Johnpl315

No worries, I will send you some more pictures over sometime in the next week, working on a different site for the next few days

Quite possibly yes but I have family on mull. Quite happy to travel and stay away during the week.

Thanks Mick. I do get to work in some pretty places

Hi all. For personal reasons I am looking to relocate my work from Sussex to the West coast of Scotland. I have been a chainsaw operator for the past 14 years. Mostly chestnut coppicing, but I have done all manner of work, hardwood thinning, felling softwood for a skyline winch, brashing, mechanical weeding and scrub and vegetation clearance. Four years ago, I went from purely being a self employed cutter, to coppicing my own bits of chestnut on small local estates. I bought an alpine tractor, small forwarding trailer and winch. Overall, I would regard it as a success, although good quality sweet chestnut is hard to come by these days. Now to the point, for personal reasons I am looking to relocate to the isle of mull, on the west coast of Scotland. I have worked in that region previously cutting and chokering for a skyline winch, but I am interested to hear people's opinions on wether I will find any work for my tractor up there. I don't think there will be much, if any forwarding work as it is just too small and fragile for commercial softwood, so I am thinking more about getting a variety of other implements, probably starting with a flail and possibly log splitter and looking for contracting opportunities. If anyone has any ideas on how viable this may be I would love to hear some opinions. Would look to work not just on mull but the mainland probably from Oban up to fort William depending on the job.

When I needed to rent a truck earlier in the year it was incredibly difficult and the best price I could find was I think £500 a week. Where are you renting a truck for £25 a day?

Have you got any photos of said trees? I would suggest it might be more cost effective to winch the trees up on to the island assuming there's space to do so. What kind of diameter are the trees? I may be able to help, pm me if you want. Thanks, John

Usual story 🤣 On the firewood pile then haha Thanks for the reply!

Any demand for box wood timber?

Holy moly! I have always had a hard time shifting beech firewood, prime quality plantation grown beech sits in the loading bay for months getting lighter and lighter as nobody wants to collect it

Really? What kind of money are we talking?

Depends on your forwarding setup and on your customers requirements? I normally cut three meters as I can only fit one bay, if you can fit two bays of 2.5 then cut that! If you can fit two bays of 3m even better! If you are thinning and hand cutting it can be useful to cut shorter lengths so you can cut up a hung up tree without holding the saw up to high.

I second this, gorse can be a good nursery crop for young trees. I would clear the immediate are around the trees but leave the rest, unless you have a tractor or skid with a mulcher.

When I was in Norway it seemed the Norwegians bought their cabins in kits from Eastern Europe, Latvia and Lithuania. I don't know of any specific companies though I am afraid.

I think unless you know them well having volunteers on site just makes the job harder and more dangerous. Why not do any cutting when there are no volunteers on site and then they can go in once you have finished and clear up and then they won't be required to be covered by your insurance anyway?

Dead oak stumps can be worth a lot of money if you put a glass table top on top of them!