Al North

After much thought I am going to purchase an Alaskan Mill. I have struck a deal with a local landowner to make use of timber that would normally go to waste because its uneconomical to extract by traditional means or there is no suitable access. Some gets cut for firewood but it would be much better as useable timber and easier to move out as boards and posts rather than rings. I have a few questions before I make the leap! I currently have a 560XP and a MS660. I currently run 20" and 30" bars on the 660. A blacksmith friend of mine has a Mini Mill and a Small Log Mill which I have just taken loan of. I would like to add an Alaskan Mill to the set-up as some of the timber I have available is 3' diameter and above. My plan is to either sell the timber or to make stuff and then sell the products. I have had a bit of success with this already but I don't plan on it being a full-time business but something that has the flexibility to fit around my first aid training business. My main questions are: What bar size will the 660 comfortably run in a mill? Is it worth going for a bigger mill size to reduce upgrade costs at a later date? What sort of upgrade in milling performance do you get by moving up to an 880? Just dreaming at this point but some of the timber I have ringed up recently was nearly 5' diameter and there is similar stuff still available. I have already signed up with Rob's site (excellent site - wish I had found it sooner). Anyway any advice greatly appreciated. Al.

I was with combined insurance too but when it came to making a claim they were very poor. I had a suspected broken wrist - the doctors were convinced it was broken but it was a type of fracture that typically doesn't show up well on x-rays. Combined insurance would not take the doctors word for it and said they would only pay out if I could provide a copy of the x-ray clearly showing a fracture. I cancelled my policy with them soon afterwards.

I had to attend a speed awareness course a couple of months ago after doing over 50 whilst overtaking an hgv in a climbing lane on the A66. I saw the camera van, checked my speed was below 60 and carried on only to get the letter through the post. I was driving a double cab in van transit so should have been doing 50. Car derived vans have the normal car limits but not sure where a transit connect would fit in. Can also vaguely remember a farmer on the course discussing pickups with the trainer. I vaguely remember something about whether it was double cab or single cab having an effect on its status but I may be wrong.

What do you call expensive for a +F first aid courses? I run +F courses at about half the price of what people like St John's charge for their standard courses. Interesting thread - I too have used chainsaws for about 15 years as an extra earner on farms and estates and have many times considered doing training and assessment to make it more legit but can't really make the figures stack up at that rate. I'm usually salvaging timber that would go to waste and getting paid in logs. If what you have been taught gets rid of a bad habit that could have seriously injured you then it's money well spent, but any money spent still has to be found from somewhere......

Excellent video - I can only echo Stephen's comments. I'm 37 and want to develop a strand to my business that my kids can get involved in just like I did with my dad going to work with him on a farm during my school holidays.......

By static I mean rope to the European standards (more correctly called semi-static) - it still has a low percentage of stretch. North American standard static has virtually no stretch at all (true static). Some UK rescue teams are now importing North American standard ropes as it makes hauling systems more efficient but you have to take the different characteristics into consideration. Dyneema is excellent in the strength stakes but as it has no discernible stretch it has the potential to generate much greater shock loads if used incorrectly. I attended a rescue rigging course a few years back run by a Canadian specialist and was pulled up on my use of a dyneema daisychain sling as a cowstail - a practice common among uk rock climbers. A quick run through the maths showed that if I took a fall from above my anchor point the dyneema would not break but my pelvis possibly would! I too have heard of failures at about 4kN but for the Petzl Basic etc these would occur on smaller diameter ropes (say 9mm). Not common in Arb work I would think but for cavers carrying hundreds of metres of rope underground - bulk and weight is important. I only have experience of kernmantle type ropes so can't comment on the others. I know that items like a Petzl Croll can fail at the cam if used in hauling systems as they are not designed for this type of use. The length of the channel is not as long as on the Basic or Handled Ascender. Thanks for the welcome anyway guys - I'm keen to learn all I can about other arb climbing techniques as it can only enhance what we do and on a good day practicing in a tree is infinitely better than down an old mine shaft!

Hello, I'm new to the forum but have a background in rope rescue and caving so this post caught my eye as it is a common discussion within rope rescue. A Petzl Basic (or Ascension) will potentially cause damage to the sheath of a 10 or 11mm static kernmantle rope at a static load of about 550kg - 600kg. This sort of load can of course be achieved dynamically if slack is introduced into the system and then fall takes place. The other thing to consider is that human body is the softest part of the whole system and a 550kg load applied to you would be very uncomfortable!

Evening All, I'm new on here but have been watching from the outside for a while! I have a MS660 which is about 18 months old and it stopped running abruptly at the weekend. It just stopped - no dramas, no noticable loss of power beforehand, etc and although it restarted it stopped in the same manner a few minutes later and wouldnt restart. After stripping it down on Sunday I found that the piston and pot was badly scored on the exhaust side to the point that the rings were seized in flush with the body of the piston. It is clearly a replacement piston and pot required but I have a couple of questions. What is a good non-genuine replacement to go for? I dont really want to stretch to genuine parts. Is nikasil plated the way to go? I'm at a loss as to what caused it. We had another saw running from the same fuel can and it had no problems. Any ideas? Any help greatly appreciated.