Domino

Oh thank god...welcome to the land of reliable motoring 

Hedge mong is a troll........I do like the name though. 

I love this guy....reminds me of the Vespian days.

 How wonderfully innocent you are if don't twig this 😀, everyone does realise this is a troll right????  

On 31/05/2023 at 06:46, doobin said:

You’ve got no visibility at all with the collector box in front of you! With a rear mount you’ve a chance of seeing some thing you want to keep and lifting up as you pass over it, no chance with the box in front of you. Compaction levels- the tractor weighs less than the loader on a similar footprint. The tractor is more nimble than the loader with its independent brakes and in this case bi-speed turning. 
 

 

I do tons of cut and collect and all the loader is good for is clearing up and pushing the dump pile up imo. I don’t get why people are wed to using their loaders as an inneficient hydraulic tool carrier when direct drive pto compact tractors and implements are much cheaper to buy and run. 

above all, a tractor is far, far quicker. 

Wow, that's an amazing setup, simply stunning, I can only dream of such things...I bow down to you're immense setup and knowledge oh great one! 

You seem to be totally missing point matey....I do tree surgery, hence the forum title, not mowing for a living.  Our two Avant loaders earn their keep moving timber/brash/chip as well as running digger attachments, cone splitters, flails, cement mixers to name but a few.  My point was using existing equipment to make an income when tree work is quiet...do you get that, or is it too complicated?? 

On 26/05/2023 at 12:10, doobin said:

Trouble is then you're up against us contractors with actual tractors 😀

 

What does an Avant flail collector cost to rent? I've always thought it an absoloute abortion of an attachment, as well as horrendously overpriced. No visibility, shit laods of hydraulic losses and knocks the hell out of the loader when you lift it up to run it to the collection point. I guarantee I could cut any meadow you cut with it in less than half the time with my cheap compact tractor and secondhand flail collector.

 

If you're getting plenty of that kind of work you could buy a secondhand tractor and flail collector for around £5- £4k for a 26hp Iseki or Mitsubishi and £1k for the collector. You'll quickly see just how much more efficient the tractor is for all other mowing also.

 

Flail mowing possibly an exception as front mount is nice, but thats why you buy a reverse drive tractor! McCormick G23 reverse drive hydrostatic alpine tractors come up occasionally for around £4k.

Just get on absolutely fine with it to be honest my friend.  An Avant is just in a different league for maneuverability on small sites and perfect visibility being up front vs trailing behind, so not sure what you're on about there.  Wild flower meadow mowing is all about adjusting heights across the whole area and limiting compaction which are the real benefits of the avant in that situation.  Yes I agree a standard compact tractor setup for traditional mowing would be better suited, but that's not what I am being asked to do.  Regarding cost, a weeks hire on standard flail or collector flail is pretty reasonable. 

If everyone lowers their prices and spends money on SEO that'll fix it for everyone.......oh, hang on a minute 😀

In answer to the original question - yes things seem to be increasingly competitive in my area, which is a competition I'm not happy to partake in, much to my demise possibly.

Using existing machinery in other areas to bump up income is a solution...flail mowing with the Avant seems quite sort after, and meadow mowing with the collector flail (rented attachments) is getting popular amongst the well healed folk who enjoy such indulgences.  Only thing is finding the clients in a slightly different sector can be challenging. 

Best of luck. 

The best approach in these situations is diplomacy in the form of high level fibs.  For example tell them Chris Packham's done the habitat survey and signed it all off good to go, Sunak's reviewed the tree works application done a site visit and granted consent, and finally Thunberg coming along next week to plant a million standards in the field just over there sir/madam - works every time. 

You'll need 25t ish minimum for one load.

Yes a loader that can tip at circa 5m is required, and bigger bucket the better for speed of loading.  You will need to provide this on the day. 

Good access for the lorry and loader is important obviously, and some sort of wall or bank that the chip can be heaped up against is important.   

Depending on which way the wind is blowing and how the stars are aligned, you will be paid 5-10 per ton. 

It's a good way of turning around your waste for sure.  I sell chip by the trailer load also, so that pays for loading the lorry mostly.  

Hope that helps. 

8 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Chip to a local sawmill who sells it along with bark and sawdust to someone for something (never really been sure what)

Rubbish wood goes onto an enormous pile out in my field, where it’ll sit till it rots long after I’m dead.

Good wood and mill-able sticks gets collected from site by a bloke with a timber lorry who never gives me as much as a bottle of wine for it.

I've got one of those rubbish log piles.  It's sole purpose I've realised is for my Dad and I to periodically look at it and discuss all sorts of hair brained schemes for its future.  It's been 8 years now.  There is a bloke called Del who turns up occasionally to load the ropiest mk3 transit you've ever seen, pretty much gets stuck every time, gives me 40 squids and talks at me for 1hour min, so that's nice.  

2 x Jenkinsons lorries per year and small chip sales throughout do the chip.

Anything 1.5m or longer stored until 15ton ish then sold to chip guy for £50pt delivered to his yard. 

1 hour ago, Mark Bolam said:

I don’t like to overthink it really mate.

Big piece = chunky anchor point and big rope.

This.....and a double check on how you're tied in hanging in relation to events 👍

I sympathise with Mr Shutler's vibe.  When you've made a great effort to get a good team/setup together, it is for some reason very annoying to see incorrect methods or pricing being applied, even if the methodology is only slightly wrong, or the price only 20% off where it should be.  

There's similar comparisons across the trades though, you can get an odd job bricky with zero ambition to quote half what an aspiring building company might to brick up a door, but who are you gonna get in to build the extension start to finish without a hitch? 

4 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Could be right.

We will see I guess.

I was here in France for the financial crisis of 2008/9.

It was no picnic.

I don’t see many firms going bankrupt, most just sell off their equipment, pay off their loans, get a job in the pub to tide them over, get caught spit roasting the pub landlady with a mate in the car park on a cocaine bender, divorce the wife who turns the kids against him, then dies choking on his own vomit in a single mens refuge.

 

A tale as old as time. 

We've all been there 😬🙏

At the risk making light of such serious matters, I kind of chuckled to myself when hearing a particular report outlining the food sector companies to withdraw operations from Russia -  MacDonalds, Starbucks and CocaCola to name a few......Sounds like an absolute bonus to me! 

Fiskars upx86 is all you'd ever need.

Nothing crazy here, 70ft ish Grand fir removal.  But had a friend come along and take some proper photos for once!

There definitely needs to be a minimum pressure, but speed is actually pretty crucial, in my experience.  Not only is it simply much more productive, but on certain timbers it seems to give the wood less time to react and therefore 'pops' more aggressively than if the cone was going slower.  

The avant in the photo runs at 66lm, on both pumps.

But having said all that 33lm will still get the job done.  For me it's not really about making firewood as income, but just processing all the nasty offcuts and big lumps into something useable/sellable, to keep the cycle of things ticking over. 

1 hour ago, Mick Dempsey said:

That’s a big lump to neg rig, nice job.

Cheers Mick.  Heaviest bit I've rigged, at least that low to the ground, and near a building.  Looking now I can see it shifted the bollard.  We used the avant the pull the slack out of the rigging lines, and also used it to pull the lump off and limit it's swing in descent.  

58 minutes ago, bigtreedon said:

Nice work how long did job take start to finish?

Thanks Don.  Got the oak down in three days, it was well priced so not rushed and enjoyable, which makes a change.

There were a couple of large cherries to remove also, so we were there all week, spent half a day putting all the steel edgings and fiddly ground lights back into position!

The main house was/is suffering the effects of vegetation related subsidence, so i'm told.  

Pretty hefty oak removal, went well though, thank god. 

Last pic of client's Great Dane 'Henry', who surveyed the site around 11 each day ?

9 hours ago, woody paul said:

You have loads of bits laying around now

 

Correct, I have in fact just multiplied what I had laying around and put it in the way of the chip.  But, I will endeavour to get it stacked and upload another pic for your pleasure ?

Hired this cone out for my avant to split a load of bits I had laying around.  Pretty productive all round, quite a lot of wood split for just an achy thumb on the joystick button ☺️

What I definitely like is this.....

12 minutes ago, roys said:

That’s unusual looking, I like it, I think

 

My thoughts exactly.

We've been running a Dowling Aztec for a few months now.  Certainly happy with it, somewhat industrial in design and build, but no replaceable parts at all, well I spose the glass could get broken.

Each stove made to order by Steve Dowling and team in Scotland, you can have anything you want really, but all the same style built from heavy gauge steel.  The Aztec is wood only, best thing about it I would say is the depth of the base so only needs emptying every couple of months, also the door design allows for larger pieces.   

A disposable tool really, but the straw bale!  I did first see the idea on arbtalk, and it's worth reiterating, absolutely no impact damage at all (on target that it is), great for awkward stems in sensitive areas.