aspenarb

Most of our work is within a sixty mile rad of base. One of our lads travels an hour a day to get to the yard, if we happen to be sixty miles the wrong way for him he has a very long day, that said we are sometimes on his doorstep. Bob

Milemarkers blurb reckons on 3 gallons per minute flow rate and not very much in the way of psi in hydraulic terms. LAYER LOAD PSI GPM 1 6700 900 3 1 7800 1000 3 1 9100 1100 3 1 10100 1200 3 1 11000 1300 3 1 12000 1400 3 One of these in the pressure line from the pump will measure pressure vs flow, most decent ag engineers will have one. Takes away all the guesswork.

It would be worth sticking a gauge on it and running a few simple tests before playing parts darts.Could be something simple wrong with it like a control valve or a stuck pressure relief valve. Bob

A bit like all the big chippers,mogs,monster tractors and timber trailers, there is so much of this gear purchased and parked up around here,a lot of it doesn't turn a wheel more than once a year and that would be because its in the way. Way too many folk buying gear they think they want instead of thinking about what they actually need, there are rather a lot of very expensive and rapidly depreciating yard ornaments out there. Just saying. Bob

An Aebi with a flail on the front is a fair tool for banks mowing, if they get to a point when they start sliding down sideways you turn them around they are virtually unstoppable romping up and down. I still have mine festering in a shed, a relic from motorway bank clearance work. They also have pto front and rear so they are not a one trick pony. Bob One of these

Drilling/helicoiling is ok if you take your time and set up properly and put a bit of thought into it, stabbing away with a drill will end in tears. The drill will need a guide bush if in a blind hole or jig plate.Had to do this lot on the truck a while back, not a single bolt was going to undo, all forty of them had become one with the hub and the heads had to cut off with the gas axe. Made up a drill jig with dowls to locate on the new disc.

If you are drilling and have access to a lathe @openspaceman was on the money with a drilling bush, next best thing are these two bob hole transfer punches, a bit of a life save if you want to centre on a broken bolt/stud deep in a hole. Bob

New belts need to be ran for a while and brought up to temperature to allow them to bed in before thinking about final tensioning, I always give them half an hour at full revs then allow to cool and re-tension. Touched on this multi belt malarkey on machines before, what's more important is to find a supplier that can supply matched sets of belts all the same length. Off the shelf belts from various batches from the same manufacturer can vary + or- 3mm in length which can and does throw any attempt at proper belt tensioning down the pan, belts from the same batch will all be exactly the same length. I have tamed our local belt supplier and he understands. Bob.

Forgot to add a bit about the kiln dried sand, as soon as the bag is opened its best decanted into an old 20ltr drum or bin and keep the lid on. Any moisture will make the sand clog in the gun. Bob

I know someone that bought an ex employers show for 60k and regretted it. There was about 20k's worth of worn out kit which to be fair got him going, he felt like he would have been far better off throwing the other 40k at a serious advertising campaign. There is never a guarantee an existing client base will stay with a new business owner. Bob

Dont panic Ruben, I pulled that socket out of the scrap bin for demo purposes 🙂 Bob

These two bob sand blast guns are worth a mention, use kiln dried paving sand. Before we start you dont want to be breathing this stuff so get a good mask. A thousand and one uses, one that we can all relate to is crap and dirty connections in trailer sockets. Hard if not impossible things to get clean. Trailer socket the lads ripped off one of the trucks by backing it into a heap of crap. Pick out the worst . Less than a minute with the blaster.

Woody we get the same spiel from Massey etc when they stop fitting or change suppliers of these things, pretty sure if you can identify the make of solenoid that there will some on a shelf somewhere. Bob

Most of these landowners directly or indirectly employ the services of a woodland management company that oversees the whole circus, I don't think many of the smaller woodland owners ever see much of a return on timber if any, most of it is swallowed up in management,maintenance and restocking. Bob

To run that refuse truck you are going to need an Olicence, if you have one there are better alternatives. There was a street trees crew running one around Putney a few years ago,as per any refuse truck it had built in traffic management/ road block capabilities. Bob

The only real difference between a stationary diesel engine and one from an old school car/van is the weights in the injection pump. Stationary engines are normally set to max out at much lower rpm’s , this can’t be achieved by just turning down the max fuel , it’s the governor weights inside the pump that would need changing. I have used a contraption called a speedic in the past which is a belt run engine speed controller. Bit like rocking horse shit to find these days but they will do the job in the same way, pre set the revs as you would on a chipper and the speedic will operate a separate arm to the pump, this keeps an otherwise 4500rpm engine in check. Can also be done with generator speed controllers and servos, if anyone is interested I will post up how. Bob

A lot of guys out there using modified artic trailers Paul. Not sure what's left in the way of a legal payload, with the weight of these modern tractors/trailers combo`s some must be down to under ten tons. Bob

Not sure how others roll, on the small amount of domestic work we do we price in stump grinding/removal as a separate entity. The majority of our domestic customers seem happy to leave the stumps and go with the saving, most likely the reason there is more for the landscapers as and when they come across them. Most of our commercial work is complete stump removal, developers are increasingly anti grinding because of the problems laterals cause them with service laying etc. In forestry stumps at best only get buffed off with a mulcher. Bob

Joe I got a satnav/dashcam for the truck, that's got aux connections for reversing or side cameras. About £130 on Ebay.

I am with john on this, the bigger the better. Ours is 6mts and only just manages to tip in the middle of a high cube walking floor.Its not just about tipping over the side, the clock is ticking for the driver and they need to be evenly loaded. Bob

That really wouldn't be an issue providing the ground wasn't made up of rock, as I said earlier the bore would be10x diameter deep so at five feet down there would be little to no chance of disturbing the tree roots.These machines tow in the pipe as they go, the start hole would have to be long enough to accommodate this. Bob

As above moling ( ground displacement hammers) would be the way to go, not sure what size service you are running but as a rule of thumb a mole needs to be at a minimum depth of 10x its diameter. We have these up to 125mm diameter, very accurate at over 25mts in previously undug ground conditions,not so clever in landfill or made up ground. Bob

You can run a grab and rotator on any machine if its piped for a breaker and you don't want to hold the grab in the vertical plane, as in just picking up or handling/stacking brash/sticks.All you need to do is mount the rotator straight onto the end of the arm , divert the crowd ram pipes to the grab and use the breaker circuit for the rotation. Bob

Never had you down as a Luddite Mick , how have you managed all this mayhem without ever having worked for us? Bob

Yes you can drive an lgv on private tax class, its no different to the bigger horseboxes. It will still need plating though ,you may also struggle to privately insure a truck with a crane or hook loader . A privately registered lgv with a shipping containers on the back may also be a bit of a red flag for eagle eyed plod or DVSA. Bob