martwizz

I took down a poplar the other day, and the guy let me take away a truck full of rings. I chose the nice splittable rings, nothing was too knotty The condition of the tree was pretty good, very little rot. Today i split everything, i am hoping to sell it all in one lot. I figure if all the rings fit in my truck, the logs should still fit in as well I would charge a fee for the logs, plus a £20 delivery or something if they don't want to collect. Can you guys help me with a rough estimation of value? I guess my ballpark figure would be £70 or so, considering its poplar (which I understand not to be great) and its very green, would require over summer seasoning. If anybody could give me estimations as to the size in m3 or the weight of my pile, that would be sweet, so i can describe it a little better Apologies for the humungous pictures

You should have made a giant spoon.

I always wear contacts at work. It is a pain if you get crap in your eye, but its usually not a problem to quickly take them out and don the specs. I did really want to have laser eye, but last year i got a bit of sawdust in my eye, and it gave me an abrasion which lead to an infection and conjunctivitis, leaving a scar. Basically, if they cut a flap, the part they lift might tear because there is scar tissue in the centre of my eye. The optimetrist (?) suggested i could undergo a slightly older procedure.... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLgcjqD2WiU]Microkeratome - YouTube[/ame] No freakin way.

Which is this?

I use openoffice, its a great alternative. Im not sure about those other suggestions though...

A challenger approaches

words cannot describe how much i hate soil. Essential soil science was bad enough. Applied soil technology? FML!\ So glad my first year is almost over

That second video was awesome. You sure dont get jobs like that everyday.

I may be interested in any gear you may be letting go, if you decide to sell things seperately, as i am just down on the Island. Im not sure how viable it is to buy/sell small tree companies, i guess when you have customers, they are hiring you as a person rather than a business, so im not sure if that would cross over very easily. Seeing as how so much equipment retains its value, i'd suggest that you'd make more money selling it all individually. It is convinient to sell everything in one, but you tend to end up doing some sort of bulk discount and it ends up being a firesale. There is plenty of demand for almost everything on an individual basis. even rusty old spikes get £50 on ebay easily!

Like this. The first drill has ressitance for 60% of the depth then hits a cavity so drops The second drill would only have resistance for 20% of the depth, then drops because it hits the cavity thats why you drill from different directions, as it allows you to map out where cavities or rot may occurr in the trunk

Im not sure how much you do/dont understand, but basically if the drill is 40cm into 105 dbh, lets just say its 40% of the DBH. (80% radius) The graph measures the resistance of the wood as you bore in. So the start of the graph would probably be quite high as you would be drilling through newer live wood and healthy hartwood etc. If the graph starts to drop as the depth increases (or more time passes), it means that there is less resistance against the drill, so the wood is likely to be rotten. Say the graph was high for the first half, then bottoms out because there is no resistance. Drilling 40% of the way in with those results would suggest you have a rotten cavity approxmately 60% of the DBH of the tree. Thats assuming its the same from all directions. The only thing im not sure about is what the graph plots against. I think its depth right? Time wouldnt make much sense. There are probably standardised readings for healthy trees somewhere, i guess the resistance should change naturally between the cambium, and layers of heartwood. Im not really too sure about that part. Does that help at all? =/

To be fair, you'd have to be in a pretty interesting position to plunge the saw into the back of your ankle on full revs

Had the pilot done jobs like this before, or on a regular basis? I would imagine its a pretty delicate job, and must have taken skill from both parties to do it with a 20 minute turnaround. Also, i assume you wore some sort of radio. A stein PTT thing maybe?

I recently got a 2001 l200 and im very pleased with it. It runs like a dream, but like hazzy said, its pretty thirsty. 15-20p a mile maybe? I havent really had it long enough to give it a definitive review, but for 160k on the clock, i was surprised how nicely it drives, no problems at all so far! I prefer the slightly boxy look myself anyway.

I guess you have some sort of standardised form or template for this? I cant imagine writing everything out from scratch for every single quote! When my time comes, i'll probably be jumping on the written quote bandwagon though. I'd feel safer having something to fall back on, and im a sucker for organisation.

didnt you hear, its for habitat

We had one of those at my old firm, i had the displeasure of using it on one occasion... never again we called it the pencil sharpener

I do agree that its ok to... discourage (for lack of a better word) the guys who think they are ready to buy a truck/chipper as soon as they have finished their tickets. Its a bit mad.

Thanks for reintroducing a bit of confidence, seeing alot of people who have been reccomending not to bother had started to sow the seeds of doubt. This certainly applied to me as although i've been working in the industry a while, going freelance almost starts like starting from scratch sometimes! I see no reason why anybody who works hard and is enthusiastic shouldnt manage to succeed; especially if they put their heart into it.

I cant link it, but the SOR for a company i have worked for previously is literally a list of works specifications with a price on the right hand side. For example Small fell - £50 Medium fell - £100 Large Fell - £200 Small 30% reduction - £25 Medium 30% reduction - £100 And so on. Obvioulsy the amount of specifications you list is up to you, you may want particularly prices for each job where brush is stacked or chipped on site, for example. Or have an additional SOR price for long drags? Anyway, there isnt much of a layout. The one i used also included the previous years' prices, which i assume wouldnt apply to you.

the unit is bolted from the opposite side of the ladder rack, which looks like it was removed and rewelded at some point Not sure if its going to be a ten minute job I'll wait till i have access to more powertools Rich, i'll see if i can salvage and keep the relay and i'll leave the wires tied up underneath the bed somewhere, having a winch on the bed seems like a cool possibility if i ever wanted to start hauling some big logs up or something.

Thanks guys! Looks like i have a little project for the rest of the morning

There are 6 holes drilled into the base of the bed by the cab which i suppose could have been used to mount a winch, i assumed they were drilled as standard. Is it something that looks like it might be worth keeping/repairing? I cant imagine mounting a winch there myself. Otherwise, I guess I should be OK to remove it?

So i got a 2001 L200 single cab. Its awesome. Runs like a dream, everything looks in good working order. There is (was) a small box on the back of the cab which houses two small drums and a bunch of wires. The wires dissapear under the bed of the truck. Until today, i had assumed that they were for towing lights, and i was going to just fix the box and leave it alone. This was until i took a closer look and noticed that they only seemed to be connected one way. Alot of the wires were loose/severed, so i decided to follow the trail. To my surprise, they went across the underside of the chassis and towards the engine. I popped the hood and traced them up to the battery. One of the wires was connected to the battery, the other terminated in some strange box thing which was just dangling. Can anybody enlighten me as to what the hell this is? Ive been searching online and i cant seem to find anything similar. Im not really a mechanic sort of guy, let alone an electrician. From what i can see, it doesnt serve a purpose, so i'd rather remove it than have it connected and exposed as it is, but i want to double check before i start messing about with it!

I just searched for chipmax on youtube... woah. Im going to get one as my first chipper Dont even need a van to tow it, just use it as your work vehicle too