Billhook

Thanks for those replies and yes it looks like a new electric start 20 hp will be approaching 2K. A mechanic suggested that it may just be something else which caused the problem. The engine had not been used for three months and I had not turned off the petrol. Looking at both plugs they seemed to be wet with petrol and the oil in the sump contaminated with petrol. One cylinder was 40 psi and the other 100 psi compression. He said that sometimes the carb float sticking might cause the contents of the fuel tank to leak into the cylinders and destroy the oily seal around the rings causing not only lack of compression but also the mixture of oil and petrol in the sump to be drawn out causing the white smoke. It only ran in this condition at idle for a few seconds so I shall drain the sump, change the filter , put a little oil down the plug holes before gently turning over the engine on the pull start. Fill the sump with new oil and see what happens when I try it again and report back!

Bought new in 1996 the Lucas has been a superb investment and very reliable as well as being easy to service. just started the 18hp V Twin Briggs today and let it idle for a bit to warm up before going to work. I turned my back to pick some wood up and there was a "Phut" from the engine followed by a cloud of white smoke before the engine gently stalled. It started again after a few pulls but sounded as though it was running on one cylinder, so I stopped it to investigate further. The oil level was ok, and I suspect that a piston has been holed. I cannot see why this should happen at idle. Has anyone any other ideas? 21 year old engine and I suspect that the cost of investigation and labour and parts might come to much the same as a new engine and have long been thinking of an electric start as I am becoming too old to balance on top of a log trying to pull start the thing! If a new engine is the thing , where is the best place to find one?

Feet, Look after them! After many decades of laziness, especially wearing easy to kick on and off rigger boots, my feet were giving me trouble with collapsing arches and metatarsal pain. The physio showed me how your feet affect the rest of your body in that a collapsed arch may make one knee move over slightly. This will affect your hip (more pain) which tries to compensate This then affects your back (more pain) which does the same which in turn ends up with that pain you have in your neck! Lecture from the physio means I wear properly fitting lace up boots and things are more normal now. Second tip I learned from my mother which she learned in the WRNS in the War. When you tie up the boots with the conventional double loop, when you pull the loop through before tightening take the loop over the knot one more time and pass it through the hole a second time before tightening. This knot is much less likely to become untied and yet is just as easy to release in the conventional way.

Confucious also say "Man who has woman on ground, has peace on Earth"

I think that you have to be reasonable here with the Portek. It is a very quick and easy and quiet way of splitting sensible logs in a domestic situation. I found it to be as good as the hydraulic splitter on my Palax Combi and it split some stuff that I was not expecting it to. You need to be firm with the handle otherwise it will sometimes kick back and if you are not holding it firmly it can hurt. It is obviously not an industrial machine for a firewood business, but it has a place in my domestic woodshed.

I think we all have suffered from the wood becoming jammed at one time or another, usually due to it being fed too fast, blade not as sharp as it should be or certain types of timber. I used to try and knock it out with a large hammer which was awkward on the Palax but now I find it is very much easier to use a log peavey and turn it gently upwards. The log has always come out so far with little resistance. I only need to use the small Stihl peavey on the lever tool.

"But the fighter still remains!" Let Steve keep playing the"Bridge over Troubled Water!"

This is a handy one for the house. 5 ton Quick and quiet. Around £450 I see there is now a 7 tons version here at £499 http://www.briantsltd.co.uk/product/portek-quiksplit-7-7t-log-splitter

My father planted three large plantations of poplar in the early 1960s with grants and with a view to selling to Bryant and May. In those days the graph of potential earnings was steep with so many people smoking and using matches. " In the year 2000 you will be making a fortune from these trees boy and you will never need to work again" The year 2000 came and most had stopped smoking and those that did used butane lighters........... A chance remark from someone who had been in Oregon led me to the log cabin trail. He said that a Church had been built of poplar over 100 years ago and was still in good order. From there I discovered Dan Franklin in Devon and went on one of his full scribe log building courses .http://www.woodenways.com/log-cabins He came up to Lincolnshire in 2001 and with the additional help of a grant from some rural development initiative a team of us built the cabin seen in the first and third photos on his website (with the swans on the lake) The cabin was made from about forty large logs which are clear of the ground, suspended on half a dozen large sandstones so that there is no possibility of the poplar coming into contact with damp soil which would cause rot in no time. I realise that forty logs is thirty eight too many in your case but maybe you can find some more looking for a home. The full scribe method is so good that you cannot slip a piece of paper between the logs and there are no nails. It was all constructed with draw knives, axes, and a special gouging tool made from spring steel The cabin is still doing well 16 years later. I am no better off financially as father promised but perhaps a little better off spiritually!

Great minds think alike!

An possible alternative is to buy a cheap Stiga Park ride on off ebay and fit a ball hitch on the back and fabricate a removable bracket to the arbtrolley. The advantage of this set up is that the track of the Stiga is the same a the arbtrolley and the pivot steer makes it very manoeuvrable. I think I picked the Stiga up for under £50 with no cutting deck and no 5th gear. It is 12hp and has not ever been short of power even with a full load. The Stiga makes less marks on the lawn than the arbtrolley or indeed a human footprint. Sometimes it is necessary to manoeuvre the trolley by hand and it is easy to uncouple for the times you need to do that and for tipping which is easy depending on the load. Sometimes you can tip it straight up but more often I end up taking two of the rods out on one side and tipping it sideways. Fabrication is hard enough when you have a lot of welding and experience with metal work but expensive if you have someone else do it for you. I hope I have shown an easier option for you. There are a couple on ebay at the moment which could be useful with a bit of TLC! http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/stiga-park-pro-20-ride-on-mower-/222633189381?hash=item33d5f8e005:g:r60AAOSwY7pZrBjH

Little Panda Sisley at home in the woods, successfully tackling a dodgy bridge built for a Honda Quad. 1990 build, 27 years old, 27 years of hard work so must be a classic!

What engine? It sounds like a V8 but probably a twin cam

Dangerous statement to make with all the lefties looking at this site! But here is another 25 http://list25.com/25-ways-lefties-are-better-than-righties/5/ Just proves that us lefties are all in our right minds whilst righties are left behind! (Mark Bolam is in a different space!)

More vindication here for Billhook http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2016/03/23/cricketers-have-been-holding-their-bats-wrong-say-scientists/ http://custombats.co.uk/cbforum/index.php?topic=22142.0

A left handed chainsaw!

Right hand drive cars are awful for left handers as we have to open the door with our right hand and then operate the steering wheel for most of the journey with our right hand whilst the left hand does the gears, radio, satnav aircon etc Left hand drive cars are bliss, just like most modern tractors.

Well we seem to have stirred up a hornets nest and they want to beat us up and burn us for being a bit different! We are a bit sinister whilst they are all dexterous. No Stubby, I am not Ginger and I am lost as to why that would be an issue! S.Varty the top handle I can operate in just the same way as an ordinary saw, it is just more dangerous with the saw chain in line with your head in a kick back. It is absolutely correct of you to bat right handed if you are a left handed bowler. I am the same and golf and hockey too. David Gower bats left handed but bowls right arm. This is the reason we do not do well at cricket. If you are totally left handed/right brained then you will also be left eyed. To discover which is your leading eye "Fire" your finger at an object with both eyes open. Then close one eye at a time and see which eye is looking at the object. When you bat "right handed" as a left eye dominant left hander, your dominant left eye is nearer the bowler and not screened by your nose. Also all proper cover drives and good shots are mainly done with the left arm, the right arm is just guiding. It is only village cow shots that are right handed In a similar way I bet that 90% of left handed golfers are in fact right handed at most other things apart from batting at cricket. I also mount a bike from the right side. This also caused me to be thrown off a horse when I tried to do the same. (It has happened a few times with the wife as well!)

Having fought my way up through a right handed world, at school being punished for bad hand writing, in art classes inability to cut out shapes with right handed scissors, music lessons, show me a right handed violin, cello, flute clarinet, oboe. Eventually bought a left handed Stratocaster in 1971 with a 10% premium. Bank cash machines, Carving knives tin openers, corkscrews, the list is endless. Chainsaw course I had to relearn to use right handed but I still have to start it left handed. . I bought myself a long pole extension for the hedge cutting. It was a Lidl special tool with chainsaw/Hedge triimmer /strimmer/blade strimmer and has been well made. I was trimming the top of a thorn hedge when I thought I could smell something burning. I thought that it must be the new paintwork on the machine but then it felt very hot on my left thigh and I looked down to see my jeans smouldering. The exhaust was exiting on the right side of the engine and I had the engine hanging on my left side. I now have a fourth degree burn mark on my thigh! Good job it was not a few inches more the the right! Seriously thought in these days of safety being a priority, why are the major manufacturers not building left handed chainsaws and other equipment? Lefthanders are 10% of the world population.

I have a Whites Coinmaster so I had better try that one out too. It is probably very unlikely and unluckythat you will be unfortunate to come across a Damascus barrel in the middle of a log! Tuning your Whites IDX reminds me of my youth porting and tweaking my Ford Escort. you didn't fit twin Webers on it as well did you?!!

If you have not nailed the job in hand, you are screwed.

I have an old C Scope and have just tested it on my old William Griffiths Damascus barrelled 20 bore and I found it still blips at 12 inches!

Sorry I mean in this case the numbers themselves do not blacken, dots are on other sites.

On the previous arbtalk the little circles below the page numbers used to blacken when you had visited that page so when you went back to the page numbers you could see immediately which page you had last looked at.