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openspaceman

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Everything posted by openspaceman

  1. openspaceman
    No, the carb is protected by the fuel filter in the tank and as I said there is a gauze filter in between the diaphragm and the metering chamber, I cannot think of any way the diaphragm could be damaged by contaminated petroil. I can see how water in the fuel would cause this problem. Did the dealer strip the carb to show the damage?
  2. openspaceman
    I don't subscribe to this view, I know clients specify them but this is often only to have proof of application. A competent herbicide application is far cheaper and just as effective, even using relatively benign chemicals like ammonium sulphamate when it was allowed. It could be done without needing extra tools and far less labour. They have taken off in the utility sector because of the lack of professionalism of we in the industry. At 50p a shot these things are expensive for the amount of active ingredient they contain and what happens to the plastic when the stump rots? They are a triumph of marketing over good sense.
  3. openspaceman
    Which is interesting in itself as PUWER also brought in a code of practice for woodworking machinery and I cannot find exemptions for the requirement for braking to bring the machine to a halt within 10 seconds, did we get one for outdoor equipment?
  4. openspaceman
    I wasn't being accusitorial but rather suggesting there are lots of ways to slip up when starting out with a saw. I remember picking up and trying the Danarm 110 for the first time and wondering why it wouldn't cut straight. I did not realise the significance of even a slight nick in cutters on one side or how much filing was necessary to get it back on form. I wasted a lot of time and my money learning the business from scratch as I couldn't get a job, which is why I advise people to work for a firm for a couple of years and let the boss pay for mistakes
  5. openspaceman
    I've not known this to happen though I have found saws used (and filled) during wet periods to have a dirty brown scum form over the filter between the pumping diaphragm and the metering chamber, effectively preventing petroil from passing. I also don't know what dealers charge for labour but a carb kit is only about £20 and an hour's work to fit. With experience comes understanding, you may well have slipped up without realising, also as most saws are incredibly reliable dealers tend to be a bit suspicious of warranty claims.
  6. openspaceman
    You'll have a struggle buying it in any quantity nowadays. It's the oxidant used in making gunpowder. It will add nutrient to the wood and decrease the carbon:nitrogen ratio, thus theoretically making it attractive to rotting microbes but the main reason for adding it was to cause the stump to burn.
  7. openspaceman
    I climbed back in the cab of a valmet forwarder today, didn't fancy spending a day back there and I'm a bit younger than you. Anyway another lesson I learned early on is if loading shortwood load both bunks. The danger in only loading the front bunk of my botex was that on a downhill turn the weight transfer was enough to lift the opposite side bogey and tip the trailer.
  8. openspaceman
    Log burners in domestic properties always needed to have vented systems with the F&E tank as near vertically above the stove as practical and a 22mm overflow to the tank. The reason being that if the stove is fully stoked it must be able to get rid of all the energy from the logs by boiling off water and the water loss must be made up by a separate feed from the tank. There have been recent changes to part J of the building regs but I have not kept up. The pellet lobby argued that as such a small amount of wood was fed into the burn pot there was not as great a risk from boiling over in the event of a pump failure. On larger scale systems the thermal mass of the thermal store was considered large enough a buffer to prevent boiling. There are many reasons to prefer a pressurised system from a plumbing point of view. A way to combine a combi with a wood burner would be to use a plate heat exchanger into the feed of the combi if it can accept hot water.
  9. openspaceman
    I doubt it, traditionally it was air dried from mid winter to gradually lose the water in the cells, to about 25%mc As it is cold and humid the water leaving the surface is slow and the moisture content through out the log stays about the same as drying takes place. It's as the wood falls below this 25% that it shrinks, mostly tangentially, next radially and only a little longitudinally, at this stage what becomes important is not letting the outside layers become drier than the core such that they shrink more than the middle and pull a tear. The kiln has a controlled humidity which ensures the wood stays in equilibrium over all its parts whilst having an increased temperature to aid migration of moisture from the middle to the surface.
  10. openspaceman
    A John Venables had a chainsaw shop in Ewhurst for a while, about 30 years ago. If he rebadged the clothes then Penny Allanson-Bailey at Richmonds may know the origin.
  11. openspaceman
    Exemption for 100km only applies to agricultural/forestry work, otherwise it's 50km if GVW is >3.5 tonnes the items being carried are used by the driver in the course of his work.
  12. openspaceman
    Sounds like most of our UA blokes, did he also have the congenital deformity of a spur attached to his ankle?
  13. openspaceman
    The point being that many stoves are just boxes where single skin metal surface is the only heat exchange. stuff a few baffles in the bottom and temperatures are maintained, flue gases thengive up heat to the top after combustion is complete. A back boiler low in the stove removes heat before combustion is complete because water is some 400 times better at carrying heat per unit volume. A properly designed back boiler and wood burning are contradictions in terms as the boiler bit needs to be after the combustion chamber. This is different from coal burning because of the different ratio of volatile gases given off so most of the heat is from secondary combustion.
  14. openspaceman
    There are three Ts you need for a for complete combustion: Turbulence, the gases must be able to mix well enough to ensure an oxygen molecule meets a fuel molecule. Time, the gases must have enough time to complete their reaction before they get too cold. Temperature, the reactions will not complete if they are quenched. This last one is what a cold spot in the combustion chamber can do. An illustration of this can be done with a candle and spoon. A candle wick is self optimising in that it is designed to curve out of the flame, where it is protected from oxidation, outside the flame it burns and so its length remains constant and the flame remains clean. Hold a spoon above the flame and it too remains clean. Lower the spoon into the flame and it robs heat, becomes a cold spot, what happens to the spoon?
  15. openspaceman
    As I understand it if you can prove the device complies with the current regulations, which is done by composing a technical file, a person wishing to market the device can sign a declaration of conformity (which should not be done lightly) and then CE mark the device.
  16. openspaceman
    Our one was in the shed by 1974. Scott the foreman said you had to pull a rope if it went wrong.
  17. openspaceman
    No this is a fibreglass guard shaped in a horseshoe with a conventional nozzle on the outside of each leg, it attached to a standard cp3 backpack sprayer on the hand lance. Push it forward so the tree is guarded in the middle, spray, turn through 90 degrees, spray again, carefully back off to avoid any drips on the tree and move on to next plant. The herbi just did a 4ft swath in the middle of the rows, held just above the herbage it produced a fairly large drop that didn't carry to the crop. The ulva 8 was the one you held above head height and allowed to "incremental drift".
  18. openspaceman
    Dolmar had a purely mechanical version, my foreman had used it but I never got the opportunity to see it working. It wound its way up a tree high pruning selected quality tree and when it reached a set diameter it came down. http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b7/traktorist2222/JuergenSchwarze300406/100_2123.jpg I think it was called a tree monkey
  19. openspaceman
    And not much problems using the arborguard, still got one hanging in shed roof, not used since 1986.
  20. openspaceman
    Which parts? I think everything aprt from the slewing gear is repairable. Osbornes at Ower were importers.
  21. openspaceman
    I thought Tilhill had a huge biomass facility at Lasham?
  22. openspaceman
    Fortunately not my decision and as most employees work remotely they have to take vehicles home. One firm I worked for had two buttons on the dash, the white one was for use in work time and the black in personal time, I don't know what they did. The same firm had cameras front and back to record driving and accidents.
  23. openspaceman
    I doubt there has been a case yet but we were warned by an HR consultant that we should be open about which vehicles were tracked, especially if they were used solely. The reasoning is that data is collected and linked to that person, so it is relevant under both Human Rights and Data Protection Acts.
  24. openspaceman
    I ran low on wood so brought some fresh ash home, I was surprised by what I found, a 2.093kg 1/4 section felled just before Xmas started out at 31%mc wwb. I kept it by the stove where it reached blood heat during the evening s and plotted the weight. On the 24th I dried it in the microwave and it has regained about 3gramme a day since. Plot below: I'll have to try the same with some oak. That's going a bit ott,I'm sure 16% is the ideal for a number of reasons but the loss due to moisture between 32% and 16% is about 4% of the available heat.
  25. openspaceman
    Yes it is legal but if you do it covertly you may well end up attending a tribunal with a claim against you.

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