tree-fancier123

is it ever acceptable to spike up a tree to cut bits off if aim is to retain(prune, re pollard etc) I mean are any species going to not be bothered about it too much? Just wondered as with a lime, poplar, chestnut, re-pollard so many wounds anyway, or is it when spikes go into trunk cambium danger of innoculating with nasties or opening main trunk up to air borne insects and fungi/bacteria?

i had to google it, seen loads of mole damage, but the vole damage does indeed leave the lawn looking like a maze - don't let up on them!

what gets me with ebay is the hour clocks, take it with a pinch of salt

only got a transit, but live on Isle of Wight, so wouldn't be far, I guess the trouble would be stalling on a steep hill, but if I can get to jobs doing 30mph that would do. My transit 350 can tow 3.5 ton. Most of the bigger chippers seem to be around 2 ton. Had a ton of chip in a 12ft Ifor on the back before, just the steep hills tricky ( and no off - road sites)

I'm considering my first chipper and part of the decision concerns getting rid of leylandi, lawson etc, I can always give hardwood away, but had trouble before with conifer - it is resinous and not great firewood - can be burnt alone, but most easily got rid of when burnt mixed with good hard wood logs - so a 9 or 10 inch machine to eat the conifers would be good, even then the rings

Eureka! thanks for sharing, may come in handy, not always easy getting hired help just for the odd day here and there.

'Never really drag or lift anything'. Sounds good. Must be a fair few one man band types do their backs in.

looking at those tables my 20 ton guess seems far too low considering the stated diameter of over 2m at the base. Each meter of trunk length over 1m diameter could weigh above a ton, so if the first 20m is that wide there's 20 ton already. Revised guesstimate 50 ton fire wood

good solution with the base anchor, watching the next vid leylandi swinging the flipline round - with ally connector on it - is there ever any benefit to having a steel snaphook for more weight to chuck it round?

20 ton of fire wood, not a clue really. You could go scientific on it and pi r squared the average trunk radius times length and same for big branches to give approx volume. Then just google density of cedar, or use the tables in the HSE rigging research http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr668.pdf pages 140 - 144 e.g a 5 metre lenth of 50cm oak about a ton

looks good - so if you had a trolley jack with you it would be possible to chip then swap over to use the dumper to carry wood? or maybe less hassle just to make it tow a little trailer.

a businessman and a tradesman

crikey that crane looks like it would lift the tree up - no need to go up it

thanks for explaining - I think the big old stems look nice anyway, much better than replanting

nice job - talking to a local tree surgeon about pollarding and he said pollard to a major fork as that's where the dormant buds are - in Brown/Kirkham - The Pruning of Trees Shrubs and Conifers there is a picture of a Populus sp p73 with caption death due to severe topping. Is that rare? I thought willow, poplar nearly always recovered even if it is cut down? How about the limes - how do you know where you can cut to without killing it - is there a rule of thumb regarding height remaining as a ratio of previous height or similar?

thanks, makes sense, rather than having an extra long rope just for rare occaisions

how good is that if you get a chance can you make my transit van run a pto chipper? 90hp going to waste

thanks for the info ClearViewTrees, interesting to know you've got away with dropping some heavy bits on your winch. I get your point about right tool for the job, but I think what you've got, then having the winch strapped on below and some form of lever operated rope grab welded onto the bollard (similar to that on LD2 device pictured in link at start of thread) and you have the best of both worlds, saving about £1400, tension on winch, rope grab operated, rope off winch onto bollard, rope grab off. Of course it means finding, or making, the lever operated rope grab. You say one decent job and it's paid for - nice work if you can get it!

good idea, gives them a second chance, although if you let them live they may be so bitter about the disfigurement they go do something even worse, no haven't got a clue really, people spend their whole careers trying to understand the criminal mind, must be interesting, perhaps in the future they will just alter the embryo

So Cougar Blue is coming out as the best rope chosen by SRT workers, I guess the highest climb ( in south uk ) is 140', so unless factoring for lowering from base anchor (seems extravagant), then 60m SRT is as long as you'll need? Although if base anchoring with a bigshot high anchor the longer rope seems worth paying for, perhaps a seldom used 80m one for a monster tree and 50, 60m for everday. Of course established folk often climb with hired help present to take off the base anchor and allow it to be converted to a top anchor and save rope length that way. I guess that very high top anchor means dropping a throwline to the ground for retrieval if the tree is not coming down?

mk6 transit, not sure about others - maybe the door locks could be changed for these Ford Transit, Custom, Connect Drivers Door Upgrade Locks- Transit Hykee Lock Upgrade- Garrison Locks also loom guards behind the barn doors to stop the loom being cut. Apparently the remote key signal can also be 'cloned' somehow by theives, but security companies are now offering a (claimed) modification to prevent the wireless key remote signal being hacked. I've only spent about £25 on the loom guards so far for my MK6, but after reading this thread about the Tibbe lock I am starting to worry a bit, maybe the £80 lock per side replacement is worth it. Plus whatever cost the remote signal mod is. I gather the MK6 also has a weak spot on the quarter light / mirror. But if a cable was cut there and there were deadlocks on the doors they couldn't take the whole vehicle (without smashing the window presumably). So maybe it's £400 ish I need to spend. Can sympathise with that bloke who was jailed a few years ago when he shot intruders on his farm - regardless of their troubled upbringing etc my (possibly a bit nasty) view is genuinely in favour of eliminating anyone caught in the act of breaking into a van. No excuse for taking someones livelihood. Burn a few thieves at the stake on prime time TV as a deterrent. No, that's not fair, a quick painless removal is appropriate.

this thread and Arbtalk in general have really helped me see how the pro's work - huge capital tied up and a clued up team getting the big trees done in a day or two. I quite like climbing the little silver birch etc in gardens, but these big tree firms allow you to tackle the monster jobs. Would like to know the finance business side of getting rid of the waste - do Premier (and similar big operations) give the chip away, or sell to power stations? What diameter branch wood is chipped and what is deemed worth the time to save? With the jobs of a whole line of Leyland Cypress, Lawson etc is it more cost effective to just chip the lot and get away quick? I see some big PTO tractor chippers pictured earlier, must eat whole connifers - just have to try to explain to customer that it does still have to be £200 even if you're off after one hour.

find the run, get a half barrel trap in - or leave it in peace, either way in a hundred years who will care? There may be a way that trapping a mole could have rammifications that lead to World War 3, but can't get my head around it.

Looking at how the RCW 3001 is constructed one solution could be to use a separate Harken or other good self tailing winch e.g Lewmar on a separate strap above, or below? the bollard with 20 feet of rope separate from the rigging line with a rope grab on the end, maybe a bit of extra clutter but cheaper than the purpose built LD2 by 50%

Thanks Nigel, 2 things I think are not optimum about the Stein RCW-3001 are that the friction hitch removal after tensioning must add a few seconds compared to a rope grab type system and secondly the winch unit itself looks inferior to the Harken on GRCS. Other than that I have to say as a complete system for £750 or so it is a great buy for someone like me just starting out. Spending £2600 on a Smart winch LD2 would mean less for big chipper or Sunday roast, whatever