cheaper than state run is shareholder dividends

considering both above points - here is a set of photos showing someone using a combination of chains (I don't have logging chains, so would use a several wraps on a 5 ton endless ratchet strap) and the cut he calls the T cut, is like box hinge or Coos Bay. Personally I don't think the snipe is doing anything much. So he cut the sides about a third diameter parallel with expected lay, and then cut the back until it came away. You can see how far he got with the back cut before it went. of course this method just flops the leaning tree, so not a good option if it will severely damage retained trees. If the heartwood is badly decayed the box hinge/ Coos Bay type cuts would not work. Whichever cut, seeing as the tree is going anyway a test bore with a long drill would give an idea about what holding wood there is

Soz, not knocking your can do attitude. What about a ratchet strap round it as a bit of insurance?

Barber's chair, crematorium, done

with a single span going through trees to be cut between two poles, would it be any protection and feasible to string a length of rope between the poles and tension just above phone line, so if any branches were droped or went astray the rope would protect?

It was silly talking about shooting them. What Matty said about the police being scared I can believe, another post I remember on here some thieves caught redhanded at a yard pulled a shooter 'its not worth your life is it?' . Still, no where near as bad as being alive during a full blown civil war. I still think some variation of removing a wheel one side could help. Battery wrench, torque wrench, cheap bottle jack. Possibly some way of making it difficult for theif to fit their own wheel to tow away, one larger stud so a wheel wont go on unless a hole is drilled out, funny thread patterns etc. Any mechanical way to disable a hub

If you ever win the lottery you can buy ten TW125s and use them as bait for a sniper rifle

It's murder where I live these days with the increased traffic - would be even more cars if all the aborted foetuses where behind the wheel

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maybe some of these links still live, have to register to download http://opeforum.com/threads/husqvarna-workshop-manuals.997/

when I was 17 I remember buying a clapped out Fiesta and someone giving me a spare engine free, I did the job in a day with a chain hoist and a Haynes manual, never worked on a car before. These days the availability of service manuals, Ford, Iveco, Stihl etc has saved me some money. Sure I would know the underlying principles if I was time served, but if service manuals have the data and sufficient instructions to effect a repair then why not? I expect you could read enough to do a kidney transplant almost as well as a someone who has been to medical school. Good money in kidneys if you don't ask questions about how they got it.

the trackers have helped to recover a lot of stolen plant, but I imagine many thieves are spending hours and hours thinking about this problem. Even if a tracker could be in the most cunning places, e.g sump pan, false bottom hydraulic oil tank etc, presumably it can be detected by some form of scanner, and blocked by an available jammer type. Of course not every thief will buy into the technology to defeat trackers. one side could be jacked on axle stand and wheel taken to job or home, then the thieves get into the habit of taking a spare wheel with them. A way out would be a box to tick at the general election - death to all thieves

Concealed tracker in steel box welded into the frame possibly, there are animals on earth that look human. Maybe a night thief would even use a gas axe if he found a tracker.

Are you just making conversation, or genuinely interested? results as per search e.g. Evolutionary biology Why are so many trees hollow? Graeme D. Ruxton Published:01 November 2014https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2014.0555 Abstract In many living trees, much of the interior of the trunk can be rotten or even hollowed out. Previously, this has been suggested to be adaptive, with microbial or animal consumption of interior wood producing a rain of nutrients to the soil beneath the tree that allows recycling of those nutrients into new growth via the trees roots. Here I propose an alternative (non-exclusive) explanation: such loss of wood comes at very little cost to the tree and so investment in costly chemical defence of this wood is not economic. I discuss how this theory can be tested empirically. Many trees have a hollow or otherwise rotten core to their main trunk. For example, surveys of savannah woodland in Australia have found hollow cores (a phenomenon called piping) in 66–89% of trees of different species; on average, hollow cores extended to 50% of the total diameter [1–3]. A study in the Amazonian rainforest found 37% of trees from a broad range of species to be piped [4]. The most relevant hypothesis to explain this phenomenon is due to the renowned ecologist Daniel H. Janzen, who in 1976 published a paper entitled ‘Why tropical trees have rotten cores’ [5]. He hypothesized that ‘the rotten core is often an adaptive trait … A rotten core is a site of animal nests, animal defecation, and microbial metabolism that should result in a steady fertilization of the soil under the base of the tree. … Hollow cores are expected more frequently in nutrient poor sites … In short, the hollow core becomes a clever use of an otherwise useless piece of wood.’ Mutualistic interactions between microbes and plants are well known in other contexts, most obviously in the rhizosphere. Although it seems logically plausible, empirical support for the predictions of this hypothesis have been lacking. There may be low return of nitrogen to a living plant from termite activity within its trunk, with much of the nitrogen harvested from the consumption of the wood of a living tree being lost through predation and nuptial flights and as a result of heavy rains [6]. Further, any nutrients that are released into the soil are more likely to be captured by the shallower roots of the herbaceous understorey that compete with larger deeper-rooted canopy trees [7]. One key study found that in nutrient-poor Australian woodlands, growth and survival were lower in piped trees than size-matched unpiped trees growing in the same plot [8]. A follow-up study found that for one species of Eucalyptus, growth rate was independent of the extent of piping in trees of a particular total trunk diameter, whereas in the other study species growth decreased with extent of piping [9]. Here I offer an alternative (non-exclusive) hypothesis. In contrast to Janzen's hypothesis, I suggest that the tree gains no advantage from a rotten core, but rather (provided the rottenness is not too extensive) pays a very small price (in terms of reduced structural integrity) for allowing the central wood to rot. Furthermore, this cost can be lower than the metabolic costs required to chemically protect the central part of the trunk. So like Janzen's hypothesis, my hypothesis suggests that the prevalence of rotten cores can be understood in terms of selection pressures. But my hypothesis is very different in suggesting that there is no selective benefit from a rotten core (in terms of freeing up nutrients for recycling by the tree's roots), but that it is often not economical to chemically defend the central part of the trunk; and rotten cores emerge as an epi-phenonenon of this judicious lack of investment. Chemical defences against both microbial and animal damage to tissues are widespread across plants and can often involve very substantial metabolic expenditure. Hence, it may not be economical for a plant to protect all its tissue equally, and I will argue that the interior of tree trunks will often not be well defended. As a tree grows, so the trunk must thicken to carry the increased weight; such thickening involves the formation of new sapwood around the circumference of the trunk. Sapwood acts not only structurally but also to transport water from roots to leaves and as a repository for nutrients. However, sapwood is metabolically active and the maintenance of such tissue has been estimated as costing 5–13% of annual net energy gain through photosynthesis [10]. For this reason, many trees convert their innermost wood from sapwood to heartwood. Heartwood is metabolically inactive, plays no role in nutrient storage or water transport and offers no structural advantage over sapwood [11]. The attraction of heartwood is that it is dead and incurs no recurrent metabolic costs. Although some chemical defences may be laid down at the time of heartwood formation, the lack of metabolism in this wood means that such defences cannot be replenished when they decay, or be ramped up in response to specific attack. Thus, there may be metabolic savings a tree can obtain by avoiding investing heavily in the chemical defence of wood in the interior of the trunk. Given that this interior is often heartwood, the primary cost to this strategy is likely to be structural weakness as a result of decay or hollowing of this wood; below I will argue that this cost can be very low. As a simplification, the trunk of a tree can be considered as a cantilevered cylinder. As such, the greatest tensile and compressive stresses occur towards the surface and the interior contributes relatively little to structural strength [12]. A survey of previous research of the effects of trunk hollowing on the structural failure of trees found strong agreement across studies, involving a broad range of different species and broad range of tree sizes, that there was a critical amount of hollowing above which structural failure was considerably more likely [13]. This critical point occurs when the radius of the inner hollow region is approximately 70% of the total radius of the trunk. Hollowness less than this critical amount involves very little cost in reduced structural stability. This 70% critical value is broadly used in the management of trees, and in particular is a very widely used criterion for the removal of trees considered to be structurally at risk [14], although its theoretical basis is an area of still-active discussion [15]. In conclusion, I agree with Janzen that the widespread occurrence of hollow trees demands explanation. I also agree that an evolutionary approach can help generate hypotheses that might explain this phenomenon. Janzen offered one such explanation in terms of recycling of nutrients; here I offer what I believe is a more generally applicable alternative or complementary hypothesis: that the central wood of trees is allowed to decay because the costs of chemically defending it are not justified by the small reduction in structural stability that is likely to occur. This hypothesis is empirically testable. I predict a greater investment in chemical protection of wood against destruction in exposed and windy environments where structural stability will be more at a premium, and differential investment in chemical protection across the circumference of trees, with the outer portion being much more strongly protected than the inner. There is evidence that chemical protection of heartwood can vary according to local conditions, being affected by thinning during silviculture [16], but that same study found no evidence of consistent variation in defensive investment with heartwood age. It might also be valuable to explore extent of hollowing in large lateral branches as well as the central trunk of suitable species. Horizontal branches will often experience greater tensile and compressive stresses than an upright trunk of similar thickness, and might be predicted to be particularly strongly protected against decay. We might also predict that trees should avoid any hollowing of the trunk in the vicinity of large lateral branches. A lateral branch causes stresses to be imposed on the trunk, and if there is hollowing of the trunk near the branch then stresses will be concentrated on the outer wall and potential for local buckling increases relative to a situation where a solid trunk allows spreading of those stresses across the cross-section of the trunk (see [17] for further discussion). This illustrates that there will be a complex suite of selection pressures impinging on the design of tree trunks (and all other plant structures [18]). Furthermore, as Janzen's theory suggests a benefit to the plant from heartwood consumption, his theory would predict that plants should be selected to make this wood more accessible and/or attractive to decomposers. By contrast, if any such traits are otherwise costly then they should not be selected if the mechanism proposed here operates. It may also be illuminating to examine the diversity of bacterial and fungal communities in decaying central wood and contrast this with those in rotting wood associated with damage, to explore if there are functional differences in the different assemblages. Naturally hollow trees are very unusual, but do occur in the Neotropical pioneer species of the genus Cecropia, where internodes are either hollow or filled with pith—depending on the species. These species are fast-growing, relatively short-lived gap colonizers in tropical forests. They are characterized by having a relatively small number of slender branches at the top of the trunk carrying sparse leaf cover. Thus, the central trunk does not have to bear the same loads as those of more robust and more branched trees. Accordingly, the trunk is essentially columnar (like bamboo stems) rather than the more traditional tapered shape created by thickening at the bottom of the trunk over time. Cecropia does show, however, that naturally hollow trees are possible, but in most cases the complex of selection pressures on tree trunk design seem not to have led to this solution, although the sometimes extensive occurrence of microbially driven hollowing mentioned at the start of this article perhaps suggests that the costs of hollowing may often not be high. But we require more empirical exploration of hollowing, and I very much hope this article encourages and focusses such investigation. Acknowledgement This manuscript benefited from perceptive and constructive reviewing from Hanns-Christof Spatz and two anonymous referees. Footnotes © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

I did read the Makita is a bit heavier than a 365, but had no idea either the Makita or Dolmar badge were electronic carbs? If they are electronic carbs I don't see that as a plus for the occasional user. You see plenty of old saws up for sale year 2002 etc, Do you think many Mtronics will last 20 years in the cold damp air of a shed?. Won't be much choice soon, other than refurbs way things are going. What a life with a view like that, would drive me mad

Yeah gaff out there on a traditional flipline on side ds would be a bit of a slide. Good spiking and nice traverse too, skillz

My sister got really bad swearing and had to explain it doesn't really make the conversation more exciting. I think for men working together it sometimes adds to the sense of camaraderie to say something like 'don't be a cant all yer loif'

I may buy just a Teufelberger loop and ring, plus another ring and a maillon to try to modify my flipline like that - a poor mans version. The Buckingham system looks as good as having a choked main line for grabbing the tree in the event of a fall.