Billhook

May as well use an Oregon Suresharp as I have for the last 20 years. Nothing quicker or easier using the truck cigar lighter

I have vertigo just watching any of these videos Or a helicopter linesman, if the fall don't git ya the electricity will!

This is was surprising video when I put butts and kickbacks on the youtube search engine!

Wot, no safety two handed operation?

But you do have a big lever to raise or lower the blade manually? My Mk 1 you have to undo a bolt which locks the blade and then grab the blade and pull it up or down. I did weld a handle on the nut to at least make that part easier. A hydraulic device would be great but another thing to go wrong. I find that I am now splitting far less timber as the stove burns more evenly and lasts longer with lengths of round unsplit, so the blade spends most of its time off the machine.

Would a bit of copper grease help or increase the danger of working loose? Anti seize sounds good as does the double nut, but I was amazed how easily the bolt undid with not too heavy pressure on the socket bar and not too heavy on the hammer blow.

12 inches for putting through the circular saw and slightly larger if you have a length cut with the chainsaw that you just want to put through the splitter, you have to drop that one straight on the splitter bed. Totally agree with Timbernut concerning blades versus chainsaws. A good blade with sharp tungsten tips goes through 95% of timber like a knife through butter and does not need sharpening as often as a chain. Timbernut has your Mk2 an easy adjuster for the static axe, and if so is it just as easy to remove and replace the static axe?

I don' t know about Andy Cobb and Timbernut, but the reason I have never felt the need for an upgrade from the Mk 1is that I like to feel the force of the saw blade entering the wood, which can be very different on different timber and I do not like the idea of automatic feeds and automatic chainsaw/blade operation. The manual feed is quite easy and keeps me warm enough whereas sitting operating levers or switches does not on these cold frosty days. Also I can put through very bent lengths of timber and because I now operate the splitter ram on a foot pedal rather than the auto lever, I can cut half a dozen say 3 -6 inch diameter logs without the splitting knife and just use the ram to occasionally push them onto the conveyor. In this way the machine is much quicker than the auto ones which need to go through a cycle every time. The additional benefit is that when a log falls sideways into the splitting chamber, which it inevitably does on occasion, then it is easy to straighten. On auto it would be driven sideways into the splitter which stopped the machine and caused a lot of hassle.

It was interesting to watch that series on astronaut training and selection. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b092ng4q There was a very mixed bunch of candidates, ranging from two women pilots to athletes to a gangly looking geek who had a degree in physics I think. you looked at the candidates and you thought that he was the least likely to make it, but he hovered the heliicopter better than the pilots and docked the simulated shuttle perfectly., and he was in the final three and only not chosen because of his close relationship with his family and his young age. But the main thing that came out of it for me was that it was vital according to the man in charge Chris Hadfield, who had been on the space station himself, that the candidate must be able to interact with the other crew and be a positive, uplifting character that you wanted to be around. When they sent the first crew up to the space station they were inevitably alpha males, all brilliant at their tasks but they very nearly or probably actually had fist fights on board because of the intensity of working together as alpha males in such a dangerous environment. Not too dissimilar to arb work where there are a lot of alpha males working in a dangerous environment. My main point here is that if you can make a good impression on your potential new boss and workforce, that you are someone who people want to be around, then you are half way there. I always liked this comment on " I have a lot of experience" "Some people have 1000 different experiences, while others have the same experience a 1000 times!"

Mk 1 has one piece conveyor which has rubber belt, very tall for transport and storage Mk 2 has folding conveyor, revised splitter, and maybe easier adjustment if static knife. Looks like a sorted Mk 1 from the niggles point of view It will all come down to price in the end as the Mk 1 has done everything I needed with no problems since 1996 when I bought it off Jas Wilson for £2500

Kevin has been making more videos!

I was thinking of that as well as I have the old 15 ton JCB swing shovel, just trying to find the easiest option and certainly if it works, a stout static knife with the dozer seems the least amount of welding and cost. Need something to do on boxing day to avoid eating anymore left overs!

That was my original plan, and I bought a JCB ram and some H section and welded another bit of dozer blade, I even have the Matbro brackets ready to weld on but I just thought that it is not big enough for the trunks I want to split. Perhaps it would be a better Idea to experiment with the 17 ton Caterpillar D7 " Daisy Etta" as not much stops that machine from going forwards and I doubt if anything will bend the two ton blade! It would be better to have the Matbro at the side ready to pick up the pieces and set them in place for another go if it works. I will need to make the static vertical knife fairly strong and well supported!

I was thinking of post hole followed by the sharpened dozer blade welded inside a length of box section. Put the box section into the ground and concrete around leaving the sharpened blade sticking up vertically At the base of the blade at ground level I would weld another short stout bit of steel to hold a heavy duty chain in position, Take two lengths of chain back to the teleporter either side of the log and fasten them to the chassis with shackles. The advantage of the chain is that you can try and split any length of log by just shortening the chain. I only need to do this occasionally to split it down to a 12 inch size that will go through the Palax processor. Something should give way, it is a question of what! It may help to weld a short sharp leading triangle on the knife just to start opening up the log. By the way I was trying to work out the tonnage force of the teleporter ram extending in the same way that log splitters are categorised. Is there a formula? The Matbro 270 TS certainly seems to be very powerful pushing itself out of deep wet holes when stuck.

We have TPOs on whole roadside copses by the house, which are in the garden. Full of overgrown Laurel and Elder in between a few nice Holly and Yew. I do not know who put these orders on or what the procedure is. They were placed in the 1980s. Is asking for a review sensible or does it open another can of worms? Is it different in different areas? Can anyone apply to put a TPO on any tree anonymously?

With the benefit of hindsight and looking forward to the new house, is there anything you think you could have done to protect it from wild fires in the way of fire breaks or sprinkler systems or are the fires so intense to make such ideas hopeless. It is not just the work but the love you put into it that makes it such a tragedy. I suppose that it is time to count your blessings in that no one was hurt. Tools and house are replaceable.

It was all going so well! Lovely log from a non hedgerow tree, just nearing the last runs and there was a raspy sound which lasted a few milliseconds. That is how long it takes to remove all the five teeth on the blade. Still never found what it was, but it must have been metal and well up the tree. So I have changed many Lucas blades over the last twenty years, more than average as I have been taking them off to do some Lucas slabbing. Never had too much trouble until this one and the Allen screws holding the blade were tight, and I mean tight. I have some high quality socket Allen keys but you could tell something bad was about to happen if I put any more tension on the bar. Tried a bit of heat but not too much which made no difference and I did not want to de-temper the blade. No visible rust anywhere and the blade was last changed in the Summer. Gave the hub a mighty belt with the hammer to try and shock something, still no joy. The answer was for a friend to lean on the bar using moderate force while I hit the other end of the bar over the socket which is in turn over the Allen screw. Doing this with moderate forces on both hammer and bar released all the screws quite easily. Some of you may find this useful one day (others may say go teach your grandma to suck eggs!)

This is the sort of effect I am after for little extra cost!

Thanks for the thought, but that splitter is really no different to the one on the Palax in terms of length, maybe a bit more diameter. What I am hoping for is the that the Teleporter will have enough ram pressure in the telescopic boom to push a large tree trunk through a static knife The knife being concreted into the ground and also attached to the teleporter chassis with chains

If you slip you are completely buggered!

Just had the 181 back from the shop today. The engine runs better and the saw does not bog down anymore but it seems heavier than the 170 both with the same bar and chain, it uses more fuel, does not lubricate the chain quite so well and I hate the filler caps. I would pick up the 170 any day over the 181 as it seems to have more power as well, maybe because it is run in. I think that the 181 is going back as it has not even had the chain sharpened yet as it is still sharp having hardly cut anything.

I cannot see why flow and cooling would be a problem as it would not be running a hydraulic motor and these machines are designed to spend all day lifting heavy loads in difficult conditions. I have a need to very occasionally split a large tree trunk, that I cannot put through the 12 inch capacity of the Palax Combi. At the moment this means tedious cutting into rings and splitting with an axe. So rather than do the ringing and paying for a large hydraulic splitter , I was thinking of building a log cradle at ground level and weld a large static knife at one end. (I have several old worn dozer blades kicking about) I could chain the chassis of the teleporter to the log cradle and then push a log using the full pushing force of the ram and hydraulics through the knife. The boom extends out over three metres so I can split those sort of lengths which I could then put through the Palax. In fact there would be no limit to the length of the log as you could just have a longer chain which could be shortened with shackles as necessary. I am fairly confident that the machine has a lot of pushing power as it easily can push its own eight ton weight out of a sticky hole when stuck. It would be quite simple to unhook the chain after splitting to use the teleporter to pick up the pieces for re-splitting or taking over to the Palax. Watch this space! It could be another of my youtube fails!

It seems as though all the elements are there to make a great splitter. Heavy duty long ram, engine power and hydraulic flow , cab and seat and controls Has anyone converted one by fixing a cradle for the log on the front of the machine and then mounting an axe on the front plate of the boom and split the log by retracting the ram. An additional benefit would be the ease of lifting heavy logs into position. Probably too simple, like me!

https://www.medicinenet.com/psoriatic_arthritis/article.htm

I bought a Bushnell Trophy Cam about three years ago for about £200 and it has lasted well and the bwtteries seem to last for ever, at least six months with quite a lot of traffic. I put this one down by the lake to catch the otters. I put it on a tree on a narrow piece of ground between the lake and the stream so that wildlife has no option but to go by. The night shots are always black and white and the range is effectively about twenty yards as far as triggering the camera goes. You than then either set it up with a ten second video which resets again after another short period, or a series of three still shots. Day light is in colour and has the range of a normal camera. You can either watch the video on the camera or take it home and watch on you computer which I recommend. You need to site the camera facing away from sunlight and away from branches and plants that move with the wind which can set the camera off. I bought the Bushnell as it has a screen to disguise the infrared light which some animals might see and be alarmed by. I see there are hundreds of these cameras if you search on Amazon and many around the £60 mark. I bought one of these cheaper ones https://www.amazon.com/Cyberdax-Infrared-Waterproof-Wildlife-Scouting/dp/B01DXEM0CU which I can only find on the American site but it has been fine so I am sure a cheaper one would be the way to start and if you find you are keen and the results are good, then you can upgrade.