Will C

Forst ST6 here Dont think it can be beaten at the moment:001_cool:

Sacked! Good luck getting that flywheel balanced again:thumbup1:

Yes Im a pro user but i only do about half a dozen hedge jobs a year, prob a day worth of strimmer use and all the rest is all domestic tree and woodland work. My hedge cutter at the mo is a old komatsu one that is about 15 year old and the strimmer is a cheap (and nasty from a users point but, nun the less, allways starts and does the job) ryobi and currently about 5 year old so i cant see me having a problem with it if its reasonable gear. seems daft to pay a lot of money for kit i dont use much, If i earnt my living from hedges instead of trees i would be looking for the best available like i do with saws and my chipper. As to the warranty does that mean i need to send the mrs in to buy it:lol:

the stuff with the Kawasaki engines has got a 3 year warenty It would seem that it may well be worth a punt

I was in our local hire shop today to book a stump grinder. Happened to look at a Mitox combi system as i walked past it.It had got a Kawasaki engine in it, came with hedge cutter, pole saw, strimmer (inc line and brush cutter heads) and a extra extention pole all for under £500 ! My old long pole hedge cutter is near the end of its life, this whole set up is cheaper than a decend stihl hedge cutter or for a better comparision the stihl combi system engine alone is £450. Has any one had any thing to do with these Mitox things? Is it value for a tool that only does a few jobs a year or a classic case of paying peanuts to get monkeys

So a load to the top of the greedy boards makes most of us over weight:lol:

:001_tongue:Thanks. We have registered for the lower tier one, another box ticked

We are looking at getting one before they start to charge for them and make us all have one:001_rolleyes: What classes as waste? Is chip waste or a product waiting for re sale? We have a few free tips for chip, works well for all involved but if we go down the waste carriers licence route will we have to give a ticket to the customer and then not be able to give it away? The other solution we have thought of is: Is it waste if i charge the man i previously gave chip to say 10p a load? Or would I only need to give a waste transfer note for the half bag of sweepings that cant go through the chipper? Surley any wood from jobs cannot be waste? Thats all fuel wood:thumbup1: OR is it all waste? in which case we recycle 99% of our waste and should get a grant:lol: Damm paper work, get me back up the tree:lol: Sorry about any bad grammer and/or spelling, my good lady does the paper work, i do the saw

we are about 5 years in. remember the fone will ring at 9pm or later some days! We started by getting rid of chip to anyone that wanted it, we now have a good list and get rid of at least 75% of our chip the day we make it, it goes to gardeners, in chicken runs, rd ways etc etc that way you wont need a yard to start, same goes for any timber, easy to sell off site if you cant store it. Think simple to start, we now have a yard and own chipper etc but remember all in good time. We started out by hireing a chipper from another tree man that does mainly servay work so didnt need his chipper most days. Remember you need to be competitive but dont sell your self short, dont try to compete with the gardener with a chain saw end on his strimmer, sooner or later the customer will be back for you to sort his mess, then the price goes up ;-)

cheers everyone. I will have a ask around local and see what i can borrow to try on Being on the Isle of Wight we haven't got a dealer for climbing gear so just nipping in to try a few on is quite an involved job Im tempted by a change, the weaver has lasted and served me well but times move on and im starting to look at easier ways to work rather than just the mad he-man attitude of youth. Im not old, just getting old enough to know bette r:001_tt2:

My old weaver harness is in need of changing. Ive always been fairly happy/ comfortable in it, some climbers i know laugh at it calling it a horse harness Are the modern harnesses like the petzl sequoia etc really much better? If so any recommendations? Would like to get something that is going to be user friendly as i will spend most days in it Cheers Will.

I binned the 14" bar and went down to a 12 for climbing before i had a top handle, i find the 181 slow at best, i would guess with a 16" bar you may do more damage using it as a axe!!!!!!!!!!!!

Same here, I got hold of a net bag with a drawstring to replase the pillow case tho.

Off with it's head!!! Small stuff gets twisted and ripped off, gives great satisfaction:lol:

I use a 441 with upto a 25" bar when the husky 540 runs out of bar. I used a mates 362 the other day with a 18" in, that was a nice saw

We have had our forst for just over a week. So far i still say over all its the best chipper ive used would like a pair of handles on the front of the bonnet tho to help man handle it, but only a small gripe

I love my 540. excellent bit of kit, as has been said it is so well balanced, seems well built so far. Ive had mine about a month so far and it has given no probs, Ive evan droped it 20ft out of a mac (kab fail) luckly it landed on a heap of brash and was fine:thumbup: My only small gripe is it can be a pain if its been stoped for 5 min, needs priming again before it will start, not really a prob, just anoying when your only just balanced in a fork with one foot

Just re read the thread Jack and seen your posts - sounds like you are in exactly the same boat as we were - we wanted to invest once and properly and not end up with regrets. We too thought how much stronger built the Forst looked compared to the Greenmech. We have just come from a 99 Entec so anything was going to be better With regards to viney stuff etc - the Forst just seems to eat whatever is thrown at it and regurgitate it back out as small stuff! The Greenmech did struggle on bits, we have proven the Forst won't and will do it with ease. Both have had 6" Holme Oak put through them - the Forst munched it and the Greenmech stalled.

Absolutely 100%. No regrets here! Going to take some getting used to just how good it is! Managed to spray chip over the truck and into customers flower bed Really nice to use, the only thing that lets it down against the Green Mech is the noise, however, it is no noiser than any other brands apart from the Green one. Team Forst all the way here and the Customer Service is Spot On! Not once did they comment on us being on an Island and it being a pain like most companies do, and very happy and confident it will be as good as having a dealer here - a little trip round the factory proved that! It was one of the Groundy's first day with it today - he was made up with it! Felt proper spoilt! And was very happy with our choice! It did get difficult to make the choice in the end, much harder than we thought it would! And as IC Trees said - they both have good and bad points If you have any specific questions/worries etc ask away - more than happy to help if we can! And as to people saying how quick they are - we had to turn the feed rollers down so we didn't get done on the job to quick! Have you had them on demo yet? (Apologies if you have said - not had time to look through properly for a few days)

Its arrived!

I think your onto some thing there. I'm going to have to try to educate some of our log customers. There is only so much pine and Mac I can burn at home

We have now had a demo of both machines We had a very hard decision to decide if we should go green or orange:001_huh: We were very impressed with the quiteness of the green mech and the lightness is a bonus when you have to manhandle it into a narrow drive way on a hill but i was worried if the weight had been lost to robustness. Having a turbo on the machine means more time needs to be given to cool it down than a non turbo engine. The forst was built like a tank, not going to fall apart in a hurry. It munched everything we saw thrown at it quicker and had no turbo to allow to cool. You can also carry fuel cans/climbing gear etc in the hopper of the forst but the green mech tailboard seemed to short to trust stuff being left in there on the rough isle of wight roads. We came over to the mainland to see another forst as the only one on the island has got a one off hopper on it and i didnt like that so wanted to see a proper one and that made all the difference to it being the machine for us A Big Thanks to Matt from Redwood for picking us up from the boat to show us the machines with a proper hopper on and all the guys whose machines we saw, It was also good to see the factory while we were on the mainland, and nice to see where the machine comes from And we mustn't forget the greenmech dealers for all their assistance and help too. It had got so close we could almost of tossed a coin on it. Which we weren't expecting to be the case. We had a whole list of pros and cons to both machines and we wanted to be sure of our decision, like many others we can't afford to mess up! Thank you to everyone who assisted us, we now look forward to receiving our new orange toy! And some sleep not thinking about chippers!

It is far from the deciding factor, just something that was brought up by a salesman as a point to consider, but clearly it doesn't have an impact from what you guys have said. We are not getting hung up on any particularly point, it is so close we just need to check out anything that has been thrown at us to sway us, we can't afford to buy twice so want to get it right.

coming to the mainland to try the forst on mon:thumbup: the green mech was good but im not convinced it will last as long:confused1: both got nipples so all good

one of the last mk5 transits on a W reg now on 234500. belived to be og engine, drinks 3 litres of oil a week so it only needs filters changing:001_tongue: had a lot of body work but still going:biggrin: Its a crew cab and got a extra leaf in the rear springs so it sits level with a good load on I think if i go home over weight its ok because i was empty in the morning so it averages out:001_tt2: