Mr. Squirrel

I believe 37 people died in Germany last year purely from felling dead/dying beech trees. Due to the hot dry summers they've had over the past few years rapid die back is becoming quite a severe issue. They've now banned the use of wedges for felling beech in this condition, and it's mandatory to have a winch. It looks utterly ridiculous, but it's a solution to a problem. A far greater problem than the two ropes palava in the UK.

This guy made his own winches. Seems to get on fairly well with them...

Why wait until then though? If I went vat registered now, claimed back what I could, plus the vat on a new vehicle, that could go straight back into the business so I wasn’t needing to hire in machinery as often, meaning more efficient and more cost effective. Winner, no? I gave a good number of long term clients who though largely domestic, I don’t think would have any issue. To me it seems a no brainier. I’d just be interested to hear any solid reasons not to.

Dragging this post up and hijacking it as I'm considering going VAT registered electively. I'm a fair way beneath the threshold, but my outgoings are fairly low. Most of my turnover therefore is profit, and I'm doing pretty ok for myself. I bought my van 3 years ago and forked out the VAT on that as I thought a couple of grand was better than being more expensive for domestics. I'm going to be replacing it in the next few weeks though, and am looking at paying a fair whack more in VAT this time round. Obviously once you take the VAT off the total cost vehicles get a whole lot more affordable... Maybelatron, I'm interested in your post as not many seem to be below the threshold but still VAT registered. All good for you though? And any others who've found themselves in similar situations... I've got a good accountant and use, though don't fully understand, Sage, so I imagine with a little discipline the transition wouldn't be too painful?

I mean you're right in a sense, in that peak forces at the anchor point will likely be significantly higher than twice the load.

Mine have been pretty good so far, They feel pretty tough. I'd get in touch with them as a first port of call. Sure they'll see you right.

That's weird, my renewal went down, cover the same. Which I was quite surprised by...

Has anyone dealt with companies where I can send in items to have a logo printed on them? I want to get some jackets and long sleeves made up but don't want to be restricted to whatever the printing companies sell themselves... Cheers folks

I have a wee bottle of olive oil in the shower for this. Tried the salt thing once, I didn’t particularly like it.

Mostly just in that you can feed the rope through just the fimbl and pulley, using it more like a traditional cambium saver. I find that really helpful when working on a removal and you get to the stem. It's quicker to set up securely and even when the pulley saver is a bit too small for the stem size, you can still get by with it. Having to take the retrieval ball off and on was a bit tiresome at first. I found the trapeze would snap itself on to the other side of the line semi regularly, making retrieval impossible. Much more tiresome haha. As I said before though, both great tools. I just get along better with the pulley saver.

Having a pulley is 100% worthwhile. Tree work is already physically demanding enough, they make your life easier. As for which, I’ve owned both and prefer the pulley saver. It’s a bit more versatile, has fewer metal parts to smash off the concrete and in my experience is easier to retrieve. They’re both top quality products though.

I’m the same as Rich. Except I just go with it and have headaches regularly. I think that might be more to do with the distribution of pressure with me though, in particular the clip at the back sits right over the base of the skull/neck. Had it three years, just making sure I get my money’s worth.

Is the adjustability of it of key importance? Pulling the lock out and rethreading it looks like a bit of a faff? I would've been tempted to just do a long bury and let it function like an adjustable whoopie splice? If retention of strength is of great importance maybe a few soft shackles of different lengths would do the trick? Just some thoughts...

It’s been mentioned and covered numerous times, but the short answer is no. Industry consultation is great, in theory. In reality this is a face saving exercise, and I imagine all these responses just go straight up the chimney. I don’t know anyone who is pleased by these changes, and few that are compliant with them. All that’s really changed is a vast number of highly skilled arborists with excellent safety standards are now non-compliant. Utter shambles.

To be fair Tentsmuir carpark is rammed any day of the year at the first glimmer of sun. I swear since they enlarged the carpark it’s gotten waaaay busier too. And the person controlling the flow of traffic being haphazard is pretty much normal. Paying £2 for parking was the last straw for me ?

Ha ha, not wearing a mask is hardly revolutionary... Health professionals widely agree that a simple face mask is of benefit. Countries where this advice has been followed have generally faired relatively well. The UK has obviously not. It’s hardly surprising when there are so many who view it as their right to potentially endanger others...

Inconsistent, sure. But unjustifiable? Really? You say you have an aversion to rules you deem unreasonable. What’s so unreasonable about wearing a mask in a shop? How does this negatively affect you? You’ve already acknowledged how little of an issue it is to wear one, and that they may be of benefit. To then say you won’t wear one seems pretty childish really. I feel like perhaps there should be options. People can not bother with a mask, go to the pub etc. But when they catch it they just stay put at home and die quietly. Hopefully the memory of how they stuck it to the man will help them pull through...

Stihl were still doing the 880 in mainland Europe after they stopped selling them here. It might be an EU emissions law or whatever, but it was implemented earlier and more abruptly in the UK than anywhere else I'm aware of. You might still be able to pick one up over the water.

Yeah, which presumably means if you shoot it out it'll fall apart. Which would make shooting it out a terrible idea, unless you can just deck the thing, in which case don't bother. Clearly a MEWP is a much better idea ?

Shoot out the bracing... and then what? Just not sure I see the logic in shooting out bracing, (besides it being entertaining) to then presumably either climb the tree to replace the bracing, or climb to dismantle the tree... It sounds like a hoot, but one way or the other, you're going to have to climb it...

As above really. If you have experience and knowledge of felling then that's a great start. You'll have tree knowledge beyond what most start out climbing with and probably better than some who've been doing it for years. I always say the same to people considering a career in Arb, but don't neglect the knowledge. Learning how to climb is great, but knowing what you're doing to trees is just as, if not more important. Go for it.

I was put off Salewa by the old version of these, which in my case fell to bits way too quickly. All the hooks snapped off within a couple of months, and they punched holes through the goretex to attach new ones. Not an enormous deal, but it was a shoddy fix for a dear pair of boots. La sportiva on the other hand, have always been solid for me.

Wow. Read through a fair bit of this thread and I can't decide if you're serious. You keep calling him unprofessional, but YOU poached a client of his. It doesn't matter how great your tool is, you've ****************ed up. You don't have a leg to stand on. Own up to it. 'probably knew it was wrong?' bloody pathetic.

So loads of people were saying the folk breaking lockdown to protest for racial equality were selfish, awful people etc etc. Then this crowd of knuckle draggers came out to give us all a bit of perspective...

Perhaps, but it's extremely telling that a large number of businesses had essentially shut down before the government introduced lockdown measures. They were going on some mad 'herd immunity' at the time, completely ignoring what was happening in other countries which were being hit hard. They were following what many of the public were already doing rather than having a bright idea. On a side note though, the UK does seem to have been hit disproportionately hard by covid. Yes, the governments strategy was a joke. But the likes of Germany have been less strict on lockdown, and have fared far better. Their health system obviously plays some part, but I wonder if they're just generally healthier too?