The avantgardener

Don’t bother, splits and warps like hell, makes okay firewood, split it green though.

Yeah, it was released about 3 hours ago.

So, after quite a large amount build up and fanfare, Husqvarna finally unveil their ‘New Generation ‘ saws. They are the 545xp and 550xp Mk2. I was rather hoping for something a little more special like the replacement for the 390/395 series, the rumoured 592xp, or maybe even some new development that rivals Stihl’s 500i saw. Might not be all bad if the improvements on the mark 2 550xp are as good as the improvements made with the 346xp, annoyingly bought two 550’s last month though.

Where are you based?

I am certainly keen to try this saw out. The 462c is a belter to use but as Steve has commented, the build quality is a bit patchy, there has been reports about the casting of the oil tank being an issue on the 500 also, there is a lip that protects the oil filler cap that is cracking off when snedding, the 572xp is a belter also so I will have to get a 500 on demo and run it against the others first.

I have been using Supertack Bio oil from Clarke Forest for around 5 years, no issues whatsoever, I think it is down to the quality of the oil, use Aldi/Lidl chip fat crap and you are asking for trouble.

The small woodland owners that you get around my way are not much better. They have a wood burner fitted then buy 15-50 acres of lapsed coppice/scrub to supply their needs, then they realise it is too much like hard work and the novelty wears off. They then ask contractors to come in and price for putting the coppice back into rotation, when all the cutting, extraction and haulage costs are explained to them the penny drops that instead of the wood being worth its weight in gold as they thought, it is not even worth its weight in wood.

Why would you need CSCS CPCS if you are working in a private woodland that just happens to border a road? I work in woodlands all the time like this and don’t require them, and what the hell is a site management ticket? Never needed one of them either and I am pretty sure I won’t be arrested in the woods for not having one any time soon.

If no one comes forward with anything useful I will ask Chalky when I see him in a couple of weeks.

Holly is a shrub that happens to grow up to 15m and can live for 300 years, so it can also be considered a tree worth putting a TPO on.

I have had a 550xp Triobrake for 3 years, had to import it from Germany as Husqvarna said the was no market for it in the UK, they started selling them in the UK in June this year. I just bought two more 550xpg’s, I wanted heated handles and Triobrake on the same saw but Husqvarna said there was no market for them in the UK, maybe I can have one in another 3 years.

Husqvarna have a completely new designed belt out in the New Year, some dealers already have them, looks impressive.

And not put a couple of cuts in the sides of the tree to ‘dissapate’ the tension....

At least the company now have genuine concern for their climbers exposure to vibration and emissions whilst getting clattered by half a tonne of hardwood.

He wanted to make room for a large wood store so that he could sell logs to offset the £1000. Felling fee.?

Ball park figure for good sweet chestnut coppice in Kent/Sussex is £400-£450 per acre standing, £11-£14 per tonne haulage plus your extraction costs.

Do you mean the purchase of an acre of standing timber to coppice or an acre of woodland to buy? What is the 60-80 tonne total product, fencing material, firewood, chip or all three? You would also need to cost extraction as well as haulage and that depends on access/location and how well you have planned your felling operation etc, have you any experience of any of this?

Try calling Edd 07825 925383 he is pretty local to Uckfield and reliable/honest.

There is a single book that covers all this, it’s called “Years of experience in Forestry and Arb Industry” it’s not something you can pick up in the Library and read overnight though, listen, watch and ask questions when appropriate for the rest of your life in the Industry, you will be surprised that there are still things to learn 20 years later.

There are LANTRA courses for just about every discipline in Landbased skills, be it in agriculture/forestry or arb. You get the books when you book on a course of training, if you need NPTC accreditation you will need to download the NPTC/City and Guilds assessment schedule for the unit you require also, this is the test that the assessor will ask you about. An assessor can assessor two candidates for CS32 in a day, CS34 the same. If you are confident in your ability and know the schedule just book the assessment, there should be a registration fee of around £150 per unit plus the assessors day rate.

I have used both Husqvarna 572xpg and Stihl 462 but on different jobs, I can’t say that I noticed much difference in speed/power and I was massively impressed with the Stihl, never been inmpressed with a 441, dog of a saw designed by a student if ‘Brutalism’ the 462 walks all over it. I will find out next week as I will have the 30 large Oaks to fell with the Husqvarna, my mate will have his Stihl 462 which he bought because of the Husqvarna wasn’t available, he hasn’t been disappointed. He will also have his Woods ported 372xpw to throw into the mix, should make for an interesting week. I will be felling with the bigger saw and delimbing with a Spud ported 346xp and a 562xpg with 13” and 16” guidebars on. Time and motion studies concluded that the felling was only 10% of the work, 48% is delimbing/shedding/cross cutting, if you speed that side up you are far more productive, I’ve found the best way to do this is to have the smallest saw/bar combo to do the task.

As I stated previously, the CS32 or 301 as it is now called has no upper limit. The training will require you to use a 15” or max18” guidebar, the trees on training will be no more than 760mm. Once these skills have been learned and you have the ticket you use these techniques to fell trees over 760mm with a larger saw/guide bar and maybe assisting the fell with a winch, I personally won’t employ anyone or work with anyone felling very large trees just because they hold C32 though, I would be looking at how much experience of felling very large trees they have.

There is no upper limit on CS32, that’s one of the reasons they removed CS33. The trees can be up to twice the guide bar, usually with a 15-18” bar in training, once you know the techniques, bigger trees just need a bigger saw/guide bar.

Sometimes still get paid by the ‘chain’ in chestnut coppice, 22 yards X 22 yards.

I think they are fine out on site or in the woods for a quick brighten up, but most of the guys I know who use them usually have a pretty crap finish on their chains, most of this is probably down to them being sloppy/ bone idle hence the reason they bought them in the first place. The gullet always seems to end up sloping forward of the cutter and the depth gauges are too low, really sluggish in the cut.