tree-fancier123

sounds sensibleish, although if I pulled a rope and it started to go, imagine it could twist and not land predictably at all wasn't planning on lowering it off, just freefall onto some bags of cuttings.

only a little garden gate, it could be craned out from next door , but I think they'd rather set fire to the tree than their money

Are there times (other than honey fungus) that it is thought not good to leave wood with fruiting bodies on nearby for fear of cross contamination? In forestry they used to be keen to get rid of dodgy trees stump and all? Maybe you can't sterilize the landscape and it is of no protective benefit? In the perhaps extremely rare case that a 25' tree were to fail while the pollard heads are being cut off why would it be better on spikes than on a ladder?

thanks, will do - I know I'd only be 20 feet up cutting the top off, but was worried about it breaking up while I was tied on.

I've not climbed many badly decayed trees - and while I get the gist of the 'if it stayed up in the last storm it should be alright' - I also have reservations after reading on here some years ago about a climber in germany losing use of his legs after trying to top out a decayed beech that shattered as the top went over with him tied on to it. I've been saving up a few dumpy bags of hedge cuttings (haven't got any tires) to save damaging the lawn with the pollard heads, also the path has a drain under. I thought of three ways 1. put a ladder up and work unnattached and slice the pollard heads off, then disk it down off the ladder 2. spike up the 'good side' and do as above. 3 attach tirfor to top then to bottom of neighbouring tree and try to take all the pollard heads in a big top, maybe off a ladder again. Not sure how much good wood there is to control a fell. Obviously no way to wedge the back cut, so hopefully the tirfor would prevent it from sitting back. So interested in hearing from more experienced people about how they would do it, preferably without damaging lawn or paths and drains under. Also if the armchair arborists feel they need to write something too - no worries! thanks for reading and any replies - I know these knackered trees are routine for some of you. It's about 25' high 2' ish dbh

or this way - more hours less reward

stainless ones around for mail order e.g £4.19 for 25 delivered 4.0mm (x Choose Length) A2 Stainless Steel Sealed Dome Blind Pop Rivets | eBay much harder work pulling them up with a hand gun than ally though

if you didn't have or want to pay for welding, it may be possible to bodge a serviceable repair using a pop rivet gun to put the patch on, if there is room for the rivet above

that machine does look far better value for 11k than the used Jensens, often with similar hours and an extra 5k price tag. Only thing is they are so heavy, difficult to see how a Transit type outfit could use one, maybe if they had a big 4wd pick up/ landy as well

I got a bit confused here - sounds more like it was 2 lines holding it up and another 2 to lower the cut sections

sometimes you have to get up to go to the toilet, get some food and drink, but in between some people can apparently get through whole books in a day or two. Surely not technical or biology books though

total 4 18mm ropes on it, should be good to hold 20 ton or so if the anchors are, sounds like you incorporated a good margin of safety

I think £12 per hour is an admission you don't know the trade. As long as you know enough and are keen to learn there will be plenty of pensioners looking to save a bit on the annual mower service, sharpening hedgcutter blades etc. Just advertise it, at £15 or even £17 free collection, delivery. I appreciate you want to undercut to get going, but I wouldn't take a £1500 Honda mower to someone who said £12 per hour. I'd think they had been on the Youtube vids and got a socket set for xmas.

so it's 250 for a few hours, but in another recent thread at least 3 guys saying they've had chippers, saws etc stolen and lost £15k, £30k etc, plus all the worry and anger to live with. When you use thousands of pounds of gear that could break down or get stolen you need to take a lot of money on at least some jobs to cover it all

part of someone's life that they'll never get back

I guess it all depends on police budgets, but in this case there may be prints on the steering wheel and drivers passengers doors, so if they bother to check and either of them have been done before with prints on record

wow, very confident moves there - I like to climb beech - don't know how guys can manage them in the wet though

These thefts are so costly it made me wonder if tree surgeon firms would be better clubbing together for big communal yards where they actually pay for a night security guard.

Barcham have some apparently, although maybe not as big as you'd like listing says out of medium, but large in, about 300 with the vat https://www.barcham.co.uk/products/prunus-victoria

a 30" deck cut and collect seems a lot to ask of a 180cc engine, same size is used on many 21" mowers - it is having to do nearly 50% more work on a 30". I expect it cuts low if the grass is already short. I think it would be worth losing fuel consumption to have a Honda GXV270 on a big pedestrian mower. If I need to replace my HRH536 hydrostatic I would try the new hdrostatic Viking with single handlebar, similar price, but would give it a go to see if it's any better in the wet. My old Viking 7 series is better in the wet, but only cuts 30mm, the new one will do 25mm, some customers like it very short.

Doing a doctorate? The world if full of people who want to use their intelligence to avoid low paid manual labour. Saving Private Ryan is a good movie for the DOWN DAYS. An emotional hell in the brain isn't quite as bad as watching your buddies get mutilated by machine guns as you walk up the beach on D Day.

I like this mid line knot for a base anchor if not all the rope length is required

how about this type of thing?

I thought it could only mean the base anchor leg up to the base of the canopy, then lanyard in let some slack out and do a butterfly on the base anchor leg and a quick link around a branch, leaving the base anchor on below it as well

nasty, does seem a good idea if using a base anchor when dropping big timber to get the base anchor temporarily converted to canopy anchor once up there, if in rare case it does get hit, at least it's only the rope