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Everything posted by openspaceman
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Grey squirrel management
openspaceman replied to Squirrely's topic in Forestry and Woodland management
They didn't so much ban it but more the producers didn't re license it because sales were so low. Also it was being badly misused for squirrel. The approved method was to place the hoppers at greater than 50?? metre spacings, pre bait with maize and then fill the hoppers with warfarin covered wheat , refilling frequently and stopping by end June. This was to ensure squirrels were taking the bait and then giving a good chance they would eat their body weight over a short period to get an outright kill. What was happening was people were leaving hoppers out over long, not re filling them and having them too close together. This latter was having a seriously bad effect on other small rodents that normally only forage over smaller distances, hence knocking out meta populations rather than the odd individual. The idea was to control excess males at the danger period for bark stripping. Kania trap is the spring trap fixed on a tree, I didn't know the gas operated thing was cleared for squirrel in UK. I used Fenn Mk 4 in tunnels but over 45 years ago now. It's taken all that time for the contraceptive to be approved, if it is the same one being researched all those years ago it worked quite differently from human contraceptives as it made the females immune system attack the sperm, normally sperm have the means to suppress an immune response. I've only seen reds in the Lake district, never in Scotland but I haven't been back there for 10 years now. In the nineteen twenties my mother fed reds on the kitchen table in Bookham. -
I can't but wonder how it will all play out, for one I doubt those few facilities that sell red diesel from the pump will continue to be able to. What is the definition of horticulture the government will agree? Assuming they have access to red diesel will an arb firm be able to use it in their chipper, whilst it is road going it's not a mechanically propelled vehicle, or is it if it is towed? I can see pruning trees in a supermarket car park will be commercial but doing the same in a private garden is horticultural.
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Interesting link but the bit about golf courses is ambiguous, is it amateur golf courses, community owned or any golf courses? I imagine a lot of politicians are members of golf clubs where the membership holds the shares. I am also highly biased as I think many golf courses use pesticides indiscriminently compared with farming.
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Of maize silage quite a bit round here goes to buffer the anaerobic digester that our food waste goes to.
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If you live full time on the boat it is the same as any home, if you are moored up in a marina you can hook up to the shore power but otherwise you have to to heat and light with fossil fuels. The generator is used to charge batteries as well as hot water from the coolant. Most boats use smokeless coal for the space heating with wood when you can find any suitably dry. Because there is limited space there is only one fuel tank, one water tank and one shit tank all of which are filled or emptied at points along the network.
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I generally agree with you but red gasoil is used for heating alone in big installations that use pressure jet burners, e.g.places like hospitals where there is no gas main. So to be fair electricity and mains gas would have to be taxed. One thing is sure we are going to be taxed a lot more in the future to pay of the hole in the public purse. It's already illegal to trade red diesel without the proper licence
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Fomes fomentarius? both a saprophyte and a white rotter I think
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What size trees need a felling licence in woodland?d
openspaceman replied to cessna's topic in Trees and the Law
You may only sell 2m3under the exemption for felling 5m3 in a calendar quarter -
Thanks for letting us know and sorry for the disappointment.
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Advice on Small Business Machinery
openspaceman replied to Dominic Bailey's topic in Large equipment
That's where I slipped up then. -
I made this mistake recently, picking out a new old stock 15" chain, and it cut well at first then after a few sharpens started binding in the cut. Worse thing was I lent it to a mate and it was he who found my mistake.
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Small "Tyre Burning Furnace" for kiln drying logs???
openspaceman replied to cessna's topic in Firewood forum
Yes but they only have milliseconds in which to do so, as I said a modern, regulated and licensed incineraotor has seconds to make sure combustion is complete. That's right their primary purpose is as a tyre but that does not preclude them being burned cleanly *under the right conditions* That's a non sequitur but yes, just in the same way lead has largely been removed from paint and solder. This latter probably also to do with incineration of old electrical goods. I'm not advocating burning tyres on the small scale because I cannot see a lawful way of doing it commercially, in the same way one could not use recycled cardboard, which is as near as dammit just wood fibres with a bit of ink and adhesives. The regulations are such that even if you purpose designed a power station to burn old PET milk bottles as cleanly as a wood burning one you would not be allowed to do it without all the controls of a municipal incinerator burning black bag rubbish. The wood burning power station pays a few quid a tonne for its fuel, a municipal incinerator is paid several tens of pounds per tonne to dispose of the waste and then has to dispose of 30% of the initial weight as ash which is a hazardous waste. -
Small "Tyre Burning Furnace" for kiln drying logs???
openspaceman replied to cessna's topic in Firewood forum
Why? What pollutants do you think would come from burning a tyre such that all effluent reached at least 1200C for 2 seconds? Off the top of my head I can only think of zinc oxide being a problem, most of the iron oxides would remain in the ash and the organic compounds would not survive into the flue gases. Is there something exotic I have missed? Yes I have actually done this but had to co combust with green arb chip to keep temperatures down, it was over 20 years ago and at the time there was no possibility of getting an exemption to operate it as a small incinerator burning less than 40kg per hour, so we dropped the idea. I can dig up a picture of the device operation but only on arb waste. At the time even the National Rivers Authority were routinely using tyres dredged up to burn tree waste from their operations, a big no no now. -
Beaver with a spirit level? Unexpected consequence of battery powered saws?
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I resurrected a plastic composter 2 years ago and found those plastic remains in the compost that was in there. We had been putting teabags in the food waste bin that the council sends to a local anaerobic digestion plant. Once I realised the agitation just reduced the size of the plastic particles before discharge to the land I put tea bags in the black bin for incineration or dried and burned them. Since lockdown and my feeble attempts to grow vegetables I have been using a tea diffuser and loose tea again plus all our veg waste goes in the composter. I very seldom need to put out meat waste for the bin men to collect now and tend to burn bones, after the dog has had a go, and eggshells when the fire is going. Chicken carcases are about the only thing that I put out for collection now. At the end of the month when we have no stove burning I will be using the food caddy again. Coffee bags get dried and burned.
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Cutting a stool and adventitious shoots then sprouting in coppice is quite different from laying a stem. The laying depends on thinning down the stem to form a laminate of wood-wood cambium-bark cambium and bark such that it can be bent without disrupting any of the laminate layers. In spring the phloem is dividing and soft so bending it disrupts it.. Just take a twig and bend it, the bark side on the inside of the bend wrinkles and this is exactly what you are avoiding with a plash cut where you want the laid stem to continue living by having a smooth transition that preserves all the layers.
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Drone recovery in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire
openspaceman replied to Mark Andrews's topic in General chat
I was lucky (or unlucky maybe) to get a bottle of scotch the few times the local aero modellers (WDMAC now disbanded) asked me to retrieve a model, never asked for ought. -
local wildlife (fur,feathers and beasties)
openspaceman replied to Adam Bourne's topic in Picture Forum
I'm glad you clarified that, the furry tale suggested dormouse but the colour was all wrong. Not in UK then? -
This was much as my feeling but have never seen any evidence from tests. I was happy enough will Stihl chain on the stihl saws which I only used on utility and domestic work where regular sharpening was not necessary, so I suppose a harder chain would go longer. For production forestry I felt I could get a better edge on Oregon chisel and as the dust in the bark at the bottom of the tree was the main reason for the blade getting dull I don't think there would be much difference, silica basically being so much harder than either chain. Also with production cutting you very quickly notice any reduction in sharpness and 3 strokes on each cutter, often more than once during one fill, paid off. Chains wearing from frequent sharpening being a minor cost.
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I was thinking prunus but the colouring may be just due to decay.
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Runs on vaseline? or runs on petrol at this moment?
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Yup, I would listen to them a lot, and CCS. I guess I only had them on cassette so have to search youtube.
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I don't think I had an PTO pumps other than aluminium 2P gear pumps but the cast iron ones on the front of the traxcavator lasted better. In general it's whether the other components can take the flow, biggest bottleneck is likely the spool block. A couple of other considerations: What is the hydraulic reservoir? Perceived wisdom is it should be 1 1/2 times the flow per minute to allow cooling and settlement. If the capacity is suitable for the crane at tickover then if the PTO is not switched off when driving the flow through the block increases considerably. Sucking a lot of viscous cold oil on a winter's day kills pumps.
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Purely out of interest; is it an off the shelf winch or a re-purposed crawler track motor?