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The avantgardener

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Everything posted by The avantgardener

  1. The avantgardener
    Tirfor produce a useful ground anchor that sometimes come up on flea bay, quite useful for winching with no natural anchor points.
  2. The avantgardener
    Moved over to Aspen about 5 years ago and never changed anything in the old saws, hedge trimmers or brushcutters, no problems arose. It adds up for me about a £10 more per day, I just add it on the job or fell another tonne. Its worth the money just so I don’t end up queuing at the petrol station in the mornings behind builders buying Costa coffees and people doing the weekly shop. I really notice the difference using the hedge cutters at home, I used to reek of two stoke and strip off before going in the house. Cant stand to pick up anyone else’s saw up at work now, two stroke really gets the back if my throat.
  3. The avantgardener
    Kickback zone would be between 12 and 3 O’clock on the disk as long as the head rotates anti clockwise as normal. I use tri blades for coarse grass, it allows you to row the vegetation up if you want to collect it in, I use a Husqvarna shredder blade for bramble and small saplings, it has down curved edges and smashes everything to pieces, larger wood I use a Scarlett Clearing saw blade, easy to resharpen with a standard round file.
  4. The avantgardener
    I planted lots of different Ash from all over the world as an experiment at Bedgebury Pinetum 5 years ago, all look great so far but not holding my breath, it has already been confirmed in other host species of the Oleaceae family.
  5. The avantgardener
    The LANTRA and NPTC site specific risk assessment templates have a box for this too, very useful tool.
  6. The avantgardener
  7. The avantgardener
    Last year we had a long hot summer in the South East, It was the first hot summer that lasted any length of time in years, 2018 had hot spells here but it is normal in Summer, before that 76, as there been extensive annual droughts in other parts of the country that I am unaware of recently? The Ash I took down recently was mixed with a Beech crop, Beech tends to suffer more from drought conditions than Ash, the Beech is fine , the Ash is f**ked, it’s been declining on this site for years and certainly isn’t coming back.
  8. The avantgardener
    Are you out of the Forestry game, full stop?
  9. The avantgardener
    I will have some at my Mams. There was a guy round the corner from me had a Black and Yellow Kenny Roberts replica, made mine look mediocre.
  10. The avantgardener
    Mine was an Akai special, half fairing and bellybpan.
  11. The avantgardener
    Castrol R is what it smelled like in Lancashire for the whole summer if 83, combined with the sound of the RD350 LC. Loads of scooter boys using Aspen in their lambretta’s these days.
  12. The avantgardener
    I would estimate that at least fifty percent of the 500 plus Ash trees that we thinned in this compartment showed some form of internal decay at the base, even if the crown was showing only slight die back symptoms. Most of the trees had the buttresses left on as a hold when felling, the the hinge wood was weak or decayed. The tree survey completed the previous Autumn had highlighted large amounts of honey fungus present in the stand. We will be removing a similar amount in another stand this year.
  13. The avantgardener
    The total dieback of the crown is caused by Chalara, the weakened tree has then succumbed to another pathogen which has caused butt decay and/or death of the Cambium layer.
  14. The avantgardener
    I bought a Woodchuck one from Rob D, he had a deal on at the time, not cheap but really impressed with it, it is light, aviation aluminium, and mine has an attachment that you can roll large logs up off the ground with, makes cross cutting easier on the back.
  15. The avantgardener
    This is what we are coming across in East Sussex although it is pretty extensive all over the South East. B0D80D89-F08C-4FEA-935F-787E39092FAC.MP4
  16. The avantgardener
    I simply don’t think it is possible to train a novice anything other than the very basics of Forestry in five days, no matter how good the Instructor or candidate is, quite often on a five day course you won’t even cut more than one species, the site may be softwood so you have never even felled a hardwood. The FC do the CS30/31 over ten days but this is bankrolled by us, not many training providers would fill a course of this duration due to the costs involved. I would certainly prefer to get a novice in who is keen and with the basics and train them in house, when they have the consistency of the cuts and fluid movement, look comfortable and safe on the saw then they get their Assessment booked.
  17. The avantgardener
    Most of the younger guys that I have cut with over the last 10 years arrived green with a new CS31 under their belt and pretty much useless at production. If they showed up everyday and put the hours in they had time spent on them so that they improved, none of them required any more formal/paid for ground based training as it was all done on the job by the experienced cutters, when they where deemed ready, the Assessment was booked and they walk it.
  18. The avantgardener
    But that’s exactly the point. You pay for the usual 5 day course of training but off your own back add an extra 100 hours in your log book, being mentored by an experienced cutter before taking the Assessment, on piece rate they could at least cover some of their expenses and get a realistic idea if what they are worth, unlike the unrealistic, I have got a ‘ticket’ so therefore I want £150+ a day nonsense.
  19. The avantgardener
    It’s not a lack of expertise in the training, just how good can you get a novice to be in 5 days? It’s the lack of hours/experience on the saw that is the problem, this can only be remedied by hours/experience on the saw, especially if they are being mentored by someone with massive industry experience.
  20. The avantgardener
    This is biased towards Forestry, not Arb. I work everyday doing coppice work, large hardwood thinning, and oversized softwoods running alongside a harvester, all using a chainsaw. A newly trained candidate would benefit immensely from working alongside us, they would clock up the hours in no time.
  21. The avantgardener
    The August issue of the Forestry Contracting Association magazine has an interesting article on the possible future direction of Training/Assessment for Forestry chainsaw units, for me this is exactly what the industry needs as the quality of the newly ‘Ticketed’ guys I have worked with other the last couple of years is dire. That being said, this proposal is from the chainsaw working group who advise FISA, and as FISA are the most inept body in the history of mankind, things may take a century or two to be implemented. FISA last posted minutes of their working group meetings in March 2014 and wonder why no one knows what they do? Whenever I have spoke with anyone at FISA they are at yet another trade show, they “will get back to me” when they return, then they don't, unless it’s time to renew the membership that is.
  22. The avantgardener
    I milled some in different dimensions a good few years back, within weeks it had warped and twisted so much it resembled my whippets back legs.
  23. The avantgardener
    Did the ten years from 89 onwards minus fallow years, never paid once, that was part of the buzz, especially when the unclimbable fence came in, I mean, really. The last time I went I had been given a ticket, couldn’t bring myself to hand it in and climbed over and sold it for £100 the next morning, great memories.
  24. The avantgardener
    Ha, the bounce on three strand! Ropes have really moved on. I remember opening the parcel containing my first 50m New England static rope with a spliced eye, purchased from Honey Brothers in 94, sent a cheque, the standard wait of 28 days for delivery, it’s now a LOLER fail demo rope in my mates workshop.
  25. The avantgardener
    PM next month then resigning come October when he fails to take us out of the EU?

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