gdh

Even with 3 rollers the lumps get stuck on ours although it is better than the 2 roller decks. I'm looking at sheeting in the gaps but it would have to be very strong and I'm not sure if it will lift the bendier logs off the rollers. Only one way to find out... We had some horrible logs today, had to tidy it all up with a saw and to make it worse it was all to cut for 6inch. Does anyone else bother cutting very short stuff?

I see the £27k average a lot but it's pretty meaninglessness since most people earn much less. For example the Welsh average is £19k and both include the people on a million plus. There are reports saying that without the top 10% of earners average salary is more like 13k a year, even if you take that with a pinch of salt the majority of people have to be below average. Average wage is never going to matter to most of us anyway, everyone wants more money but the main thing is doing a job you enjoy. I would rather earn less being outside than making 20k a year working in an office.

Must admit I've never heard of strawberry tree. The woods not a colour I've seen before, it doesn't help it's a bit rotten though.

Any ideas what this could be? It was in with a load of ash and birch.

Thanks, I forgot it would be stacked. £73 compared to £65 doing it ourselves is good news to me.

If you're looking for new ones try spudbox.co.uk I think it's around £72 for 1ton potato boxes so not a quick pay off though.

Is that a 2 cube crate?

Had an email from them this morning, it's very professional looking with details of the factory etc, with hindsight there's too much detail though... I'm just glad there isn't anyone selling firewood at £35 a cube, I'd be out of business.

That's a clever use of the log lift to make a cheap deck, I like it.

Yes I know what you mean, some tractors aren't built for high speeds and a few people could do with slowing down going through villages. The tests are still being debated but last I heard was 'fast' tractors will be 4 years from new then every 2 years.

I think the licences are fine for tractors, you've got to start at some age and every young driver I've met has been driving for years offroad anyway. I think the way to go is testing tractors to allow them to go faster which is basically happening next year anyway. The irony is most tractors now that do 30mph with 15tons behind will outstop old tractors doing 20 and alot of lorries and cars on the road. Regarding vosa I can see why they prosecute for intent but I can't see it standing up in court if you pushed it, it would be interesting to see them try though

It depends how much experience you have, I think everyone picks up something useful in the training but cs31/32 (is it still called that?) is a week long so you could just do the one day test. Other certificates like loading shovel, log grab chipper etc can be done in half a day each if you can find a decent instructor who can see you're competent. Personally I hate all this certification but you're better off getting on with it and making yourself more employable. In Wales you can get 80% funding through farming connect, if you're in farming or forestry reasonably full time, I don't think there's an equivalent in the rest of the UK unfortunately.

Impressive. I think if you're a massive company having multiple machines and grading the timber is the best way to keep up productivity and quality. The big processors are only practical on big logs.

I can probably do it for you if you're near mid Wales but I expect they'll all split as they dry so it depends on what you want.

That's what we've got, we replaced our previous one 5 years ago and both were good trailers. 4 bags might be tight unless you drop to 85cm size ones.

Thanks. I try to keep it updated since it's surprising how many people like seeing 'behind the scenes ' and it gets us a few new customers. Yes, we just use silage plastic to cover them so we can pull it on and off with the log grab without worrying. We found if you cover the top in a dry spell it cuts a quarter to a third of the drying time and that makes a big difference when we're struggling in the winter. Unfortunately I haven't covered any this year yet so I'm really hoping we get a dry week or two soon.

No its basically tarpaulin. I would think a combination of of that and mesh on the sides would work well.

If you're looking for a cheap cover try silage sheeting. You can get 12x80ft for around £30.

That's a good system. I'm always looking at ways of improving efficiency, we've got it mostly sorted after cutting - cut it into boxes, into the drying shed then rotate the boxes to tip it into the pickup for delivery. I think you could just about justify drying fresh ash but we would be tying up drying space and we're at capacity in the winter anyway. Oak needs to be seasoned for a long time so I doubt it would be practical. Also at peak we're processing 50tons a week and it would be a nightmare trying to organise all the lorries. We're at the point now where we just get a phonecall offering us wood and we let them get on with bringing it in when they want. We have considered stacking closer but by the cutting shed is very steep with access issues and I don't want to waste a decent field nearby because by the time you've loaded and unloaded there wouldn't be much time saved. So... Yes... not many ways out of it unfortunately. The only slight improvement will be when we get a bigger timber trailer soon.

Yes, I try and take the drone our when I get a chance, you can get some great footage with them. It is annoying moving it, we started stacking there because we cut our own wood but we can't move it closer because the farms on the side of a hill and there's no room for artics to turn either. It costs about £5 a ton to move but not much choice unfortunately. On the plus side it's nice and windy there for drying.

I think it's about 1400 tons here, few hundred from our own woods and the rest we buy in from locally. We like to be a year ahead so just keep buying up to the overdraft limit. :-) Should be a better view in one of these: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=350767781992629&id=260687344334007 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=296342870768454&id=260687344334007

Pm sent Seriously though there's some parts of arbtalk I avoid now and I think we all know there's some members here who aren't a positive influence. I know a few people don't like posting anymore because if you mention pay or make a mistake you'll just get insults but that's a minority of topics and there's still plenty of places like the firewood forum where there's a lot of good information and a nice atmosphere. Personally I enjoy reading here, otherwise I wouldn't bother making this post :-) Gdh is just my initials by the way because I don't like being googled, I'm Glyn and it's easy to find out more than that from my posts if you want to for... Reasons.

Voluntary registration on a database like arbsafe is a good thing to prevent theft but licences are just going too far. Everything's dangerous but you can't restrict everything, in the end people should make their own decisions otherwise we'll live in a world where you can't use a drill without filling out forms and having to record every move.

There's a lot of infected larch about to come on the market in Wales. I think the contracts are going up on the NRW website soon.

Nice work, should save some bruised fingers to. I can see alot of the bigger machines going down the 2 in 1 root soon.