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We very rarely hire ours out because of the risk of damage but as long as you have a decent sized tractor on the front it's not too bad going out with it. It depends what tractor you have but if you have a smaller tractor you might need a front weight,we usually use 120hp deutz for ours but even when we used the 180 once it was lifting the front wheels on hills because it's so far back.Also if you use a bigger tractor for contracting with it you might need a longer pto. The other issue is, depending what you're used to, you won't have a log table or forklift with you when you go out and most people will expect you to cut wood that they've left with branches on and in random lengths which means you spend a lot of time with a chainsaw.

Products Archive | Bag Supplies we tried a few nets from here at the APF and they were good quality and cheap.

The biggest conventional firewood processors do up to 50cm diameter but they'll be 20k+ usually. If it's all oversized then for 200 cube a year it might be worth stockpiling then hiring in a big vertical splitter for a week. If you can find one with a 12 way splitter you could put them through a billet processor after or just quarter them and put them through a normal processor. If you already have a digger you could look at cone splitters and tree shears then you wouldn't have to leave the cab in theory.

It's picking up for us now - doing about 20 loads/40 cube a week plus our regular larger orders.

Looking at the government website the only legal requirement is a break of 20minutes if it's over a 6 hour day. It doesn't have to be paid for. Not that that has much bearing on those of us who are self-employed.

Did some chipping in a nearby bit of forestry today, it was all under 4 inch diameter and 4-5ft lengths so we just chucked it in and tried to keep up with the chipper. Between two of us we did 7 trailers/70 cube and hauled it back so not a bad day. Need a break now though.

Nice. It's always a struggle to get under 20 with air drying. We had to wimp out and use a drying shed because we could never get them dry if we cut this time of year.

£57 delivered in for hardwood. That's in mid Wales.

Are you looking for fresh or dry logs?

Same for me, brilliant while they work but after a few months the spouts gone too stiff.

That's how I charge if I'm working for someone. I knock off half hour or however long we stop for, especially since most people round here will provide food. That seems fairest to both sides.

There's less wood as you do bigger pieces, although not by a huge amount, I agree with that. Not sure about stacking. You could cut a cube into an ibc or similar, empty it out then stack it back in to get an accurate measurement. If you think there's 12 cube there you wouldn't be losing out by much since it's so much faster to process and most commercial buyers will expect a discount on bulk.

My dad sold split oak stakes in the early nineties and started selling spare bits as firewood to neighbours, eventually he got a circular saw and splitter to process a bit more. He got a proper processor in about 2001 and went up to 100-200 tons a year. By the time I left school in 09 the farm which is our main business was losing money so he planted all the rough land with trees and we started selling a bit more,luckily we already had 50 acres of woodland. We expanded 100 tons a year every year, started buying in wood and split the firewood into a separate business so we could invest. Then we bought bigger toys, I mean machinery but could still hire tractors and loaders from the farm to keep costs down. A few years ago we built a drying shed and a chipper so we could keep cutting through the winter and here we are. Machinery went like this: Splitting wedges and chainsaw Circular saw and splitter Palax, no indeed, push onto blade Hakki Pilke 1x37 Tajfun 400 joy Tajfun 480 +

How wide is the gate? Would you get a narrow ride on through like an as940. It's a brushcutter but it would just do grass short enough. I think it's just over a meter wide.

Thanks, very helpful. I'll probably leave it untreated then. It's coming from an estate somewhere, one of our regular lorry drivers recommended it and we got a good deal which is why I haven't looked for alternatives..

That would be ideal but I can get hold of sequoia/redwood reasonably priced and I'm aiming for the beds to last 20 years. Edit: are we using different names for the same wood here?

Thanks for the advice so far. Nice to know you can still get proper creosote. Any alternatives for vegetable beds, I've been told nothing too poisonous.

I'm about to build some raised beds for the garden and what wondering what treatments others use for wood? Is creosote still any good? We're going to cut the wood here from sequoia and I'll need a lot.

Had some nice straight oak and already made enough gate posts so we made a few oak stakes this morning. Hopefully they last a few years.

Sorry, I meant the chainsaw is from a hydraulic motor. There's no belts on the machine.

Not out yet but looking like about £3k more than the 42 so 19k. That's from talking to the dealer but they weren't sure until later in the year. I still slightly prefer the tajfun but the auto chain tensioning and hydraulic drive is very tempting

I bought one to but haven't used it yet. It's the new name for piranha chains if you're looking for the thread here.

Nice sign writing. It's surprising how many orders you pick up from people seeing vans parked.

There was some impressive processors at APF. The big rabaud 600 on the Ryetec stand was good although as said a 16 way splitter just isn't enough and for £70k you would be better off with 2 small ones and some staff. Hakki pilke have taken a lot of tajfuns ideas with the flaps to hold logs, solid backed splitter and monitoring system but I did really like their auto chain tensioning. Hopefully that catches on. The posche firewood factory was clever but I think it's too bulky for what it is. The problem is, watching these huge machines, unless you've got huge straight logs the output isn't much higher than a decent convention processor. In terms of production speed and design the tajfun was still the best there to me.

Haha that's the best way.