green heart

Haha -yes ! -especially for you.. So, as you must have heard , the hero called Steve helped me find my missing post, earlier on.. nice to hear from you, fella. Long time no see -God høytid !

*Bump* So from a phone call with Makita UK yesterday, it would seem like the new 24m/s 40v Makita UC031G pruning saw (see Stere and Krams posts, above) should be on dealers shelves, before Easter 2026. However, if you can't wait, importing one directly from Japan was £1k -plus Import taxes, last time I looked! It seems the excellent 40v Makita UC029G pruning saws are now back in UK stock again, having sold out this summer. It's still my favourite small pruning saw, by a country mile. In other related news, I was fascinated to see the details of a new Echo 56v pruning saw DHS3006, boasting the (much improved) Mk2 battery pack, Echo's magical harness clip AND belt clip, an 8m/s chain speed, all weighing in at a meagre 1.1kg (plus battery). The motor power rating is a healthy 560W, and availability by March '26?. Quoted prices for battery, body and charger at £427- incl VAT I was told today. Although it costs more than most offerings, I suspect this might effectively grasp first place, in the Best performing small pruning saw section.. More details on the Echo website.

Wow, that's really, properly impressive, Joe Griffin... I so need to get back to the gym, right now, this evening -if only to see what 350kg looks like, on a weight bar! I bet I couldn't lift half that !? -come to think of it, I reckon our 6'' pto timberwolf weighs about that.. unreal. Well done, fella.

Looking at the current pay for Self employed sparkles (typically around a heady £300-500/day), that seems like an eminently sensible route onwards, from tree climbing. However, as AI quietly makes inroads into UK employed/redundancies, I expect a lot of other former employees will start looking to transfer to manual trades, and bring down those day rates back to earth. Demand and supply at work.. Personally, I wonder if the way forward is developing our own remote semi-robotic tree-climbing/cutting tools ! -I reckon Kram's skill-set can't be that far off tackling it, maybe in 2026?? 😉

Not sure of any Heacksler or Scarpur dealers in Manchester/NW, so no experience, sorry. But -we did have a Christmas cracker of an 'educational day' using a Forest master Professional 14hp chipper this week. Read on.. My Review/comments are moderated (for legal reasons!).. and based on a couple of decades of owning/using 4-8'' chippers for our work. We had also previously repaired and used a customer's (new) Forest master 6 hp chipper, which was ok-ish (considering it's size and for 'home use'). So after some consideration, we bought a 14hp direct drive 'Professional' unit (with less than 5 hours use), for one VERY awkward-access back garden job. My plan was to make/fabricate some obvious improvements to the input and output shutes -something that Forest Master's Tech director wouldn't agree to consider, on a potential new 18hp machine. Once on site, mostly chipping up weeping willow, the machine (almost) lasted for just 4 hours of use. In that time, we noted : A serious LOT of machine vibration -and noise too. We (partially) bent/broke one blade. Multiple engine fixings and lock-nuts rattled off/sheared off. Multiple broken welds on the output Shute -it was unusable and destroyed in the 4 hours work. 3 broken welds on input hopper flange welds -it actually fell apart, preventing any further safe use on our site. So then, short and sweet ! And, in fair defence of this unit: It has a VERY low centre of gravity -so is very stable. Light enough at 120 kg, for 2 men to just get it up and down a big 45° slope. Narrow enough to take through the customer's house doorway. It also chipped up willow at an impressive rate, though I'd be nervous about feeding it much over 3'' diameter, in hindsight. I liked that strangely familiar very shiny orange paintwork.. 🫢 It appears customer reviews of their machines must be invited by Forest Master -so I'm unable to submit one, anyway.. Would I recommend/buy another one: Sadly, er, not really.

Santa must have spotted your post -so there's none left in stock this morning -just 12 hours later! 🤫

Josh, Can't you get anywhere near it, using a Quad/scrambler/Off-road scooter type thing instead, perhaps with panniers or a crate strapped on ? Might be more fun than a sweaty walk with a rucksack full of gear and sandwiches.. 🤔

Get a quad bike or 4x4 etc to tow around a couple of water barrels and your Glyphosate, in February/March . Med/coarse nozzle on knapsack. You won't need any spray guards if you spray before buds break into leaf. You won't need dye if working on your own. Mix in some flazasulphuron, for useful residual control element. You should manage around 500/day depending on the usual variables.

Another thing that properly boils my pith: When householders/gardeners historically tip their garden waste into the neighbouring woodland... it's blatantly and obviously fly-tipping (therefore illegal), but impossible to prosecute, without trip-cam evidence, or similar, I'd guess.. One Cheshire woodland I worked in has several hook-loaders worth of garden debris, from just five large houses (£1m+).. But two successive land agents haven't exactly done much about it, despite my questions.. 🤔 Gurr..

@kram I'm always impressed to see practical harnessing of 3D printers -and have a question/job for you: Is it possible you might be able to flex your entreprenurial skills, to make up an 'adaptor piece', to allow the handy 'flip-out' harness hook, from a dcs2500 to be fitted/screwed onto a top-handled 2511 saw ?? If it works OK, I would be happy to pay/buy one -possibly along with quite a few others on here, I suspect ? At, say, £20- each x a few hundred sales(?), it might be a little incentive to consider ? No apology for the Thread-derail -I would plead there is a strong shared common interest here, your Honour..

Motorway matrix signs... slowing all road traffic down to 40mph, for an accident, that was cleared the previous day.... ?! Motorways restricted to 50mph and 2 lanes, for several miles, due to road works, where the only person present is the Traffic Management employee -asleep in the truck.. Yes, I think that's the smell of heated urine..

That's actually a very good question! ⭐️ It would work best with the more expensive 90/120cm high Hawthorn whips, or tall Pyracantha (in an urban setting).. Blackthorn is good too, but unless you include a root barrier along-side the planted hedge-line, then you'll tend to find a huge thicket soon forms from the root suckers, that spread everywhere.. I don't think I've ever seen or heard of anyone doing this.. We'll have to call that the ADD+ planting technique then, Alex?

After encountering a series of nocturnal 'unwanted yard visitors' we layed our 5yr old Hawthorn hedge that we had planted, along the vulnerable gateway entrance. It was 25mm dia x 1.8m high big transplants, less than 20m length. Anticipating future incursions, we then added two strands of razor wire fencing, at 50cm and 100cm high. Worked a treat! No further problems (at that point, anyway!) 15 yrs since. 👍 We've also layed big overgrown gappy Hawthorn hedges (with saw and excavator) , in a something like a Midlands style, to successfully provide instant impenetrable boundaries, for LA's and FC. Again, worked brilliantly.

I remember buying my first 2511, I think, most of ten years ago now. As I picked up the saw, I remarked to the dealer: I'll be needing a replacement exhaust cover in a few months by the look of them. But just one, in all that time! I think that's the only part I've ever put on the saw, apart from chains !? Stunningly reliable

After a year's use with mine, I'd say you'll find that you get used to it, within a week or two. But do avoid/be extremely careful when cutting with the top-side of the bar... it does have really lethal kick back. Always use cut resistant gloves AND sleeves. No 'one handing ' ever ! The set-up on the equivalent 40v Makita pruning saw however, is much nicer to use. Tho the 18v Makita version is a bit underwhelming for professional use IMO. The Sthil AGT40 was OK, too.

Covex, the office at MDL POWER UP have printed their own (brief) paper manual, in English, if you need one. -I doubt you'd need it tho! I really can't see any chance of making clean, normal-sized chippings using this machine, sadly. I'm now looking at the more expensive G l & d chipper, with tracks -but no feed roller. 🙄

So yesterday I had a chipper demo over at MDL Power up, in Carlisle. Also present, was a well-known contributor to this site, and his hound.. From the demo -and subsequent discussions with MDL's office manager, it only now transpires that this 4'' tracked chipper is actually designed for the production of wood-pellet feedstock ! -No, NOT wood chipping!? So it's great at very slowly turning 1'' to 3'' diameter branches into saw dust-like particles -that do happily blow everywhere... We didn't bother trying to chip 4'' hawthorn or cypress, that would be just asking too much, I think. In an effort to produce some actual wood chippings, I swiftly removed the substantial main screen -but no real change, just as covex said above. We then proceeded to remove the 8 off swinging drum hammers, leaving just the two chipping blades. Surprisingly, there was still no change to the particular size output... It has many plus points -but is useless for my needs, unless I diversify into pellet production ! In defence of the unit, the engineer did insist on turning the hydraulic feed-speed down to a snails pace.. 😏

PeteB and Dan, I'd 100% agree with you, re: supporting UK/EU manufacturing, every time -I always detest/avoid buying Chinese goods or tools.. I'd actually spoken with the Greenmech designer/director about two potential improvements to the CS100, prior to likely buying one (-and he was already independently considering one of the mods, then ). But that was 2 years ago now, and sadly, it's evidently gone nowhere, in the light of recent sad takeover news there.. So, against all my principals, it's likely to be the Chinese/MDL chipper ( itself a copy of a Japanese machine !), the best replacement for my small chipper. It has the valuable addition (to me) of a feed roller and tracks, over the M500 JoBeau unit. 🤔😒

Oh yes -a 3D printed stiff-one, that sounds like a winner now, especially for those older climbers amongst us... Is anyone offering to model the prototype? Perhaps Kram or Alex might patent it: The Handy Stiffy Mk1 😆 Sorry, I'll get my coat now..

Well yes, maybe its crap when compared to a bigger tracked 6'' Forst/Jensen/Timber wolf/Greenmech etc However -it's smaller, lighter, suitable for those awkward little 'back garden' type jobs -and significantly, it costs a fraction of the others listed.. I don't suppose it'll last 25 years like my current Cramer and Timber wolf, but hey, horses for courses !

So I tried a welded addition/modification to the metal ring that's supplied with the standard saw lanyard, to try and hold the ring at 90° to lanyard. I think it might work, with some more dabbling, but too busy to sort it, currently. I also noticed on Sorbus marketing photos a rigid alloy-looking ring, that fitted onto the rear attachment point of a top handled Sthil saw. However, I couldn't find this on their website anywhere ? It looked useful. I think the clip on your dcs2500 is the gold standard, tho. I've put a screen shot up of something like the Sorbus device.

Thanks for your correction -I didn't realise it was actually a 10cm thick branch . So, that's actually quite good productivity, for a machine powered only by a 13Hp engine.. When I quizzed the Carlisle agents, they were insistent that their bigger 25Hp engine unit made no discernable difference to chipping performance, only to tracking speed up an incline. Hence they would only now sell the 13Hp engined units. Perhaps I'd better get up to Carlisle, to test out the demonstration unit.

I've noticed these things only usually get stuck when: you're under pressure to crack on.. Or the clients talking to me about something/hanging around/being a pain Or when I'm looking forward to an early Friday afternoon finish... Pretending to be some patient Zen Master tree worker has no effect either! 🤦‍♂️

It looks fairly slow operating in the video, only chipping a 2/3'' diameter branch -can you not increase the feed-in speed any more? Also, I thought that the internal grill could be removed, to give a larger chip size? Not too impressed -I guess it's only powered by a 13hp engine tho. 🤷‍♂️

Hmm.. sounds worrying! I had been meaning to go and trial a Power-up unit, at MDL in Carlisle, in the absence of any useful user feedback on here.. I spoke to one Scottish landscaper who still liked his unit, after a year. So I travelled up to the Carlisle yard and saw their demo unit, but there wasn't any branches available for a working trial, that time. Whilst the tracking controls seemed rather counter intuitive, it actually otherwise appeared to be a fairly well thought out design(!), with the option of a Loncin engine instead of B&S powered version. I think a year of hard work is the only way to get a clue to it's performance. It makes a very good value for money offering, on paper only, perhaps!? Keep us posted with your progress, please?