openspaceman

What's the length of your growing season? Why not flail the tops off first?

Yes I think so, the king of the belgians established plantations of it south of london. Similarly the locust was imported from across the pond by a bit of a dellboy called cobbet and sold as a better hardwood to plant than oak. I suspect both trees do better in their native environment??

Over 700 quid for the 80 HP Carlton. That's why I'm still looking to go hydraulic direct drive, was hoping to get to confor to make some comparisons but have other commitments, on paper the predator 65rx, 2 tonnes so still towable with the ranger.

It's such a shame, to look at it seems to have such good form for timber production, presumably why it was brought here. Only real use is as a cut and come again crop as it coppices freely and grows fast. Because it was so dense it was ideal from a cutters point of view when we supplied the pulp mill. If we didn't have Q Cerris we wouldn't have knopper galls and our native oaks would produce more viable acorns but as an intermediate hose it only needs one every 50km to propagate the wasp.

You know best how much large scale chipping of shortwood and slabwood in a yard costs, even 7 years ago my old boss reckoned the erjo chipper on a forwarder base terrain chipping was costing £16/tonne overall and given that was green and yours is 30% mc before you chip that's a big difference. On a trip to St Regis pulpmill many years ago they reckoned on 50p/tonne just on sharpening costs and they did 5000 tonne/week. I bought my TP960 prematurely 40 odd years ago thinking the biomass market was about to kick off, it didn't but we had it on the back of the MF1200 and because it was designed to produce a good chip, with the feed angled to the disc, it produced a very good chip without the need for a screen, quality easily exceeded G30 on roundwood. Of the arb chippers in the yard the Forst tr6 with sharp blades and feed rate turned down produces the best chip for my boiler, it will feed chip from the Heizohack with a G50 screen but lots of problems with slivers and bridging mean it's unusual to run 3 hours before a loss of feed.

I have a fair idea and I posted it in an earlier reply in this thread. Nothing is guaranteed however, see my last post, so each case would need to be considered individually and a land agent is the person qualified to advise, I am not qualified to do so, if I were I wouldn't be writing on a public forum.

Yes that's what I was advising too, as long as we are talking business rates. The thing is it appears they cannot be backdated more than 1 year if a recent precedent stands, even if it does not at best they could claim 6 years so treequip's "fines" are OTT. It's not even against the law to have no planning permission, worst case is they require you to put in for retrospective permission, assuming the building is already there and agricultural you would need either to prove it was still an agricultural use or that it was a valid use of the building in the absence of an agricultural use, you may even survive 10 years and justify a lawful use. No one can be sure of the outcome of a planning inquiry, a barrister once told me in any civil judicial case there is only at best a 70% chance of winning what you want and this applies to both sides. At a recent public inquiry I attended it was plain the bloke presiding was put out by the objector (a local authority) not attending the inquiry such that he awarded an unfettered judgement to the appellant. Once you go down the planning route the firewood production would mean the building use was B2 and it would be rated by VOA, the rateable value is the notional rent compared with other B2 buildings locally and the rate will be 40-50% of this which you would have to pay, unless entitled to rate relief. If you use the argument that there is no agricultural need then even when the building is no longer used it will attract a rate and this is what will put an agricultural landlord off. I do agree with Treequip that the consequences of building a business up being dependant on not having to pay rates should be considered.

In general no but there are circumstances where firewood can be.

Maybe simple but why invite problems

Yes subject to context. If you are processing agricultural products grown on agricultural land as part of an agricultural enterprise then it is exempt from rates. If a third party, not being involved in agriculture, rents premises on a farm to convert bought in produce then they may take a different view but there is scope for bringing such business within the agricultural enterprise. Agricultural land in this context is defined by the local government finance act and that says "land used for a plantation of wood or a wood or for the growth of saleable underwood."

What if the barn and wood processing is part of an agricultural or forestry enterprise, or even within the curtilage of a dwelling. Either way it generally needs someone to bring it to the attention of VOA.

They were an early type and limited by the fact they needed a good quality charcoal with the extra work and thermal losses involved in making it. Not so much a problem if the char making is a by product of another heat making device. Because of the higher energy fuel it required an early form of exhaust gas recirculation to keep the hearth temperature down. Another drawback was that CO low flame speed limited engine speed compared with the Imbert whole wood type which had the benefit of hydrogen to propagate the flame front faster. Also the higher proportion of nitrogen would have been a drawback. The benefit would have been lower tar contamination of the engine and lubricant.

Yes is it size or age of the wood at the cut? Beech hedges survive trimming. For 20 years I worked on an estate which had a hanger of beech coppice, 90 years since last coup from a ring count, and complete with charcoal hearths every 50 metres cut into the bank. The estate boundaries were laid beech hedges that had been left and grown into linear beech features. In 1984 we stored the coppice to see if the canopy would take advantage of the light and upgrade the stems into saw timber, At that time there were several markets for 8"+ clean beech and these were 20 metre clear stems but too small because of the competition from other stems. As an experiment it was an abject failure because on October 16th 1987 90% of it blew down. Whilst the loss of mutual support probably exacerbated the loss all the estate woodlands were affected.

The point about not connecting the negative directly to the pole but rather further away at a good earth point was to avoid a spark near a battery that had recently had a heavy charge. Battery in poor health cannot take the charge and the electrolyte is split by the high current, giving off hydrogen. Hydrogen can be sparked off as the leads are removed once the engine is running so you remove the remote earth lead first. It was a very long time ago but the first tractor I was allowed to play with was a 50s 4 cylinder MF35 which was a pig to start at the best of times. I jumped it from the 55A DC supply from a welder for a number of minutes, it started so I unclipped the charger and whoomph the battery plates were blown out of the pitch sealant holding them in. That was 1970 after I had repaired the frost spalled block with araldite, it was still running 4 years later when sold at the farm auction and exported to Pakistan. Re batteries going flat during a fortnight's holiday, a typical diesel battery (644) is 95Ah I guess it will start a cold engine from half charge so parked up after a run you have 47.5 Ah left, 14 days at .5W or 44 milliamps, some of that can be self discharge about 10mA can be the immobiliser and a tracker will do the rest.

Me too, grapple loader every day and county once a week, both were still good after 25 and 40 years of working respectively. 15 year old Valmet on a site I was on never seemed to get greased and the pivot holes in the boom were oval.

It was the saw I used most in my working life, I had three from new, still got them but only the latest two still running. I cannot remember when they were introduced, before we used 162 266,268 and 272 and 242 or Jonsered 2051 for small stuff.

Can you cut back some of the resin potting to make a crimp? I'd avoid solder. They are likely to be standard industrial magnetic clutches, I'm nowhere near the one I used to use, try and see if there are identifying marks. Try Kim at Danequip for a price first it may be affordable.

Why better than a cabstar 35?

but surely as they hadn't gone through the proper procedure and informed him as the notifier and six weeks had passed he could have felled it with impunity??

Modern ones seem to be sealed for life but you can remove the head to put grease in. It is possible the bearing on the clutch output shaft, they are a bit difficult to remove as held in a deep tube by a circlip but bearing is only £2.50, our local dealer replaces the whole clutch casing at 50 quid a time. Easy to check by removing head and the shaft should rotate freely if bearing is good.

Have you tried Danequip in Bordon who were the original importers?

I had avoided the A23 but was jammed by devils dyke, two ambulances passed but I didn't notice the smoke, went for a dip so was totally oblivious till 17:00. One of the managers was at the show and didn't get away till 20:00. Devastating tragedy

The chap in Redhill should be running his lister with his gek now, also look out for the german unit from Entrade, both running on pellets. During the war the Scandinavian countries made extensive use of gasifiers , initially on charcoal with Kalle types and later on whole wood chunks in Imbert downdraught devices. Conversion efficiency is measured by the calorific value of the cold gas entring the engine compared with the fuel value of the wood, over 80% cold gas efficiency is possible but the best modern devices are around 75%. The main problem isn't efficiency of conversion but cleanliness of the gases resulting. The idea is to keep the reactor hot enough to convert the wood into carbon monoxide and hydrogen with as little nitrogen as possible. In fact you end up with various pyroligneous species that tend to gum things up and shorten life of engine oil or get filtered out and cause a disposal problem. With pre processed fuel (like pellets) and modern feedback using sophisticated electronics (the sort of things common on modern engines) it looks like they are getting close but bear in mind wood fuel is going to be 5 times more bulky than petrochemical fuels. Long term the future is more likely to be synthesis of simple liquid fuels like dimethyl ether.

Skidded unit is just the term for the basic engine-gearbox-axles without any of the wheels or bodywork, as bought by people like County from Ford, then its all built up as a machine. 6354 lovely engine and the beast had far more grunt than the County, regularly pulled the hydratongs apart but very low road speed and poor hydraulic flow. Stanley Drobonski used to convert them into small single bay forwarders.

No, wait for some sweet chestnut to come along