pycoed

Alec, I don't know that model (I have A & C series Wheelhorses) but have a look over on the Wheelhorse forum (Forums - RedSquare Wheel Horse Forum) There are quite a few Brits on the forum, including a few not far from Essex with ALL sorts of W/H spares knocking about. Alternatively, using the existing pulley hub (with keyway) as a base it doesn't look too difficult to weld a new couple of pulleys to that?

If you mean the pulley that sits on the nose of the engine & drives the mowing deck, then the bearing can be replaced very simply. Just remove the bearing & take it to a bearing shop to match up for you, or read the bearing number on the original & ask for that.

Laid a hedge this spring, so plenty of wood to be done in my new shed (made last autumn). This lot will be done for winter 2016& stacked into the bays I've started making from pallets at the back of the shed.

Wonder if they could be trained to eat badgers before they released them?

I'd like to see how a badger actually eats a hedgehog! They do such a clean job of it - all you find is a completely cleaned hedgehog skin - no snout, feet, skull or anything, just an inside out set of prickles.

You see hardly any dead on the roads now - they don't get as far as the nearest road these days. Guess what loves eating hedgehogs? Clues: it's population has exploded since the 70's, many of them cough a lot, it has stripes & Cuntryfile loves them.

There are no "top doctors" in hospitals earning less than £1000 a week! Most would be on at LEAST £125,000 per annum plus the unpublicised distinction awards that used to be up to £20K when I worked in the NHS over 30 years back. Very few doctors (even the trainees) work 80 hours a week either. GPs ( who operate little more than a booking agency) are all on circa £100,000 & are no longer required to do home visits. What the NHS needs is a complete reappraisal of what it is for e.g. : We should look closely at the German system, because the NHS nowadays doesnt simply work. It should employ doctors exclusively - not just contract them to do a set number of sessions & allow them to run a private practice as well. No IVF should be done Little non restorative plastic surgery should be done. Non UK nationals should have compulsory health insurance before entry. Health checks should be mandatory for all immigrants.

So sorry to hear Richie Benaud has gone - absolutely my favourite ever sports commentator. completely irreplaceable. RIP Richie mate.

I use a Titan 13hp chipper (bought mint for a price less than half new!) around my smallholding. Being tight (& retired), when hedging I set aside everything bigger than 2" as firewood. The rest either gets burned if in the really boggy areas, or chipped. The chipper will tow behind a Wheelhorse tractor fine, but I wouldn't risk it with a quad as it is seriously top heavy (sideslopes are a no no). It weighs a couple of hundredweight, so I wouldn't like to push it far, but it can be manoeuvred around fairly easily on pneumatic tyres. It chips really well - it's nominally a 3" chipper so the stuff I put in it is fine, however the bloke on the chainsaw(me!) needs to think ahead when cutting to suit the chipper to minimise awkward angles & forks etc. & I hang a billhook on the chipper when feeding, just to make any necessary cuts of awkward stuff. Feeding can be quite tough work over a day (at my age anyway) & the delivery chute is rubbish - it has to be kept clear manually - I keep one of those plastic stable shovels on the chipper too. Blade is easy to sharpen on a belt sander but does need to be kept sharp, chips well, starts easily & is fairly economical -I've had it 4 years & would give it 6/10 - as I say its let down by the ludicrous outlets (I removed most of it) & a better mouth to the input funnel would be an advantage - again I removed the funnel mouth plate on mine. To sum up, they will do the job Ok for say a couple of weeks three times a year, whether suitable for full time commercial work, I would have my doubts...

It would!

Not just Americans either - in fact millions of us Brits too! In fact all those of us capable of rational thought, & healthily sceptical of politicians & vested scientific interests too. It's not just oil & global industry that has the monopoly on skewing statistics - science & government are just as bad.

Job done - made myself a puller out of some ally. Threaded 5/8 BSW to fit the worm - that's the nearest tap I had, & is "nearly" right. Thread angle is all wrong so I split the end 4 ways & it screwd on OK. Tightened it up with a Jubilee clip & used a 12mm bolt in the other end. Worm came off easily. Bar now has oil as well:thumbup:

Bought myself a bargain Solo 646 after a headsup (much appreciated) from here before Christmas - lovely saw, but a little bit heavy for hedging so - time to do some work on the 136 which is a nice handy size for the middle of a hedge. Oil pump failed again the other day & I've found the plastic pump pinion chewed up ( third time this has happened over the years). Although the worm gear on the crank looks OK, i've decided to replace that as well as the pump (also sprocket, chain & bar as well!). I presume the worm is a shrink fit onto the crank? Will a small bearing puller remove the old one OK? - I can't see how to heat it, since it's very close to the case plastic , not to mention the crank seal. Does the new one need to be heated to fit or will it just drive on with a tubular drift? To be honest, I'm not too happy about drifting directly onto the crank but I suppose it depends on how tight the interference fit is?

Welsh farmers will be paid to plant trees but could be fined at the same time - Daily Post I rest my case!

The late Dick Walker of specimen fishing fame (caught the 44lb carp "Clarissa" which was the record for decades & ended her days in London Zoo only a few years back) used to be the Chief Design Engineer of Lloyds, so it's likely he designed that gearbox. A piece of history - look after it!

Yes Governments have NO money of their own, they raise it by taxation of the private sector. Every government non-job is a drain on the private sector, in fact, every government JOB is a drain etc. but of course some of these most people actually want e.g defence, education, basic health care, emergency services etc. Now who wants Diversity Facilitators, Outreach Coordinators, Batbox Monitors etc?

All with attached points. Wake up , don't be so naive - It's like prizes for points with the prizes paid out of general taxation. All these points have to be tallied & cross checked & monitored & if two of your bat boxes have fallen down, there's some SFP docked. Who is going to check whether you had two dexters on that meadow you claimed would be ungrazed? That's right- another bod in WAG - yet another on the public sector payroll. Wait until they get drones operating, there'll be another whole swathe of admin & technical staff attached to that. Then you won't be able to have a piss within 7.52M of your wildlife pond. Sir Humphrey would have had wet dreams if he could have seen the possibilities of Glastir for building an admin empire.

The whole Glastir scheme is a classic case of a scheme designed to keep as many admin jobs as possible. It's typical of the sort of Eurocrap with additional WAG goldplating that is all about bureaucracy & nowt about conservation or even (perish the thought!) food production. I'll have nothing to do with any of it - stuff them & their ticklists.

Ultimate Saw Horse - these are great for the heavier logs. These are good for the smaller stuff: I welded up a heavy duty version which combines both these ideas in one, but the first one is on Screwfix for about £70

May be VHD, which wiped out all our local rabbits about 10-15 yrs back & they've never recovered to any degree. It's a viral haemorrhagic disease which does sound similar to Ebola, it has 99% plus fatality level apparently.

Dunsley Highlander7 £1000?? Paid less than £400 for mine 3-4 years back, admittedly without the boiler. Absolutely delighted with it. Glass is as clean as it was new, firebricks AOK. Haven't tried coal in it, since all our local stuff is anthracite & burns too hot for the standard grate, but it'll stay in overnight if needed on wood alone. I burn everything from leylanddiii through willow up to oak ash & beech. Some large, mostly hedge cuttings 3- 8" diameter. It saves us 2 tons of coal(anthracite grains) per year in the central heating boiler & has been a brilliant buy.

I'm just amazed that a Landrover made it out of the garage in the first place!

Just one of the issues:-

Blimey - calling a Starrett tool rubbish? I bet the Yanks have a carrier en route as we speak Seriously, Starrett make some of the best tooling you can buy - they're in the top drawer.

Well I'm pretty sure it's oak the grain looks like it - it's definitely not the same as the willow trunks we got out of another pond. And it DID come out of a bog, so I'm guessing it is bog oak! It was about 5 feet below ground level in a mix of grey clay & peat. Sadly I have no means of milling it - & the remaining piece has a branch stub 2/3 the way along it & a raggedy butt end that would need squaring off. My missus is fancying it for a bench down by one pond, as long as I can shift it there with the tractor (soft ground being the problem). I've just found a picture of the bit I used for the jetty, the crooked thumbstick on it is 5 ft long:-