Billhook

But how big or heavy were the bags? These net bags are certainly over 25 kg [I have not measured them on a scale, the only scale I have is that my wife cannot lift them and she can pack a mean punch!) The main thing is that they keep nagging me for more and that must say something How much do the bags of coal weigh? I remember on a thread on branch loggings there were people selling them for £7 a bag in the West Country but it was a lot colder that Winter

He was just like Gerard Hoffnung@s "The Bricklayer's Lament" as I have posted before. It is a bit slow I know but "Half way up I met the branch coming down and received a severe blow on the shoulder" The grand finale of the branch landing on his head was too much!

I have seen many of these before but I thought that this was a compilation of some of the worst incidences. Sort of compulsive viewing but with serious undertone.

Yes it is very satisfying to hear all the crackles and crunches but on reviewing some of these videos I think that I would find my way to an end result of usable firewood quicker with the Lucas Mill cutting into those 20 foot lengths of 8x8 and then putting through the Palax to cut and load into foot lengths. There is still quite a lot of work even after the trunk is split with the cone splitters

My initial idea was to put an auger on a teleporter bucket so I could easily go tree planting with the young trees in the bucket. I used an old digger track motor to drive it. This was very successful, particularly as you can see what is going on an adjust angles etc without having to crane your neck as on a tractor. I then thought I would buy a cone splitter, the one ~I bought was from Poland and about £150 Fitted it in place of the auger and was disappointed , I admit I have not really pursued the idea and it may be that the hydraulics are not strong enough, or the motor is half knackered or I tackled the log in the wrong way, but if it cannot split a log like the one in the video it is not much use to me as one that size will go through the processor. What I really want is a splitter to split a large tree trunk. I have a JCB 360 15 ton but at the moment it is easier to put the Lucas Mill around such a trunk and cut it into 8x8 20 foot lengths. I think that I was attempting to do this work below with a cone only designed for small firewood! If you do have success I would be interested to give it another go here.

Yes it is clever on straight bits of birch and it is interesting if you put it up on youtube that the comments seem to be equally divided between those "I want one" and " too slow, too expensive, no good on anything difficult" Personally for similar money I would go for a teleporter with log grab, a decent towable pto processor and a log deck. and probably have some change. You would need a tractor and flatbed to cart the 360 from place to place.

I have only just spotted this machine. Sorry if it has been posted before but I can keep watching it again and again! Great engineering but I feel the cost of the outfit would need quite a bit of firewood sold to pay for it!

Mainly ash and sycamore. For the main house boiler woodburner we have an Aarrow Stratford and the few times we have been a bit tardy about keeping it topped up at night, the loggings are very useful for firing it up quickly from just one or two hot cinders. They are great for starting it initially At the farm office there is a Clearview Pioneer and I half fill it with loggings and use a firelighter and the heat produced will last over a couple of hours which is about the time I need to do the office work. The local pub loves them and keeps nagging me for more. They have an open fire and use them to start it but also on quieter evenings they may have hardly anybody in and may have let the fire die down. Then last thing half a dozen people come in and the loggings are great for instant heat and welcome. I am asking £3 a bag which is not grumbled at and now several more customers from the pub are asking for them, but I am not doing deliveries, so they must come and collect But in your situation a good sharp bill hook or a slasher would work if you want peace and quiet. Personally I would sned with a Stihl 170.

So in that scenario I assume that the safety cut out bar at the mouth pf the hopper would not have time to work, or should it be able to stop the feed rollers in a split second.?

Yes I am decent (most of the time!) and do snedding with a Stihl 170 and a 12" bar. It is a light saw and is easier to control if it kicks back on a small branch. However we do have an Urban branch logger and it will take up to 3". When the branches end with a load of twigs I find that I can stop the branch feeding in just by holding it back (Very little effort) just before the small stuff reaches the knives, which is easier than spending time cutting them off with a hook or a chainsaw. So I just end up with a clump of twigs next to the logger which can be easily dealt with. The branch logger is not like a shredder in that it does not have feed rollers, just revolving knives, so it is unlikely to pull an operator in unlike the poor Australian in that terrible accident. The Urban still does have a safety cut out bar on the hopper entrance and I am surprised that the one in Australia did not have something similar in working order.

I suppose that it is really all about the insidious creep of health and safety versus amenity. And the H&S will always win I expect that there will be a time when all our beautiful mature roadside oak, lime, ash etc will be considered potentially dangerous and there will be an order for their removal, even though they are inspected. A lawyer will argue that a large tree is always potentially dangerous and the more risk averse and litigious our society becomes, the worse it will become.

Five years on and I have only just seen this for the first time. Has any serious arborist found a use for it or is it just for the home owner in the garden? https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BU2UEJE/ref=sspa_dk_detail_4?psc=1 Cordless one here may be of more use. Not sure how easy it is to sharpen the chain

Thanks for clearing that one up. Is there any mention of moisture content with the various cord definitions? Selling it by weight as in the quintal seems to be a better method. I assume only by looking at the crates in Italy that they were either 500kg or 1000 kg in various different split sizes. So 5 or 10 quintal crates, and the crate size may vary according to the wood. A cord of poplar is going to be a lot lighter than a cord of beech.

Bad news about my Stein bag. As usual Jonesie efficiency meant that it arrived this morning, That was the good news. The bad news is that my wife undid the parcel and declared that it was just what she needed for her gardening clobber, so it has disappeared. ( I am weak in her company!)

Just ordered a Stein from Jonesie. Thanks for the tip.

Just come back from Ancona in Italy where they sell it by the Quintal. (15 euros/quintal collected from a builder's yard in wooden crates) I think a quintal is 100 kg but it used to be either 100 lbs or 112 lbs. Strange it should describe 100s when you think that it should be describing 5s or 50s with the quin part. So your next question for mastermind is "How many quintals in a cord" or vice versa

Can you recommend a particular bag?

I am not a climber, just someone who uses wagon rope to secure trailer loads but I am hopeless at coiling it up after use. I always end up spending ages sorting out knots and kinks. What are your best methods? Any of the above?

It is easy to blame farmers but we have come a long way from the bad old days of DDT in the 1950s. We hardly used any insecticides on the farm from the 1980s onwards. Even stopped using aphicides not really because I was trying to be an angel but simply because it was not cost effective. Perhaps looking closer to home, or more accurately peoples homes which are all double glazed, ant proof, fly proof, wasp proof. Rubbish is better recycled and buried, gardens are tended and sprayed, less vegetable patches, less scrubland, more housing, more industry, more air pollution. You only have to read the Rentokil blurb on the website to see that all insects are the enemy and need to be wiped out. https://www.rentokil.com/insects/flying-insects/

On a remote layby near here the council had nailed a sign on a tree saying “ No dumping of litter; maximum fine £20,000” i found a dozen porno magazines had been dumped right under the sign. Naturally it was my duty to inspect and to my surprise i discovered a name and address in the middle of the pile and the address was only a couple of miles away. I phoned the council and the local enforcement officer appeared and took away the evidence, i presume to do a secondary inspection in the privacy of his office. I never expected to hear any more but to my surprise in the local paper a couple of months later a local man was named and shamed for litter dumping and fined £200. He was not quite shamed enough as they did not mention the porn bit in the press article!

"Close to meeting the big man in the sky" Reminded me of the story of St Peter at the Pearly Gates addressing the prejudices of the crowd about to enter. "Before you go in, there are one or two things you ought to know about God. Firstly, She's Black! "

My wife loves her Aduro 9 Danish woodburner but it only likes 12 inch logs cut quite small. The Palax Combi only has a four way static knife so I decided to build a bracket to hold the Portek Quicksplit on the Matbro Teleporter bucket full of 12 inch logs. The bracket just slides on so it is easy to put on and remove. Loading into a crate or barrow means no bending or lifting off the floor. It has a very quick cycle time and is electric , easy to stop and start and is quiet. It cost about £430 over a year ago and has been reliable. I see Portek do a 7 ton model now. this one is 5 ton but deals with most things. The last piece I put in was very knotty. The Palax is perfect for feeding the main woodburner , the Aarrow Stratford which does all the hot water and heating and takes very large logs which last for ages. But it is in the yard on 3 phase and the Portek is handy to have at the home and my wife is safer operating it than wielding an axe!

My wife loves her Aduro 9 Danish woodburner but it only likes 12 inch logs cut quite small. The Palax Combi only has a four way static knife so I decided to build a bracket to hold the Portek Quicksplit on the Matbro Teleporter bucket full of 12 inch logs. The bracket just slides on so it is easy to put on and remove. Loading into a crate or barrow means no bending or lifting off the floor. It has a very quick cycle time and is electric , easy to stop and start and is quiet. It cost about £430 over a year ago and has been reliable. I see Portek do a 7 ton model now. this one is 5 ton but deals with most things. The last piece I put in was very knotty. The Palax is perfect for feeding the main woodburner , the Aarrow Stratford which does all the hot water and heating and takes very large logs which last for ages. But it is in the yard on 3 phase and the Portek is handy to have at the home and my wife is safer operating it than wielding an axe!

I filled 3 one ton potato boxes with laurel today processed through the Palax. The wood is heavy when freshly cut but the circular saw goes through it like butter and it splits well. Proof of the pudding will be sometime next year!