openspaceman

That then begs the question; what is an acceptable small battery saw that uses the same batteries as other portable tools? I discount Stihl as I have had a battery failure on the brushcutter the volunteers use and I want something common with power tools.

For completeness here are photos of the carb and coil, now that @pleasant has identified it I am not rushing to delve into the innards. It does seem to have a spark screen but I have not yet managed to hook it out through the silencer.

I now worry about getting ferrex stuff from Aldi, not that I would knock it, my 40V 4" grinder has been a game changer for cutting hydraulic hoses and wire rope cleanly in the field. The problem is they sold the batteries too cheap, people bought them just to strip them of their cells such that spares are no longer available. I have the grinder, impact driver, drill and tyre pump with only three batteries to go between them and nearly got stuffed when the charger broke. I managed to get one off ebay from a bloke who bought surplus stock of chargers when Aldi bailed out. Now I'm thinking I will buy milwaukee stuff; has anyone tried their M18 chainsaws?

Thanks, you've nailed it. From the faded plastic I thought it was much older.

I'll try to remember to take more pictures tomorrow

Picture up now; I checked the magnets and they seemed to be strong enough. I was cutting a boundary overhang in a mate's garden and was wrapping up when he asked me if I could fix it. Initially I could see no spark at all and suspected a poor coil but when I tested the primary at 1.5 Ohms and the secondary at 6k Ohms, which seemed about right, so I had to wait and spin it over in the dark and saw the faint spark. So I resorted to the ether...

Sorry, added now

Does anyone recognise this old hedge cutter? The air cleaner reminds me of a pole saw marketed under the Oregon brand in the 80s and it does have an Oregon branded spark plug. The blades have hardly any wear so I don't think it has had much use. It has a very very weak spark but starts with a shot of ether and then runs okay. I have re gapped the coil to flywheel magnets from 0.5mm to 0.3mm and that has made no difference. It will restart immediately from hot but after 5 minutes it will not fire at all with its own fuel. As a first step I'll change the plug but I suspect a carburation problem exacerbated by the poor spark. I am hesitant about fiddling with the carb yet as I do not recognise the type, it has no H or L screws that I can see. I wonder if the coil is a generic one as it looks like the 32F ones that are fitted to a number of small 2t engines.

I was told the fire related strategy was to do with the seedling establishing a root system such that the shoot could be killed off by wildfire which flashed through but the root would survive and this may happen a number of times, the root becoming better established each time. Until finally it could send up a shoot high enough to be above the flames with the stem protected by the bark. This was supposed to explain the poor stability of gum trees planted here when the stem grew away quicker than the root, meaning it was poorly anchored. The chap that told me this said his method was to coppice the tree for a few times before selecting a stem to grow on.

First heed @peatff and @Muddy42 as clamshell designs are a pain to work on. Second it's one thing repairing a saw you like but another with an unknown fault that's on offer but I'm a sucker for that. If you do take it on then establish what is wrong before looking for parts, dlastore.com was my source for meteor pistons but take a few days to arrive from Greece and always check the price of OEM first, L&S will get them even if on back order.

I eat meat but don't like a lot on my plate as I prefer a lot of vegetables. I used to walk along Penclawdd beach in north Gower, it is entirely made up of sea shells and the shell fish catch must have been huge. At the same time a mate was doing his degree in marine biology and sampling shells, in the Tawe estuary, for their heavy metal content. At the time he reckoned the shells were getting within 10% of an ore grade worth refining. He also figured an increase of one part per million of lead in the sea had a dramatic negative affect on shell fish. The sea, like the fluid in our bodies, has to remain faintly alkaline, the more it gets toward neutral the less able crustaceans are to fix carbon to carbonate. The more CO2 dissolved in sea water the more carbonic acid. Surface waters are in equilibrium with the atmosphere with regard to carbon dioxide in the ratio 45:55.

Sad news; I didn't know him well but we used to chat at shows. I had not realised he was that much older than I.

No changes in 40 years years there then apart from the name.

May be Larger eight-toothed European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) - Forest Research WWW.FORESTRESEARCH.GOV.UK Information about larger eight-toothed European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus), a pest of spruce (Picea) trees and...

If they are drawing water from aquifers faster than they recharge it is not sustainable either.

We will definitely have to disagree about that where's @farmer rod? The issue is also about feeding cereals fit for human consumption to cattle

The fallout from this form of intensive farming affects dairy and beef farming here as people erroneously attribute the same carbon and methane emissions to the, largely, grass fed cattle in UK when they try to persuade people to avoid beef and dairy products. Not to mention Rishi wants us to have hormone fed beef.

Yes but as some heat is conducted through the refractory it then passes through the metal wall to heat the room. On the big industrial wood chip boilers that I worked on the initial off gassing stage was quite cool, about 500C, so as not to damage the feed system and grate ( exhaust gas recirculation was also used to keep things cool). The secondary combustion then took place in a highly insulated tube where all the offgas was burned out at high temperature and then this led to the boiler tubes. The exhaust was then sucked out at a few degrees over 100C. This burned chip at about 35% mc but we often received wetter.

Difficult question; if the stove is properly designed and run then the exhaust should only be warm enough to carry the combustion products up the chimney without any vapours condensing out, if combustion is perfect there is only water vapour to condense. The main thing is that the flame should be able to burn out completely without impinging on any cold surfaces or meeting any cold draught, the heat exchange then takes place after this. This is why modern stoves are refractory lined. Perceived wisdom is that all the massflow should reach 800C and have a residence time of 1.5 seconds for clean combustion.

I have not filled a boiler this way but the sand also conducts heat away from the fire and thus protects the metal from burning. You could also put a vermiculite sheet between the flames and the boiler. This would keep the firebox temperature up, good for clean burning. The big problem with back boilers is that because they are relatively cold, always sub 100C, they quench he flame and this is a big cause of particulates.

Perceived wisdom is you fill the boiler with dry sand and don't cap the top exit so it can breathe

I was going to stay out of this but I agree, whilst the Husky 550 and the Stihl 261 would be the professional choice for carrying around all day and felling, snedding and cross cutting pole sized trees the 545 is entirely adequate and cheaper plus being less revvy should last a bit better. It's only when you start cutting rounds for firewood over a foot diameter that it's worth having the grunt of a 60cc saw.

This is why I liked the Heizohack for rough commercial work, the blades wer cheap compared with others and having them shatter often meant more serious damage to the rotor was avoided.

😁Yes I suppose so but then I have never tried a home owner Husky and if it weren't for the surplus 262s I would have about an equal number of Husky and Stihl work tools. In the day I preferred the bigger stihl saws and bruscutters and the 60cc and under huskies for forestry work and domestics. Back then the huskies had a bad reputation for hot starting on a hot day.

It's a while since I had to deal with transport and it looks like you intend to go the commercial HGV route complete with having to comply with MOT, Operator's licence and tachograph regulations as well as running on DERV. I do not know the weights and capabilities of a unimog in this regard. Now while it is considered a road haulage job to forward timber from roadside to base it is still considered a forestry operation to forward timber products from the wood to a base (with certain mileage restrictions). The Unimog could then run on red diesel and agricultural tax as long as it is registered as an agricultural machine and the trailer would be limited to a gross weight of 18 tonnes. It is worth bearing in mind that long ago when the chap who used JCB fastracs to haul woodchip into a power station in east anglia was prosecuted and fined a substantial amount , for using red, he found that it was more cost effective to use fully road legal HGVs than when using Fastracs because of the much lower lorry running costs, despite road tax and DERV, because the payload was higher and the wear and tear on tyres less as well as the higher maintenance costs of the fastracs.