openspaceman

It was much undervalued as a timber, used in waney edge cladding as well as seat bottoms and of course butchers blocks on the end grain. Toward the end it was mostly used as pallet blocks. The last live large elms I felled were at RAF Kenley in 76. I imagine yours are little trees that have just grown large enough for the bark cambium and phloem to provide hosting for the wee beasties and the tree has reacted to the fungus they've introduced and killed itself. I would coppice and avoid transporting the timber if you are far north or near Brighton. AJH

Are you meaning that it won't disengage? I.e. the clutch driven plate is stuck sandwiched between flywheel and pressure plate? Easiest way is to start it and drive it around in high gear with the clutch down, throttling up and down and stabbing the brakes. Safer is to jack both drive wheels off the ground and run in high gear and then modulate from Hi idle to idle with foot down on the clutch pedal. The inertia of the wheels over running should unglue it. I loaned a Holder out to an erstwhile colleague and he managed to jam the clutch, I'm guessing part of the friction material has detached from its plate and wedged over an adjacent bit, making it impossible to disengage the clutch as the fork throw isn't long enough. I've been threatening to fix it for several months now ;-(. AJH

I'm not familiar with the box telematics device, though I did discuss trackers with them 10 years ago. I have used a chipper with the original tracker, this was well hidden and secure and used an external aerial, you did need to know it had been stolen to have the operating centre switch the VHF alarm on and there was an annual subscription. I inherited responsibility for 3 machines with cubetrak devices. These are tiny boxes with an internal battery that lasts about 3 days and a separate charge feed from the vehicle. None are well hidden or securely fixed, so could be smashed off and discarded easily. They report position via a central webserver which has been flaky, I have seen a machine enter the yard recently with its position being reported as 10 miles away for the next 12 hours. This system uses a PAYG SIM and sends sms alerts when moved beyond a set radius. The last known status of speed, battery, reception and position is shown on the web interface, as well as movement history. It uses data and sms credits to upload to the web interface and can be set to report in intervals from seconds to days. It is prone to report false positives and these use credits. If it isn't moved or doesn't exceed a set speed it won't update and hence doesn't use credit or data. The problem is this can give a false sense of security and it may have simply logged off without one knowing. Later versions with the vodafone data sim can report that they are logged on to a cell tower, which is a good check that they are live, unfortunately this is again done through the supplier's web site and is flaky. I have one satrak fitted by plant security, I have to say their salesman was persistent but aftersales has been pants, cost was 700quid inc. It uses a PAYG SIM and there are no subsciption costs and you have direct control of the device. This unit lasts about 3 hours after it has been disconnected from the vehicle battery (which may be an internal battery fault), it will send an sms if it senses overspeed, vibration, low battery or ignition. It also immobilises the vehicle. It can be interrogated by voice call or sms but the data returned is in a bizarre order. The GPS is insensitive, on a recent 50 mile trip it never got a fix and has remained in a asbestos reinforced concrete roofed barn over Xmas with still no fix and reporting itself 50 miles away, it does state it is an old position. The satrak has the facility to set a schedule, outside of which it will not report any of the alarms and hence not use sms credits during the working day. Again strangely this schedule does not automagically disable the vehicle via the immobiliser but it does enable it, again this may be a warranty fault. The sim does not report the cell tower it is connected to. I have never been close enough to this machine to attempt to start it to see exactly what the limitations are. A number of my colleagues have trackers on their sports cars, none seem to understand how they work, they get an sms if the vehicle is entered, cost a couple of hundred quid a year to subscribe to the system and about 400 to fit. What I think is needed is firstly a good immobiliser integrated with a brake, most tracked chippers have this by default in the track motor, next is parking where a hiab lorry cannot get alongside. Next is the tracker which should have a means of checking it is logged on and functioning without using too much credit. Satrak ticks most of these boxes but any android smartphone has all the functionality if I were bright enough to write an app. It goes without saying that cellphone reception is at least an order of magnitude better than GPS. A fundamental problem with all these GSM devices seems to be if they are out of reception and the thief has time to locate the device. AJH

I tied to pm, I know of one in Hampshire for sale.

And use more power and fuel.

I'd avoid using ash directly because of the abrasiveness making the glass more suceptible to staining. If you pecolate water through wood ash you get a mild potash lye which dissolves tars. It's a bilt less aggresive than caustic soda used in oven cleaners. If your forget the marigolds and your fingers begin to feel soapy its your fat reacting with the lye making soap.

Pit burning would be as fast and still yield the biochar. We made charcoal very fast using lop and top from oak felled in March and carbonised in May and 50% riddled out to lumpwood spec. I've made good biochar by reconfiguring a 500kW Kob, problem is finding someone willing to buy and use the stuff. Strictly speaking it's use is limited to domestic properties.

Twin wall and 150mm diameter is the legal minimum but you can use ceramic, pummice or cast fire cement in situ. Part J of building regs requires new flues to be signed off. Hetas installers can self certify their own work. AJH

Sorry I missed that point. BTW felling trees in leaf in order to cause water loss is known as sour felling. AJH

I'm glad you found that, I think the equilibrium mc in my house is about 17% on a wet weight basis, the sawn timber trade often calculates on a dry weight basis and for wet wood there's a lot of difference. The equilibrium mc is dealing with the water bound to cell walls and there is a small amount of energy in the bonding, so the emc is slightly different as a log gains moisture from when it loses moisture. Essentially the free cell water is fairly easy to remove and the wood doesn't change much as it evaporates, the cell wall water loss causes the wood to shrink, mostly tangentially, less radially and little lengthwise. It's controlling this latter water loss that seasoning planks is all about, making sure moisture leaves the surface at exactly the same rate it can migrate from the inside. This is not an issue with firewood where a few extra fissures speed up the drying. With hardwoods the point where the free cell water is gone can be demonstrated by blowing or sucking through the grain. I would consider wood with the free water gone to be seasoned for firewood. I'd also caution reliance on hammer in probes as a good measure of mc of drying, as opposed to stable, wood because in summer the wood surface will dry much faster than the moisture can migrate from the middle. A quick test is to cut a bit from the middle and gently microwave it on a defrost cycle, weighing before during and after. A point will be reached just before pyrolysis starts in the middle which is the oven dry weight, subtracting this from the wet weight gives the water content. If you over do it you will not be able to use the microwave for cooking again To do it properly the sample needs oven drying at 120C for 24 hours. Any more than this an volatile organic compounds will be lost, reducing the dry mass. AJH

Never risked that, the saying was fell on Xmas Eve, transport on Xmas day and mill on Boxing day. Oak was often felled in late winter, left at stump and extracted after the hay harvest and then milled in the Autumn so that initial drying in the stick was not too fast. AJH

I expect you've done it by now but Carl, at Oakover, has the 8Tonne tracked one that Greenmech built. AJH

The 3000/2 has castellated ring nuts on the outside of the drums. The main thing to be wary of is any pick up or rust on the shaft, clean it up before pulling the drums. You can normally start them sliding by using the clutch lever. pulling it to engage the plate to begin pushing the drum off. Then you can push some steel plates behind the lever and do the same again before resorting to the hammer. BTW if you do use the hammer wear ear defenders. I'd try CeeGee in Builth Wells for parts if they are still running. I've a feeling it will be worth refurbishing the existing levers as prices were astronomic even 15 years ago. As to wire rope The trouble with the thinner diameters is the build is all small wires. The 11mm and up use a similar 6/19 build but the outer ring of the 19 is 9 fatter wires over 9 thinner which stands more wear than if the 19 are all the same size. Avoid Langs lay which is used on some industrial lifting gear. The other poster's advice about the clutches is good but I thing refers to the worm drive winches, 4000 and above. When replacing the clutches I've found it easier to cant the tractor over slightly to keep the plate in place on its pins, though my memory is such I'm probably confusing both types of winch. The 3000 is a much poorer build. AJH

Which model? I've changed clutches on 3000/2 and 4000/2 and I think I have a grubby manual for the 4000/2. I took it out of retirement on Sunday for a play, no end of fun but got severely puffed pulling out the wire. AJH