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It ties 2 knots on a bale, one at the start and one at the finish. It's a 2008 krone 890. I've sat up there and tried to work it out but there's too much going on.

A video I made of our tractors at work:

Mines not as tidy at the moment, people keep dumping stuff in it.

10-15 minutes if you know what you're doing and replace them with equally new/worn ones so there's no need to line up with the bar. Probably double that if you have to fiddle setting blades. It's two bolts on the cover then one to slacken on each of the six blades. An impact wrench will save a fair bit of time.

I would say leave it be, let him make his own choice, but in reality I would probably have helped out.

We've got an old posch with twin rams - one pushes, one pulls in so it's double its own length and will do 7ft. It must be about 20 years old and only 8ton but does the job and much cheaper than buying a new full length one. I would think it's a bit too fidly with a cone splitter but I haven't used one.

Yeah, I'm hoping for something closer. Most years we get enough out of the firewood stacks and our own woodland so it's relatively cheap but this year we've mostly got ash, beech, alder and red oak. We actually got wood fairly easily this year in the end and prices seem to have stabilised locally but I'll be surprised if I average £65 delivered for fencing stuff.

I'm a few miles outside Llandovery. I've sent a pm.

Yep, just use them bare. We always staple into the split side and side up the strainers to make sure we're in the heartwood and get 15+ years out of them. Thanks for all the suggestions for suppliers.

Thanks, might be worth looking at costs of backloads if I can find a lorry going that way. I hate the fact there's lorry loads going from near us to Kent but it might prove useful. Fingers crossed I find some closer but I've got a couple of contract fences coming up so I'm playing it safe.

Haha, I think haulage might be more than the value of the wood thanks. I probably should have phrased the distance part better. I was thinking more along the lines of didn't need to be as local as usual.

Shepards pie, has to be crispy on top. Easy to make a few and freeze some.

We're looking for a couple of lorry loads of straight oak for making fence posts if anyone has available. It doesn't have to be milling grade or anything. As long as I can straightish lengths out of the majority the rest can go for firewood. We can arrange haulage if needed and distance isn't an issue for the right quality/price.

Admittedly I didn't spend a lot of time with a machine but I just found it was easy to burr the edge and it takes a squarer cut than a file does. I guess it's just personal preference, some people like to give brand new chains a touch up but I wouldn't go that far. For the processor I do 5 strokes to a tooth and don't touch the depth guages unless I've hit something and have to extra sharpening. That's also when the machine tempts me.

I think you get a better edge hand sharpening, I just use an old bar to put the chain on, but as above the 10degrees isn't essential and keeping the bar in good condition is important. Probably matters more than on a chainsaw.

We're a firewood business and get most sales word of mouth and from a local magazine but the website which is very basic brings a few in as well. We get a fair few orders through Facebook which I try and post on but I've never paid for it and from the end of last year Facebook changed something and we're down to a third of our previous views.

Have you got them in the right pairs? Just thinking the crane might still work with one pipe in each spool but the drawbar wouldn't.

I can't see where else it would go unless you have any other spools. Have you tried putting the pipes where the cranes plugged in at the moment to test it works?

You've probably got a point, we only expanded rapidly because we could rent machinery and sheds off the farm business. There's realistically not many other savings though if you actually cost things properly. We've somehow got ourselves in the position of the firewood supporting the farm business but I think that's more issues with farming than success with firewood if I'm honest. On a side note if you're looking at 50k rent wouldn't you be better off buying a couple of acres and building a shed or is that a non starter with planning? Just thinking that's 250k over 5 years and you could do an amazing yard with that.

I'm not sure if the 27% profit works with a business like firewood, in reality we're all trying to make as much as possible (but probably coming out way under) rather than having a target figure. Ours varies from year to year but it's never got that high, I expect we're like a lot of sellers where we've got x amount going out each month on overheads regardless so it's more dependant on sales than margin per cube. I tend to do all my costings with myself in at a basic wage then if we make anything on top it's a bonus, which admittedly usually gets spent on wood anyway.

Not sure about the rest of the UK but there's been a lot of grants the last few years in Wales. Usually around 40% so the chances are pretty good they've had one. We've gone for 2 in the last 10 years and they're obviously a big help but I'm not sure I would go through it again - the paperwork is horrendous as an understatement and there's a lot of conditions attached; you have to create a job, machinery has to be new, multiple quotes through specific websites, keep everything for 5 years etc. On top of that we had to start a separate business as agriculture is exempt and there's still a couple of loans to pay off. Obviously that's no issue though, life is easy on 'Daddys farm'

I'll have to take a look at the lloyds app, our nearest bank is 30miles now and when you're sales are 70% cheques that gets annoying...

Sorry to hear you're having to stop. Is it stacked or loose, just thinking how to measure the amount?

Looks impressive, I imagine their won't be many cars left on junctions. If it's a mini digger I wonder if you could mount it on the front or get into the trailer... Even if it was by making a door in the side.

As said above it's hard to be in the middle, you can make money on a small scale by getting cheap/free wood from other jobs. I think more people are realising the value of wood now but that's another discussion. You can also make money on a larger scale but it's very difficult with constant price rises on inputs and sourcing timber. You can do a surprising amount with a chainsaw and splitter but to go into the hundreds of tons you need to start thinking about machinery and that's where the costs start to rocket... You start with a processor but that needs a tractor to power it, it's quicker with a loader so you get one of those, then you want a forwarding trailer to get logs in so you want a bigger tractor for the road. Then you need more storage space so you buy ibcs, they get wet so you build a shed which can't hold enough so you get a kiln which is heated by chip so you get a chipper which needs a second tractor by which point your processor needs replacing.. My vague point is there's still money to be made if you expand but not a lot and where do you stop? ? Firewood is our main business by the way and it's getting harder but we've no plans to stop in the immediate future.