Woodworks

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Been a pretty wet few days with 97mm in the gauge since Friday lunchtime but nothing in comparison with what parts of south Wales have had.

Never heard the term until recently but being doing this with our smaller hedgerow trees for years. Great way to get stuff down roadside without actually blocking the road. Just spear cut it off the bank to the ground below and mind the canopy as Mark mentions. They stay upright due to the surrounding trees and then you get down and pull them out from the base.

Mulling over this this morning and there wont be a one cap fits all solution. In our little part of Dartmoor the rivers are very fast from source to sea. Rivers peak within just a few hours of heavy rainfall so only very heavy rain over short periods causes flooding. Weeks and weeks of wet but not extreme rainfall causes few issues. On the other hand flatter parts of the country with long rivers are affected very differently and struggle when we get prolonged periods of rain so solutions will undoubtedly be different for every situation. I hear many blame climate change but for us I see no evidence of extreme events in recent time in fact quite the opposite. I have lived here since 1974 and worst floods were in the 70s and early 80s. The land management in our local rivers catchment has hardly changed in the that period so I take it we had heavier rains back then than now. Now building endless estates on what are clearly flood plains is only ever going to end one way. They are called flood plains for a reason.

Bloody hell! Do we have to worry about things like this on private land? I have big pile in in a field near a road and this never crossed my mind. Can we honestly be liable if someone trespasses and hurts themselves?

Totally agree with you J Down here in SW we cant even have a reliable train line at any speed due to ongoing problems at Dawlish. I am past hoping for any common sense from government these days.

Great job Mark. What did you finish it with?

I have had the same when trying to get enough together for a set of dining chairs. Couldn't believe my luck when they were selling it off cheaper than regular english oak (some years back)

Cruelly most of the time and then on the odd day its so fabulous all is forgiven ? Just been a tedious winter with endless horizontal rain. Warm though in fact worryingly so. It went up to 10C overnight in what should be our very coldest part of winter. Winter has been almost completely absent with just a handful of frosts and a dusting of snow on the tops on just a couple of occasions. Anyway you dont need me grizzling about the weather has I am sure TCD has done plenty of that as well haha. Having said all that I wouldn't swop for the gruelling heat you have had to work through. Sounds tough going. All the best Beau

One extreme to another over there. Guess the rain has put out most of the fires though? Windy this morning with light rain but nothing notable yet

Nice one Mick Using our loader today with its new attachment

I have a cube at a fair bit more

Think there are bunch of winches out there with the only difference being the labels! Think mine is branded Ace and it's been perfect for the few jobs it been used for.

Diesel on red I am sure would be much cheaper but fitting a diesel engine would be expensive and heavy which would not be ideal on a road tow machine. Plus I dont want to sit in the smell of burning diesel all day any more than I do petrol. No noticeable smell so far but not done any long sessions yet.

Well today I got it all up and working with exactly the same performance as it has with petrol. Turns out gas is a bit more fussy about the state of spark plugs and air filters but once sorted it works as sweet as a nut. Only takes second to switch from petrol to gas and back again. Only cut a few cube so far and will report back if there any snags long term but this looks like a no brainer for my set up.

Surly it will be nearly impossible to have clean burn, long burn and efficient. unless a stove gets properly hot much of the volatiles will go un-combusted so you need to burn relatively quickly to keep the temps up. The Burley stoves have a basic cat. as standard.

Bare in mind if you make it of wet wood and screw down the cladding as the wood dries and shrinks the screws may need a slight tighten to keep the mastic seal on the screws firmly sealing against the cladding. No big deal to do though.

Interesting little piece BBC World Service - Witness History, The ancient oak tree that taught the world a lesson WWW.BBC.CO.UK A tree in Kew Gardens survived the storm of 1987 and changed gardens across the world.

For the sharpening off the machine a spare bar works fine IME but sounds like your spare is badly worn. There shouldn't be very much wobble

If you are making a retort use fireproof bricks where you can and protect all the steel from the worst of the heat. It will get very hot and it will distort if exposed to the full force of the burning gases.

It all seems a bit confusing. I asked for LPG and have had a bottle of Calor Propane delivered? From the Calor site "LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) is a hydrocarbon gas that exists in a liquefied form. LPG is a colourless, low carbon and highly efficient fuel. Supplied in two main forms, propane (C3H8) and butane (C₄H₁₀), LPG has a range of uses – from providing fuel for Autogas vehicles, leisure parks, crop-drying, BBQs, heating homes and much more. "

We will see. This is what the instructions for mine say "For short periods of running any size of cylinder may be used, but for long term running particularly in cold conditions smaller cylinders may start to freeze with consequential loss of power. For reliable operation use a cylinder of at least 19kg net capacity. In cold weather it may be necessary to use 47kg cylinders"

Cant find any problems in theory so I am going to order the kit and will report back on how well it works

I use them when it's cold and wet but only ground work. They are thick but you get used to it.

I can get the gas for £68 delivered and from what I can find out that should be 92 litres of propane. What economy figures do you think I should get with propane in comparison with petrol? I was working on the fuel economy being 20-25% less on propane