Billhook

He has changed a bit from his early days, but the guitar is still sweet!

Would a lot depend on the size of Aunt Mildred's estate and the fact that she did not survive for seven years after giving you the gift, leaving you to pay 40% tax?

I will second that. The X27 seems to be perfect for the splitting job. It never becomes stuck as the head is not that big. I see that the blade on the A2400 is much bigger and does not seem to have the geometry of the X27 which to my mind is the secret of its explosive splitting performance. The A2400 looks as though it will become stuck in a tough log more easily. The X27 is also lighter than most which is important over a day's work. The Fibrecomp handle is made of the same stuff as PTFE tape I believe and seems good at absorbing shocks as well as taking abuse. It is also longer than average giving a heavier blow to the wood. Finally I see X27 coming up favourably again and again on this forum which is probably the best recommendation.

Aaaaah, I remember the days when we left the house unlocked, no burglar alarms, keys left in cars and Tractors,and cars unlocked even in town. Now I am the guilty one if I do any of that. I must be really a lot older than I thought!

Great, just not seen him on General Chat, So many topics, so little time!

I still wonder how Sean is doing after his terrible accident. There but for the grace of God go many of us and I do think of him before I try any potentially dangerous work. His photography was inspirational and was good to see on this forum. last post mid 2016?

I think that this is another disturbing factor in both these burglaries. They both must have known in the first one that I was away which means that it may have been someone I know involved, and the last one, how did they know the way in through a very secret (to most people) hidden door. Again unlikely to find such a door just by rummaging around in the dark with a dim torch. These things play on your mind and it upsets your general trust in anyone who comes onto the farm or woods. It does not help our public "Git orrff my land" image but you can understand how someone like Tony Martin could be driven to extreme and illegal behaviour by this constant intrusion and nobody interested in doing anything about it because " you're insured and nobody was hurt" attitude. Meanwhile the insurance premiums go up as a double punishment.........

Thanks for that and the post from AHPP. Wishing you all the Best for 2018 as well. It is a rotten thing to be burgled and leaves a feeling of violation which is greater than the actual loss of replaceable items. And this was only in the farm workshop which is far less personal than the home. I had the misfortune to be massively burgled back in 1991 when I was abroad. They came with a lorry and cleaned the whole house out, furniture, tools, the old Grandfather Clock, William Ward of Spilsby which had been in the house since the late 1700s. It had a rocking Galleon above the 12 o'clock mark should any of you guys ever see it. My grandma used to put me on a stool when I was very small to wind it up as a special treat if I had been good (not very often!) My Fender Stratocaster left hand maple neck 1968 which was a 21st birthday present. Plus all the heavy old Marshall Amps and speakers Dining tables, chairs, large corner cupboard but they left all the pictures and paintings and broke open the gun cabinet but left the guns. My birds egg collection (bizarre thing to nick) collected by my Gt Grandfather in the days when you did a lot of that sort of thing. Cromwellian armour, pewter mugs, an 18th century blunderbuss, a Japanese officer's sword in fact a raft of unique items including a dozen Persian rugs which I had photographed and not one item has reappeared. It really was a lorry load! So I really know the feelings that all you guys are going through who have had things taken, but I have to count my blessings. Nobody was hurt in these incidents and I have had my fair share of good luck to balance everything. Well set up now with CCTV everywhere linked to the iphone, bit of closing the door after the horse has bolted, but at least I feel I can ring neighbours and the police if I am away and tell them exactly what is happening and where to look.

Or this 42 ton version!

I have had a look around at some of the others but many are one handed and potentially dangerous. They all seem a little slower than the Portek The Little five ton Portek was just fine for the particular job we wanted it for, so I think I will go for another one and as an additional bonus they are now rated at 7 tons. Here are some of the others, Kinetic Log Splitters Oregon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5mmx6Rn3lo DR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W66YcaJfqhI Supersplit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hQf16bGKgo Rockwood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CbydMx9eQw

It suited us just fine for the small splits for the Aduro stove. Never had a jam but the occasional kickback if you did not hold it firmly. Not very good video . I have learnt to put the phone sideways for future filming rather than vertically! Is the 7 ton version from Jones any different?

Feel sympathy for all those who have had a workshop burglary as it is often several months later before you notice that something else was nicked. Even something as obvious as this splitter. Chainsaws and other everyday items are more apparent. The trouble being that it has been behind a wood box in our garage and has not been used there since I last had a big session filling several boxes. I went to look for it there and it had gone, then I remembered that I took it down to the workshop to build a cradle for it to sit in the teleporter bucket and had put it in the workshop store standing up behind a door. So it disappeared with the branch logger. The insurance will add it to the initial claim without excess. The police say that the Newark jumble sales is one of the places to look as well as Brigg. Here is a video of it. It does not look that powerful but it worked well to split smaller bits for our Aduro stove and my wife could work it easily so we miss it.

As a fellow farmer the same thing was drilled into me regarding PTOs. The guards must be fitted and in working order and fixed by a small chain to something static to stop them spinning. I was an eighteen year old student on a dairy farm in the early 1970s and it was in my first week that I was put on the tractor/slurry tanker combination. The pto had no guard and you had to lean over it to close a small rubber valve. It was a big farm of several thousand acres and had two or three managers. I complained to the dairy manager but he was a stroppy git and I could see that it was lump it or find another job elsewhere. I always wore tight fitting overalls and made sure that there was nothing dangling and managed to survive the year. The following year a cowman, not a student, was operating the same machine and it caught him and whipped him over the pto so quickly that it left both his boots behind and punctured his lung as well as nearly severing his arm with a tourniquet made from his jacket. I would not entertain a screw spiltter. I worked one for half a day and that was enough! Since the bad old days when I used to cut wood with an old tractor driven sawbench (hugely dangerous not only for cutting off hands and fingers, but also for splinters flying up at your face, or worse still the saw blade breaking up and bits flying at you) Using an axe for splitting, also dangerous over time. I am hugely grateful; that I managed to buy a Palax Combi off Jas Wilson in 1996 for £2500 second hand. The circular saw is about as protected from the user as possible and out of line, but the splitter is also in a trough covered by a hinged shield and all the split pieces are taken up an elevator to either a crate or a trailer. No picking up and bending This has to be not only the safest system (without being in a sealed cab and everything under remote control), but also one of the fastest.

I like Chalmers idea of consciousness as a fundamental. I watched Vespacian's "Mind over Masters" and the Sam Harris videos. I am not convinced that the experiment which appears to show that we have no free will is valid. The fact that your mind knows the answer before the fact becomes apparent to everyone else could be due to other factors, such as accessing the quantum in a way not understood at present. This does not mean that you have no free will. If consciousness is like a giant internet which soaks up every conscious thought that there ever has been, and you have found access to this "internet" by say meditation, then you could appear to see the future. Perhaps not actually seeing the actual future but seeing a series of events that would lead you to believe in a very likely result. Take this website as being a tiny example. You all have found access to this information by having a computer, an internet server, a code and an identity for this forum. A modern form of going into a meditative trance! In the primitive world, as a Bushman, an Aborigine or a Red Indian might induce a trance before they go off hunting for water or bison to gain similar information from the fundamental consciousness. They then go off on their search looking for signs to guide them. Signs that they may have seen in their "dream" I could post on here that "Billhook will be sitting under Nelson's Column at Midday on Sunday December 31st" There is a strong possibility that you would see me there on the day, and that is the most likely scenario, but I may have been involved in an accident on the way so it did not happen. In the same way in these experiments the mind of the volunteer has assessed the most likely outcome rather than actually seeing the future. I remain a POSSIBILARIAN at heart but I am heading towards free will which is guided by a greater consciousness which has grown up alongside the life force, both of which came into being by random activity rather than intelligent design.

Reminds me of the original Brit Girls thread. "Yer don't look at the mantlepiece when thar's stoking the fire!"

This is the part that I am unclear about. Firstly you state that sense of self is an illusion, and all thoughts are coming from elsewhere, and yet you clearly give us your (individual?) thoughtful opinion on Trump.

Everyone on this thread "seems" to me to be a different individual, with a series of insights and thoughts that I do not think that I could have conceived. So because you all "seem" to be different selves. why should I not be one too?

In that case it is a fine Christmas present!

I enjoyed the Vatican rag The Chemical elements and the New Math were two more favourites

I think that it is a Christmas present as I am sure I have given her ten times the value of the saw in free firewood over the years! It seems to be a heavy barsteward though and quite a lot of compression to start. I assume there is no decompression device but I am big and strong and she is small and weak so it is no wonder it has not been used! I see it has a 59cc engine but I do not know the hp.

Next door neighbour has offered me a Stihl 340. She bought it to deal with a large elm some years ago (over ten?) but found it too much of a handful so it has hardly been used. Still has the original chain unsharpened. 16 inch bar How is the 340 rated?

So what is your biggest fear Se7enthdevil?