wrsni

Well on a slightly different note, nice to be able to buy not only an excellent product but support British manufacturing at the same time. Not often you get a chance to do that nowadays!

Another vote here for Burley if you just want room heat. We got ours going about mid December and couldn't be happier with it, very easy to look after, all the pleasure of an open fire but so much more heat from the same amount of wood. Haven't had the central heating on since it was installed as it's fairly centrally located in the house allowing the heat to spread. A few points, as Stubby says have no concerns about the plate steel stoves ability to retain heat, it does and very well too! Also, we decided to fit it with the original built chimney knowing we could retro fit a flexible flue liner if required but there's been no problems whatsoever. Now that might not always be the case but some people will try to say that you MUST ALWAYS fit a flue liner and that is plainly not correct. Finally, if you have quite an air tight house definitely give serious consideration to a stove that will allow a room seal kit. Not much point having a nice warm stove only to have to cut a hole in the wall and essentially allow cold air in to the room to allow it to burn. Far more sensible to bring the cold air directly in to the stove and keep the warm air in the room. Good luck with your search but before getting too hung up with brands or types, have a long think about what you actually need first. Your two big decisions are multi-fuel or wood only and boiler or non-boiler. Once you've sorted that out your search will become a lot simpler.

Too easy to just brand him as just another spoilt brat, selfish, wanker, etc, etc. The guy has a very deep level of mental control that is simply stunning. He's not showing off, pushing himself to take risks for a buzz while actually scaring himself shitless or any of that stuff. It was interesting that at first when he met the Russian guy (who genuinely was nuts btw!) he was a bit phased by it all, yet when he'd got his head around the new situation and come to terms with it, he was doing stuff on a different level. The backwards flip on top of the bridge was just beyond all reasonable comprehension, but all done with a level of calmness that is staggering. Fascinating show and another excellent contribution from Channel 4. ps, add me to the tingly feet club,..................weird.

Well after all, I suppose it is only fair that we should pay road tax to mow a lawn, cut a tree, trim a hedge or strim a weedy bank!

Purely out of interest. What is the situation with fuel duty on Aspen, presumably it's taxed like petrol given the cost?

Well all things being equal you'd strip it down and check but then you don't want to do that. My notion would be that it can't be too bad or you'd have some water coming up through the transfers from the bottom end which would affect the spark and make it run badly so if it's running 100% it would be a fair assumption that most of the water is out. You could maybe run a couple of tanks of petrol through it at double the normal oil ratio to re-establish a good coating on the main and big end bearings and see how it goes from there.

I wonder how many of those tyres have had a levy charged on them to someone for "safe" disposal!

A747 is the one you want for the authentic "racing" smell, or if you want to be proper hard core, straight R40 which is pure castor oil (or what our American friends refer to as "bean oil"). Wouldn't particularly recommend it for a chainsaw though!

Castrol 2t, formerly known as TTS. I would very much doubt there is a better all round full synthetic anywhere.

Don't know anything about chippers but as far as the Kubota engine is concerned it's little more than run in! 10,000 hrs plus shouldn't be a problem.

Well maybe they're just a lot more mercenary over here! I did say, "In my experience".

Are you mixing at 50 parts to 1, i.e. 20mls to a litre, or 50mls to a litre which would actually be 20 parts to one. Forgive me if you think i'm making you out to be a thicko, i'm not, but it's not an uncommon fault for those who don't work with this stuff on a very regular basis, and the symptoms are classic.

In my experience "kindly consultant" is an oxymoron!

Wouldn't be the first time I've seen a precision chop harvester run up a big repair bill by accidentally picking up a bit of driftwood so unless that machine has been modified in some way (which it may have been) I don't see how it's going to be a success. Yes they need a lot of power but that's a combination of volume of through put, very short chop length and blowing power, at the end of the day grass is much softer than wood. Would you rather fall 30ft on to a pile of grass or a pile of logs?

A decent loam as far as I can figure.

Ordered three dozen mid week and should have them in a week or so. Be interesting to have something a wee bit different and hopefully end up with at least a dozen or so decent trees out of that for the future.

I know, but I wanted to leave him something to be at!

There's a pile of stuff about and in one respect they're a good read but in another respect they do little to actually prepare you for doing any practical work. Anything by Kevin Cameron is pretty good as he's both a good engine man and a very good writer. You'll also find quite a lot of papers on the internet now from Professor Blair but bear in mind these will be presented from a scientific point of view rather than for public consumption and will have been written accordingly. Also bear in mind there's a big difference between tuning and porting so don't think info on one will automatically relate to the other. It's entirely possible and in many cases preferable to tune an engine with no porting work whatsoever. If you want a quick fix you'll not do much better than the Macdizzy site. Plenty of stuff there to keep you going for a long time!

Don't waste your time polishing inlets and transfers, they're better a bit rough. By all means remove any lips and obstructions but the actual surface of them benefits from a bit of texture to create turbulence. Exhaust can be polished to mirror if you feel inclined.

I'm the proud owner of a TS350, "super" version no less! If it's essentially the same saw and sound enough then it's well worth holding on to. Mine could sit for a few months and still start on the 2nd or 3rd pull, easier started than my 440. Obviously stuff like this that built the reputation which Stihl are still largely trading on today.

Mid-Antrim, lowland location. Not going to risk widespread planting of them but I've a few gaps to fill in a new (1 year old) woodland planting and with ash still off the menu I fancy putting in maybe 2 or 3 dozen of them just to see what happens. Seems like they'd be worth a go anyway but even though there's no rush to get them in for a month I'd need to get on the ball pretty quick as I doubt any of the suppliers over here will have them from stock. Thanks for all contributions.

I know it prefers a milder type of climate and therefore is concentrated mostly in southern England, just wondering how far north you can go in the British Isles and it still do OK. Anyone have experience of trying to grow it away from the balmy climes of southern England or even just seen it growing elsewhere. Any experiences very welcome.

Excellent show, like Clarkson or loathe him he's a bloody good TV presenter. Clarkson could probably do more to educate people about WW2 in a few documentaries than Dan Snow or Andrew Marr would achieve in a decade!

Yes! Been working on two strokes since mid-seventies mostly racing bikes and karts (and now quads as well) and still work at them on a regular basis both professionally and as a hobby. Also for the last dozen years or so I've been an official supplier of Castrol lubricants and supply oil for everything from classic race bikes to powered hang gliders. I also own (at last count) 17 motorcycles from early 70's to mid 90's, all two-stroke.