LeeWill

The best hand cutter you will ever meet in your life is looking for work anywhere in Scotland. Might go down south for a week or two if the job is a good un, but with family ties here I don't want to travel too much. Got 12 years cutting experience, all my own kit (obviously!) and I work on S/E basis only. If you here anything before I do please be a top diamond of a geezer and gies a wee bell Cheers in advance, Lee

I've always preferred Oregon Pro-lite to Husky bars. They wear better, don't need greasing at the nose, and usually cost a fiver less But I do like the look of them Sugi-Hara bars...nice an shiney

I left the bosses county tractor in a field, with the 8tonne winch still attached, over night. In the morning we could only see the roof

18 is good with it, and that's probably the max I would put on it as it pretty gutless at the stump even with a 15 on it. If u want to use a 20" bar I'd go for the 560xp, runs much sweeter at the stump. If u find ur doing a lot of scrub work go down to the 13" bar as it prefers this to anything else and it is much more fuel efficient per hour. I don't like these new saws with the fancy auto tune carbs, I find the older models run forever and don't bog down at the stump...

I've got the exact same winch as u and the way I use is this... I look at my tree, get a good guess on the weight, factor in the negative lean on the tree then pull the fooker over! I used mines for dealing with road side sycamore that was all leaning to the road side, but I was able to pull them back onto the land perfectly. Where I wasn't sure if the shear pin would hold the whole tree I dismantled some of the heavier loads to reduce the pulling weight. Remember this, if ur not sure about using the winch then don't. When things go wrong it can be devastating! Negative lean on the tree (pulling it the wrong way from it's lean) adds a good few tonne to the strain of ur winch. Dismantling some of it may be time consuming, but it's worth it when the job goes perfect.

the problem is the plastic casing

I've got a 254xp that cuts better than all the 550xp's combined!

Always dry sycamore on it's end, never flat. An old cabinet maker gave me this idea for planks. Never dealt with rings before though.....

Gotta let them dry first, then get the moisture content down to around 8% so it won't warp once u got it sitting in ur home.... for legs I'd use a stump from a smaller tree, bang slap it in the middle like an elephant hoof! Sycamore has a natural colour that isn't seen about nowadays so a clear coating wood be different from the usual. I would speak to a furniture maker about what type of stuff to user tho. Look at my profile pic, I milled this from an ash tree and I'm still working on it, but it's got it's own natural beauty that I am keeping. Best of luck

I never carry a first aid kit on me, it's always in my bag. If I'm logging and stacking I carry nothing in my pockets at all cause it just gets wreaked in minutes. Glad ur ok though, arterial spray is pretty gross to see squirting out all black like that, making me feel faint thinking about it

Least they had insurance!

I started 12 years ago as a stacker for a second generation woodcutter (he was taught by his dad from age of 10!) Slowly learned how to cut and stack. He put me through 30-31 and encouraged me to go for my big tree cert and the 5day course for first aid. Apart from files slipping off my saw teeth as I press too hard with a fricked file, I've only had sliced fingers and bruised shins from tripping up. I've been doing a lot of hardwood felling this year and it's different. Still no accidents tho! Also, I recently got my high pole pruner (47?) cert and I asked about a refesher and was told that this would cover me. I've spoken to a couple people from the FC about training that is going on with 16-25 yr olds and it's a joke! Highly qualified after 6 months and can fell only fell 7 trees per day...and thet think that's them worked hard! Tell you something for free, if I done 7 trees per tank and was proud of that after 6 months I'd have got laughed at for weeks, called Elizabeth, and had my mobile number wrote in pub toilets saying I like men! It's all becoming a joke because all the cutters that can cut are getting old and the FC are panicking because they can't have and don't have enough good people for the 30 years of harvesting that is coming up!! You may think I kid you on, but this is a job I love. It's not what I do, it's who I am! I live and breath for felling work, and I still stack my own timber too! Sorry for the rant, sort of

I'm always looking for work in Scotland (but am willing to go where the workis) I'm only a hand cutter, but I'm good! Will make you a fortune if u pay me on tonnage pay by the hour and I'll take dinner breaks lol

Sounds like a headache in a tin.... I'm interested in finding out the outcome of this

I've never had a problem with payments ever. Just got a problem finding work 6days a week and no estate is cutting with it being bird season Just lucky I'll do almost anything to make my cash, and just lucky the dodgy fekkers I sometimes deal with always pay up at the end of the job

:thumbup: :thumbup:

Pleading ignorance is never an excuse either.

It's always up to us to inform our clients of licences and the laws pertaining to tree felling. Yes, I do jump in quick, and sometimes cut my price just to get a sweet job closer to home, but whenever I take work from estates or landowners I always make sure they know all the risks involved with my work. Keeps my butt nice an clean

Just found it on Amazon.... [ame]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tree-Diseases-Disorders-Biology-Control/dp/0198549326/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1376244228&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=tree+diseases+and+disorders[/ame]

Is this available from Amazon? I'll look later anyway, with the good reviews ur posting it may be worth while buying

I will remember those words too for future reference as I want to expand from just a cutter into something much bigger. With great responsibility comes greater headaches

That was bloody awesome

And those 550xp are crap too! Gutless at the stump, not like the old saws, 357xp, 254xp, those were good machines

Lucky it wasn't a stihl...It'd be in for scrap