Tom87

I had serious problems with a 57 plate ranger, 1st and 5th would constantly kick out of gear. I took the transmission out and had it rebuilt for just over £700. The guy that rebuilt it said that particular model (i think 2005-11) are renowned for gearbox issues.

I thought lime was a hardwood?

James, I honestly think the website is perfect. Nice and simple, the pictures present your product in a very clean and clear fashion. Nice and tidy stacking too!

I would perhaps state the approximate volume of your bags. i.e is it a 0.75 m3 load or is is a 1.2 m3 load.

Nice bass pro hat too, best shop in the world!

I forwarded your number onto a guy last week Wyn, he wants the machine for a week at least.

PM'd you

If it's a firewood business wouldn't it make sense to go VAT reg straight away especially if your buyin cord in?

Bein as you only charging customers 5%

It would make complete sense going VAT registered, you get your 20% off your raw stock and only have to charge 5% on your end product. If you were having to charge 20% on the end product then it would be a different story.

Plus you can get your 20% back on expenses like fuel and machinery etc.

I work 8-4:30 at my fathers business doing gardening and general maintenance and that's Monday to Friday! On weekends I have 2-3 gardens I maintain and do them so they are ticking over nicely! I sell a bit of firewood but not had huge numbers of people for it yet due me not advertising a great deal.

 

I'm wanting to make more money and ideas??

I work hard and try hard but feel I should be getting a lot more for the effort I put in, granted I'm only 23 but I still feel I should be doing better than I am!!

I would suggest getting yourself a reliable but cheap log splitter to keep your costs down but maintain a steady flow of stock and keep it dead simple, contact tree surgeons and try to get hold of arb arisings.

The second option would be to go the whole nine yards, get yourself a quality processor and buy in a few hundred tonnes of cordwood in one hit but that's going to dent your finances very hard. If you don't have a large customer base already it will take you a good few winters to build that base up and match the amount of stock you need to push compared to the number of clients.

I will hold my hand up and openly admit that I live on a farm and have plenty of space plus access to a telehandler 24/7 so I am extremely lucky. Without those luxuries I think if I had to pay ground rent or have to buy a telehandler/forklift, i'd rather do something else especially knowing the amount of work that goes into the end product then the burdon of relying on good weather to get people using up your stock, which is obviously completely out of your control.

I've burned a good amount bone dry and it was great, burns very fast but roared and kicked out heat.

I can't see that working effectively on the rear linkage, do you have any pictures of it in action?

Much like John, I use a potatoe box rotator. I only use the full steel crates, not the the wooden pallet based versions. Strapping the crate to the rotator will reduce the pressure on the bottom frame area as you turn the crate. I have had the frame section seperate on two occassions as I was not using a strap.

Scrub all I've just said if there mc kingstone you will need another IBC to fill worst bags in the world for stretch

Was about to say they look like MCA bags. I have put a full ibc level filled bounced load into one and still comes up so short. Those bags probably hold something more like 1.4 cubic meters

First come, first serve. Turning away paying customers incase regulars come back is a risky strategy.

Amen.

Hi Philip

I bought a load from mca kingstone, I think around 100 or so. I stopped pushing smaller dumpys last year as the cubes far more common. Let me know if you're interested they're really good quality.

They hold approx 0.6 of a cube

PM if interested

I had a 240 volt kindlet, great machine although it did slightly lack power when you get into slightly knotty stuff.

You may want to consider the posch machine which is a bit more price wise. It cuts 8'' kindling but I believe you can buy an ajustment plate to cut 6'', you can also alter the stroke to cut logs (I think this can be done on the kindlet too?). The posch seems more set up for tackling round timber, my brother runs two posch machines flat out every day and he loves them. Then again I thought the kindlet was great.

I suppose you best bet would be to go and give it a try yourself or ask fuelwood if there is a customer near by who can do you a demo.

Aldi are currently selling plastic bags of kiln dried kindling for £1.99, about the cheapest i've ever seen. The same sized CPL product is £7.75 per bag in a nearby BP garage.

What about car boot sales. What's the surrounding area like and are you located on or near a busy road? If so get a sign up, big but legal obviously or someone will take it down. Give it two weeks notice and work out what you need to charge.

Same with logs, get a sign up! If you've got timber down log it up and flog it, you should be able to shift more than £100 worth a week and you're not paying for timber to come in which is a bonus. There's a bloke not far from me who I wholesale too, he was in a similar position a few years ago and his self esteem was as low as a snakes belly. I gave him a decent wholesale price and it ticks him over and I'm earning a bit too. That being said, he still needs to be articulate when it comes to bringing money home, diversify and try anything.

Go and cut some swedish candles, if you've got a spare half hour chop some kindling and bag it up to sell with your logs.

I just unloaded 200 nets palletized from rm yeomans. Great quality and quick delivery.

Shoot them an email [email protected]

I have a pretty large stock of firelighters as I over ordered a few years ago. The lighters are these http://www.fuelexpress.co.uk/images/gallery/blaze-firelighters.gif

They come in boxes of 48, my best friend plays for Coventry rfc so he could possibly meet you in cov, are you anywhere near butts park arena?

You would be lucky to fill a builders bag, so around £60 but that's after you have seasoned it for a year.

You must have pretty big builders bags

as a woodturner i create loads of shavings and give it to a local guy who runs a chicken farm. apparently they love pecking around in it.

That's what I'm doing at the minute, they go mad for the stuff. At least the chainsaw oil might lube up the eggs exiting.

Does anyone sell the wood shavings from their processor? (obviously chainsaw models). My machine fires the shavings into a tub that can hold 0.6m3 and I'll easily fill that 3 times a day.

I've bagged up the shavings into 15kg dog food bags and put them up for grabs for as low as £1 a bag but generated no interest what so ever. I wonder if the chain oil would be classed as contamination or potentially a health risk?

Wilsons have 8 for sale at the moment

Looks like Hakki have finally entered the large circular saw processor market

What is the largest circular saw machine so far available, palax 100s? That cuts 40cm

Thanks for the feedback guys didn't expect so much help so soon

I know what I'll be purchasing this evening

I've been looking to upgrade my mower to a top of the line rear roller mower with a large deck. I'm having trouble making a decision on which mower to buy.

The model I'm really set on is the PRO553 HRS and the cheapest I have found it is £979 inc VAT and the standard 553 HRS is £895 inc VAT.

The Honda HRH 536 looks just like the Lawnflite but costs around £4-500 more? Whats the difference?

Any significant difference between the HRS and HRS Pro?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated

William,

I have a heap of seasoned spruce cordwood that i'm processing at the moment, it's bone dry. It's a fair bit away but if you want to come up and take a good bit away i'll do you a fair price. Only 7/8mins off the m1.

I used to use smartlift bulk packaging ventilated bags, as far as holding volume they do firmly contain a cubic meter with minimal stretch but after one season a lot began to tear becoming significantly weaker, possible UV damage?

Since then I've began using MCA Kingstones cubic meter bags and the quality is a lot better, they also seem a lot stronger too. However, they do seem to hold way more than a cubic meter. More like getting on for 1.2+ cubic meters, I rotated an IBC full of logs into one of the cubic meter bags and it just about filled the bag level before I have even bounced the bag. I either had to sell the bags or re-market the quantities I was selling and up my price which is what I did.

IBC's are still my favorite way to store firewood as you cannot beat the amount of ventilation going through the stock along with the fact I can simply rotate them into my trailer and refill them straight away. They stack solid and they're tidy. Cons... costly investment and tipping loose loads may have people questioning the quantity when compared to bringing a bag.