WorcsWuss

Although terrified of heights, flying, fire.... Always wanted to get on a smoke jumper hotshot crew...

Wow! That's quite an open ended question.... He needs to work out all his costs, including on costs [travel, fuel etc] and labour for that specific contract, that will give him a cost for actually doing that day's work. He then needs to take a judgment on how many days he will be able to fill in a year and split his annual costs - insurances, maintenance, capital investment, admin & general business costs etc - across that many days, add that figure to the individual job and labour costs and then add some profit. Then add another 25% to stash away to pay his end of year his tax bill and paying the accountant to do the tax return. Without wishing to sound rude, that's basic business stuff, might be worth him looking on the Business Link website for help with the management side of things.... it's as important, if not more important long term, as being able to cut trees down....

In the absence of slings you could wrap twice round the limb and then clip back into a marlin spike or similar mid-line knot just above to prevent cross loading the crab...?

Looks like it's at the top of a slope to me.....

The Agribuggy is made by Frazier.... Agribuggy 3D ... and is still in production.

I have a pair of Meindl Dovre Extreme for shooting, they're lovely boots, seriously comfy, just have to make sure they're done up tight. I also have a pair of Viking gore tex leather boots, the ones I have are 10 years old now and still going strong, despite being chewed by the dog, used for shooting, walking, climbing, general farming and everything else. Sadly they're discontinued but based on their performance I'll probably go for another pair of Viking when the time comes.... something like these... Genesis Track - Viking Footwear

That's an entirely different kettle of saugsages.... You have to get a drive first if you're going to drive a tractor and trailer, and in my experience, the most mental of the lot are the young farmers with a few years experience behind them anyway....! Anyone can go out and get any license or ticket if they can afford it and apply themself in the test, and quite right, it doesn't mean they're necessarily any good. Yes, the law is a pain, but it's £115 for a trailer test if you want to do it, so a damn sight cheaper than CS39..... unfortunately, unless they change the law back we're stuck with it. Or we flout it. The choice is yours!

I think it's less about the law and more about the maths.... If it was as simple as 'MAM>750KG=Illegal' or 'GTW>3500KG=Illegal' then it would be easy. But as ever the civil service made it far more complicated than it perhaps could have been.... Of course, the better alternative would have been to leave it as it was at 8.25t GTW on a standard car license..... then at least a normal person could use the 3.5t towing capacity of any Land Rover perfectly legally... But how would they have stashed a few extra quid in their pockets if they'd done that....?

I think rather than the upper limit on towing, those frightening little pinballs should be banned from the roads....!

Don't think it's quite that clear cut is it...? I thought it was based on MAM of the rig rather than actual weights...? And it's difficult to find a trailer plated at exactly the right weight to give you your total permissible weight without being over.... So, while you may only be towing 3/4 a tonne on your 1/2t trailer, but if the trailer is plated with a MAM of 2.5t, add that 2.5t to the ULW of your tow vehicle, say Defender 90 at approx 1.5t plus the permissible load will give the tow car a MAM/GVW of, what, 2t...? And presto, GTW is 4.5t, and you're a ton over.... Or something like that.... Basically, those of us fortunate enough to still be [relatively] young, but unfortunate enough to have been dicked over by the money grubbing commies, can only really tow 750kg, legally.... no matter how we slice it... I'm sure that somewhere out there is the tow car of the perfect GVW and the trailer of the perfect plated MAM.... I doubt however that this combination would be anyone's first choice for arb work....! And yes, lots of good threads on this...

Sadly not!

I was just about to suggest you check this, but reading down you're already there!. I was going to suggest this because I made exactly the same cock up the other day.... The metering diaphragm orientation is counter-intuitive to me....

Jones' keep 75cm 8mm Yale e2e now... I'm using one in standard Ddrt on my HC, you can get a really short VT out of it....!

In the US, from some of the manufacturer's websites which I have read, I believe that top handles are often marketed to homeowners [i'm sure Ted or another stateside member will correct me if wrong] primarily for the reasons the HSE deem unsafe over here, ie one handed use etc.... And there doesn't seem to be armageddon over there, nor unemployed tree surgeons scrounging for coppers under railway bridges.... A top handled saw is ultimately just a tool like any other, dangerous in the wrong hands, but still nothing more than a tool. I get a bit cheesed off with the culture of fear which seems to breed and be bred around them....

Excellent summary Treewolf. The vital point people need to remember in all of this is that regulations pertaining to use of top handled saws only relate to their application under PUWER & HSW, which means that if it doesn't apply to you, then you can do what you like with a top handled saw, including buying one. Which is basically anything in the privacy of your own home, including butchering yourself through stupidity if you so choose. This basic right means that yes, anyone can go out and buy a chainsaw, top handled or otherwise, without qualification or experience, and merrily chop away, hanging off a stepladder, until the inevitable happens. Stihl helpfully try to reduce the numbers injured by their products by only selling face to face. This is less a legal issue and more a professional and social responsibility policy. The right for anyone to purchase just about anything for our own personal use is one of the few things still great about this country. We'd all be a bit cheesed off if we could no longer buy welders without being a qualified engineer, because the HSE want to protect us from arc eye or some other such nonsense....

They have to fund themselves somehow.....

I think this actually applies to all saws used in work, on the ground or up a tree.... just the same as they can stop someone driving a telehandler on a building site if he doesn't have the right ticket....

Recall this being discussed before..... I've never been asked for tickets, I bought a Stihl top handle from a main dealer as a young lad and wasn't asked for tickets [which I didn't have anyway]. That was getting on for 15 years ago, so it's not been common practice for a long time. Kevin makes a good point that not all good training is formal and NPTC certified....

Todays' Posts is not refreshing for me in IE9 on Windows 7. It seems to be frozen in time, threads with the latest posts aren't rising to the top. Additionally, the Today's Posts shows the latest poster's details but clicking on the thread these posts don't seem to exist..... It says I'm the last poster on one thread, but when I click on it, my post isn't there.... Weird..... Have I been chucked off and just not told....?

435, that's what my mate bought when his Aldi Ferm Florin disintegrated.... in my hands... Seems a nice saw, seemingly not as easy to start as my saw, and the auto return choke / stop lever takes a bit of getting used to.... Can't really comment further than 'it seems to work ok....' !!

All employers are up against the same problem these days, living is expensive. Everyone who drags their arse out of bed every day to work will legitimately feel entitled to certain things, a night in the pub & a takeaway once a week, 2 weeks in the sun every year, the odd shopping trip, somewhere to live, a car and fuel... There's no way you can achieve this reasonable standard of living on £15k these days. Taking the basics, in the last 10 years, most things have doubled. In 2002 I paid £300 pcm for a big old rented house. A friend of mine pays double that now for a 2 bed cottage. Fuel was, what, 80p a litre? And now.. £1.40 ish is it...? Booze. Gone up. Fags. Gone up. VAT... yep, gone up. So if under £20k is deemed reasonable, I think therein lies your problem. We pay our good subbies £150 a day, average trade £120, top guys are on £200 a day. Basic dogs body labourers are on about £80 a day. Those are obviously self employed rates in construction, but I think your average Joe, ESPECIALLY if they have a young family, is going to be needing to take home AT LEAST £350 a week to make it worth their while having a job and contributing to the system. If they can't get that in return for their efforts, then sitting on their backside claiming benefits makes a far more sensible financial proposition. Personally I've never claimed a penny in my life and don't intend to, but I can see the attraction when faced with the choice between putting oneself out every day to scrape by on the breadline while others do nothing and have a better standard of living, or joining those for whom we pay....

Which ones are you after? I can email them if I have them...

I used one of the HPI text services once, cost about a fiver on my mobile phone bill, wasn't very detailed but did say no finance & no losses, so the important stuff I suppose. A better [free!] alternative is having access to someone in the industry who has a subscription, which I think means they can check as many cars as they like for an annual fee. A friend checked a few of my propsective purchases for me last year.... You can buy proper HPI reports direct from HPI... HPI Check - Check one vehicle with a single HPI Check.

I use these guys... Pallet Couriers UK Nationwide & European Pallet Distribution

It was almost running at 1 & 1/4 turns out. My Walbro carb rebuild handbook puts that as the factory setting, so theoretically 1 & 3/4 turns out will be acceptable. I think I'm going to be heading on towards 2 turns though to be honest.... HOPEFULLY I can get a bit more time on it tomorrow evening and get it running well, all things being equal it's looking promising, pick up was good.... looking forward to burying it in some wood!