openspaceman

Yep I still have a 254 but it has a carburation issue, possibly an air leak, 3 262s but I cannot remember the little 39cc Husky I used for first thinnings and that work came to an end with the 87 storm and even before that I'd changed to a Jonsered 2050 IIRC rather than husky. I had a clear out around 2009 and junked a load of saws in various stages of disrepair, including my original 280cd which I regret. In my yoof I could only afford one saw for a beginner and it was that with a 24" bar I used for everything ;-(. It was about 1 metre long so three lengths to a turnery pole and their maximum diameter was 6". Being self taught tends to be hard on the wallet.

I'm definitely politically naive but agree. New labour are tories by nature but can't get ahead in the conservative party, old labour may be nicer people but their striving for equality leads to bureaucracy and too many civil servants. PM Johnson and his cronies are just what they seem, self serving, uncaring and devious and it's showing in their internecine feuding but even Churchill was the same but he got the job done. The key is they all want power so if they see a swing to a green vote it may make them aware they could lose power if they don't change their policies.

It's not the manifold it's the collar that slips over it and is held in place bur locating on the crank case. So it has not been strained in any way, it looks perfect but it snaps very, very easily. It doesn't touch any hot metal but is only cms away from the cylinder. It has definitely deteriorated in strength.

Cleaning my Husky 262 today with the air gun the collar around the manifold, separating the carburettor space from the cylinder broke. This is the second one I have broken on old 262s (I have 3 dating from the 90s left over from when I employed assistants). Now I can't complain as the saw is 30 years old but the rest of the plastic is sound, just this collar snaps like a milky bar. So it's something to be aware of, part 503 54 42 01 is available and two ordered from L&S as I shall replace the other one for just 15 quid. I am surprised that while it still looks sound it has become so weak and wonder what the plastic is and why it deteriorates so badly. We had a bit of a competition on a site last month with this 262 up against a 550mk2, cutting 9" hardwood, sweet chestnut IIRC, 262 won first, almost a dead heat second and the 550 won by a fair margin on last because I chose to cut through a knot. I was surprised as I expected the 550 to walk it. Mind I'd still prefer to carry the 550 about all day.

...and some ratchet straps and hessian plus a newman trailer.

Not as such but I would like a chat with the neighbour to see how things stand before purchasing the property. I remember deadwooding (with 2 other climber) two cedars in front of a house in Reigate and thinking I wouldn't want them in my front garden and I just imagine what this tree will be like in 30 years.

We just sharpened a spade but "hoping" is the operative word, very few that we peeled anded up being accepted, that was 40 years ago and we never tried again.

Heah I was thinking just the same; now I have the Eder, why keep hold of my 35cwt and 3.5 tonne Tirfors

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.

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.

Of maize silage quite a bit round here goes to buffer the anaerobic digester that our food waste goes to.

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.

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

Fomes fomentarius? both a saprophyte and a white rotter I think

You may only sell 2m3under the exemption for felling 5m3 in a calendar quarter

Thanks for letting us know and sorry for the disappointment.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.