N1ck

Have any of you seen the article in the latest Forestry Journal about HMRC clamping down on workers who are paid as self employed sub-contractors but who should actually be paid as employees through PAYE even if they are only casual labourers? Starting in Scotland but then rolling out across the country HMRC are looking closely at situations where workers are engaged on a labour only basis where workers are set up as self-employed. In most cases these workers supply an invoice and are then paid without any tax deducted, but if these "contractors" are told where, how and what to do - they can't decide - these are indicators of employment not sub-contracting and should have tax and National Insurance deducted. There is even talk of a similar scheme to the CIS system where tax is deducted at source. I have always taken it that if someone works for me they are self-employed sub-contractor and if they supply me with an invoice, I pay them without making any deductions and it is then their responsibility to sort out their own tax. This has got me worried if I have to bear the extra burden and expense of operating a PAYE system. Would this give casual workers the right to holiday and sick pay? There is a guidance document from HMRC but I haven't ploughed my way through it yet. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/leaflets/labour-providers-due-diligence.pdf Any thoughts?

I've just finished working for a team that included a 75 year old hand cutter who is still going strong. What he didn't know probably wasn't worth knowing. I would have liked to spend longer working with him as there was so much to learn. The days of hand cutters in production forestry are dead. That said there is still a need for them to clear the way for the harvester, to do the edge trees, to work the low-impact sites and small woods, but these are not jobs that should be paid on tonnage. In terms of earning a decent wage, I agree with some of the comments on here that good cutters should not be prepared to work for the almost feudal levels of pay that some accept. A good cutter with their own saw, PPE, fuel etc. should be getting £100 a day, no matter where they are in the country. They'll burn at least £10 a day in fuel/chain oil and probably £10 in diesel getting to and from the job, £10 for an evening meal if working away from home, take out a bit more for tax/insurance/bar/chains/wear & tear, doesn't leave much. Still the best job in the world though - but then I'm not being paid on tonnage!

Stu If you ever change your mind I live in South Oxfordshire, not far from Reading, I'm always looking for good hand cutters and I pay a good deal more than £75. On the downside, at the moment I can't offer permanent work, but if you were prepared to travel I could put you in touch with another contractor who needs more hand cutters and between us we could probably offer you a fair amount of work. PM me if you are interested Nick

I'm not being funny but why would you fell that much chestnut without some idea of value and potential markets. I was always told with timber never to speculate, in other words always have a buyer before putting it on the ground. What is the access like, can you get an artic to it, if so is there any more to make up a second artic load?

I am looking for 1 more person for a felling / scrub clearance contract near Princes Risborough in Bucks starting Monday 19th November and lasting for 2-3 weeks. The work involves cutting dense scrub and felling secondary woodland on the slopes of a SSSI. The material is being burnt / chipped, some of the trees on the slopes will need winching, there will be a 360 on site and a winch tractor and possibly also a telehandler so anyone working needs to be aware around machinery. Anyone interested needs NPTC chainsaw qualifications and plenty of relevant experience, they need PPE, saw, and all their own equipment. I am looking for someone who is hard working and can get stuck in to whatever needs doing whether that is on the saw, chipping, dragging brash, running out the winch cable etc. I am always on the lookout for hard working casual cutters so there is a good chance of more work like this in the future. If interested send a brief e-mail with qualifications / experience etc. to [email protected] Cheers Nick

Have a look at K.T.S. trailers, they do an option with hub motors. I seriously considered one of these when i bought my trailer & crane and was only put off by the fact that there were very few in the UK and no real official importer, but this may have changed. K.T.S Timber Trailer Cheers Nick

It's a shame because small privately owned woodlands is a market I'm trying to tap into as there are loads around me, often undermanaged, and you can usually avoid all the BS of working for an agent The problem is that most private owners have unrealistic expectations. Oh well, next time!! Nick

I never heard any more, and to be honest I haven't chased it, and this is despite spending half a day visiting the site and phoning round timber merchants and hauliers. I know the owner already had a quote on the table from a contractor who runs a small sawmill, and I suspect I was being used to give a comparative quote but in reality had little chance of getting the work. Since then other work has come up and I am currently booked up till past Christmas so I'm not too gutted. Cheers Nick

Sorry to gatecrash the thread but I have done something similar myself. After being made redundant by my local authority employer at the end of March I decided it was time to set up my own small-scale contracting outfit, and with the help of a LEADER grant I took the plunge and purchased some extraction equipment. I have an old 4 cylinder Valtra with forestry guarding, a Botex trailer and crane, an Igland 3 point linkage winch, and an old Ferrari 75hp alpine tractor complete with a 3.5 tonne winch for low impact skidding. This set-up should allow me to take on small to medium scale fell and extract contracts or to bid on small standing sale parcels. Having the combination of the alpine and medium sized conventional tractor allows me to play the low-impact card without being too limited or niche. I trade as Face North Forestry, I am based in South Oxfordshire and hope to pick up the majority of my work across Oxfordshire, Bucks, Herts, Hampshire and Northants. That said I am willing to travel and I'm currently sub-contracting for Matt Biddle of Aspect Forestry on a job up in Leicestershire, winching out willow on a very wet SSSI (that's his tractor and forwarding trailer in the background). If anyone needs help with any forestry work or timber extraction, do get in touch. Thanks, Nick

What about the Holy Grail of forestry research "how can an honest small-scale forestry contractor make any money!":confused1: Price of petrol / diesel goes up Sub-contract labour goes up (assuming you can get anyone who knows which end of the saw to hold!) Cost of equipment, parts, oil, servicing goes up Cost of insurance goes up Value of timber at roadside stays the same

I offered £0.50 / tonne for the chip and £1 / tonne for bars and to be honest I think that was generous although I doubt the owner would agree. I'll wait and see what comes of it.

Does anyone have any experience or pictures of connecting the return oil hose to the tractor on an Igland 5002 or similar winch with electrohydraulic control? I think the idea is to connect the return hose to the tractor's hydraulic oil filler plug but none of the low pressure fittings supplied fit my Valtra's filler plug. The operators manual is not a lot of help except to say that non-pressurized fittings should be used, which is confusing as the return oil hose came fitted with a standard male 3/4" ISO A quick release coupling. There is a return oil connection for the auxiliary hydraulics on my 6300 but it is also a male 3/4" quick release, but I thought these were pressurized. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Ta

About 50 / 50 pine and spruce, average dbh 30cm top height 20 / 21m both species moderately heavily branched, the pine in particular is often swept and quite a few are forked in the top, any sawlogs would come from the spruce. What are 3.7m sawlogs making at roadside at the moment assuming I can make up a 26 tonne load?

I've been asked to make an offer for a standing sale parcel of about 200m3 of Scots and Norway from a privately owned 11 acre site in the south east. The timber is pretty bony and will mostly go for chip, I might get a load of sawlogs but more likely bars. Most buyers are not interested unless they can get an artic in and this isn't possible without re-engineering the entrance which costs money. The owner is prepared to put some additional surfacing down in the gateway and the stacking area but hadn't anticipated moving the gate etc. It would be a nice little job for later in the winter and I'd like to be able to offer the owner a fair price but so far the sums just don't add up hand cutting and extracting with a tractor based forwarding trailer, and the site is too small to justify putting a harvester in there. I've tried to find a local market for the chip to keep haulage costs down but failed. Any thoughts on what I should offer or should I just walk away?

I recently set up my own small scale contracting business based on a 75hp alpine with 3.5 tonne winch and a standard 4wd tractor and 10 tonne forwarding trailer. I hope that this gives me a good set up to manage small to medium private and estate parcels and allows me to play the low impact card without being too niche/specialist. Sometimes a day rate can be appropriate, but more often clients want a piece rate for cut and extract - £20-£25/m3 seems reasonable for hand cutting and extracting with agri-based machinery. However, any business plan that is based on working 5 days a week for 52 weeks is seriously flawed. Look at the weather at the moment, I can't get onto most sites the ground is still too wet. You also need to factor in machinery down time, working around shooting season/bird nesting, time spent quoting/pricing/invoicing/paperwork etc. Work out what your total overheads are for the year, then be realistic about the number of days you think you can find work - 260 days is very optimistic in my opinion - and divide one by the other to see what you need to be earning each day to break even - never mind make a profit!

Does anyone out there have any experience of K.T.S. timber trailers. The company is Swedish although the trailers and cranes are made in Lithuania. On paper they would seem to offer the only real threat to Botex cranes in terms of lift capacity (7.5m reach crane will lift 3.5 tonne at 1m 1.2 tonne at 4m) and they seem competitively priced. There are also some interesting options such as hub motors for the trailer wheels and a choice of telescopic or fold down support legs. http://http://www.kts.se/NT/engelska/produkter/huggarvagn.htm I'd be interested to hear what people think. Cheers

That looks like a Botex 560 crane on a raised kingpost mounted on a Farma drive trailer. The pivot point for the steering drawbar is behind the headboard, whereas it is in front on Wilson's Euro trailers. Still it looks like a good combination. When I spoke to John he said that they could not fit drive motors, but he was talking about their own Euro trailers. I will ask him if this is something he still does. Does anyone know how the Farma 8.5m crane compares with a Botex 570 (7m I think) in terms of lifting capacity close in and at full reach? Thanks Nick

I'm getting 50% through my local LEADER fund but the paperwork was a nightmare, especially as it is a start-up business. They wanted a full business plan and 3 years profit & loss forecasts. There is a new fund, the Farming & Forestry Improvement Scheme which pays up to 40% and is supposed to be a lot easier to claim.

I have recently secured some grant funding for a new/decent second hand forwarding trailer. I will probably end up buying a new Botex trailer, as for the money they have by far the highest spec cranes. However, I would really like a drive trailer and Botex do not fit drive motors to the trailer wheels. Does anyone know: Can drive motors be retro-fitted to the bogies on a Botex (anyone done this)? Why are Kesla trailers so damn expensive? They do a nice drive trailer but it is a lot more than a similar spec trailer from Jas P Wilson. Is this to do with Sterling / Euro exchange rates? Does anyone know of any tidy used Patu/Kesla 10tonne drive trailers coming up for sale soon? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

Has anyone got a good way of mounting / demounting the spool valve for a trailer crane in the tractor cab without going down the expensive route of electronic / electro-hydraulic controls. The tractor will get used with a forwarding trailer and a winch so I need to be able to switch from one to the other without giving myself a hernia lugging the valve block back and forth. I want to be able to operate the controls from the cab. Any clever systems that fit on the top link etc. out there? Pictures would be great. Thanks Nick

I always have my springer spaniel with me when I'm in the woods. She's good about knowing to stay out of the way when saws are running or operating machinery. The biggest problem is people on public sites thinking she's lost or abandoned. I've lost count of the number of times the phone's gone off in my pocket and someone's asked if I've lost my dog. I once had to go and collect her from the local vets because some well meaning person "rescued" her. I'm going to get a sign made that says "I'm with the hairy @rsed foresters, please leave." Nick

Hi all Thanks for the feedback. I've been quoted £20 a week which was more than I was expecting to pay for outside storage space. However, I doubt I'll find anywhere more secure locally, I know a guy with a workshop on-site so I could get power, a workbench and a cup of tea from him when he's around. They don't mind me having a timber stack and they've said I could keep a tool safe there. Maybe I should accept that this is what it's going cost. It's that or p!$$ off the neighbours by parking a tractor and trailer on the front drive. Cheers Nick

Hi all - first post but sometime lurker. After 10 years of working for other people I'm finally taking the plunge and setting up on my own as a small-scale forestry contractor. I am looking for a yard or somewhere to park up the tractor and forwarding trailer and have been offered some hard standing space at a local farm. The site is relatively secure with access code gates and CCTV, plus the farmer is willing to sell me red diesel so no need for my own tank. What do people think is a reasonable figure for weekly rent, bear in mind as a start-up company I wanted to keep overheads as low as possible. I'd be grateful for your thoughts. Ta