flatyre

sorry here is that photo. Top bar is 18", middle bar is the 16" for the 028av, then chain and new bar.

my perfect week!

I know every site has a different set of challenges etc, but what is the ball park number for a days work? Say I forget the chipper and take the brash to the local recycling centre, save money but add time. Would £400 be a better price, a day cutting and a day transporting?

apologies, the bar and chain are for an 028av, here is a picture of the chain and bar, above the Ozaki bar is the 16" stihl bar off my other 028av, and above that is an 18" bar off my 029.

Yeah they are, Their garages are filled with motorbikes, boats, jetski's, flash cars etc. They are magnets for money.

thanks Starscream and Vespasian, more sound advice, I might have been a bit greedy with my prices for this stage of the game. I based my prices on what my mates make, which is about £500 a day usually. I thought £150 to £200 a day was cheap considering the work, looks like i'll be re-thinking my pricing!

more good advice but my mates are like me only doing tree work as part of their business, i'm a landscaper who wants to do tree work, mates are more like gardeners who do tree work, most just hire chippers and I don't want to leech off those who have their own. I think on this job there would be too much material for a skip, but I will price various sized skips tomorrow as it is a good idea.

Good advice but at the minute i'm not getting enough jobs to group together.

I have two echo pb650's which just never stop. Was thinking of upgrading to the new pb770, reports say its more powerful but not as reliable, sure enough I was using one thats three months old and it already needs a carb kit. The pb650 is so easy to start when warm you could probably fit an extra long pull chord and just hang it over your left shoulder, might start, might just saw your collar bone in half:laugh1:

Basically I've recently gone self employed but am having trouble bringing in work. I have a few mates in the industry who seem to get loads of work even when they throw out crazy high quotes. I'm offering my services at a fraction of the cost to get the money in and get my name out there yet almost every lead falls through. Now i'm not offering to do the jobs at a price that would make the customer sceptical of my skills, or question my health and safety awareness. I just can't land the jobs. For example, a lady asked me for a price to top some conifers and face them in. I reckon its a good two days work as everything needs to be dragged across the rear garden, through a brick archway to be chipped on the drive. I quoted £500 which also covers hiring a chipper at £130 a day (chipper only needed one day) That's £185 a day for me before tax and she still said it was too expensive! I know prices vary greatly depending on where you operate, but whats a fair price at my stage in the game operating in a rural area? I'm in Northern Ireland so prices would not be far behind Scotland, Wales, Northern England.

its for a little ms250

hey folks ordered a 16" Ozaki bar and an 'Oregon 22LPX062E Super Chisel Chain .325" Pitch 0.063" Gauge - 62 Drive Links' from separate ebay sellers. Both came in their original packaging but the chain doesn't fits around the bar. Now there is nothing to indicate the bar length on the bar itself but when measured against a Stihl bar which is clearly stamped 16", both are the same length and the chain won't fit the Stihl bar either. Before contacting anyone I just want to check it is the chain for sure. Is 62 drive lengths the correct number for a 16" bar?

cheers guys, i'm sure a lot of people would think its daft putting any time or money into a £20 saw but its all about the learning curve for me. Round my way guys charge £35 an hour for working on saws, mowers etc. Hell they make as much money servicing saws as the guys that use them. I like taking something that's been labelled financially unviable to fix and getting it working again. Plus i'm all about the old school, my business is still in its early days so can't afford or justify throwing big money at new equipment, you can buy an older saw for little money, throw a few quid and a couple of hours at it and have something that can do anything a new saw can. Point in question, went 50/50 on a job with a mate there a couple of weeks ago, row of 25 to 30ft conifers, 35+ft beech and a few holly trees needed taken down. Built up area, power lines, couple of them leaning over the garage. Anyway he brought his new £500 261c, I brought my £100 028av, bought it off ebay for £51 had been stripped of bar, chain, and a few other small parts, gathered up the missing bits and a good second hand 16" stihl bar, an unused chain that someone bought that was the wrong gauge for them. Ten minutes on the bench and it was up and running again, and making money!

took the flywheel off to check behind it, no sign of any obvious damage but then what should I be looking for?

the yellow wire runs from the on off switch to the coil, its the one I'm holding in the last picture. The dodgy bit of red wire is a repair job, it has a ring connector at one end which earths to an L shaped plate, but then earths to a clip which secures the ht lead to the top fin on the barrel. Don't know what that's about and on any other engine I've worked on the idea was to keep the wiring away from the engine to stop it melting. The ht lead comes off the coil as it should, looks original and intact though grubby. How do I remove the flywheel? stuff some rope down the bore and turn the spline drive bolt clockwise or anti clockwise? thanks for the help so far.

I think the red wire is the earth as it looks like it connects to the clip that holds the ht lead, but i'm useless at electrics, even simple 2 stroke electrics. The second picture shows me pointing to a black wire and spade connector, any ideas what its for as the engine still runs even when its disconnected???

Thanks for the advice guys, I took the carb off and stripped it down, no obvious gunge but I did find something when checking the rubber carb manifold. Below to the left of the oval carb port is a smaller circular port about 8mm. A small pipe runs through the carb backing plate and into this smaller port. There is a little rubber grommet forming a seal between the port and pipe which is starting to break down. I've never noticed it on any of my Stihl saws, is it some sort of breather? and could this be causing the problem? Also the carb was fairly clean and the fuel line looks ok, but the rubber seal on the fuel filler cap isn't doing its job, could this be contributing or irrelevant? Again thanks for the advice so far.

just been reading this thread regarding different vehicle setups. I don't do tree surgery every day, in fact I can go for weeks in summer without firing up a saw, and when I do its usually for small trees and topping conifers. I have a rwd 2.4 transit with old rickety shelving against the bulkhead and along the side. I usually keep my joinery gear for decking and fencing, masonry gear for walls and paving etc, and gardening gear like mowers, strimmers, hedge cutters, all in the van as well as all my hand tools and wet weather gear. I'd like to do more tree work in winter, but for now primarily operate as a landscaper with gardening in summer and a bit of tree work in winter. I don't have the work or the funds to go buying a tipping vehicle so want to utilise the transit, as in shooting the chipper straight into the back of the van. I was thinking of fabricating some removable shelving for the rear which can be taken out on tree work days, as I won't be needing my landscaping or gardening gear, and replacing the shelving against the bulkhead with enclosed lockable shelves, which will keep the saws safe and the wood chips out. I think the rear leaf springs could handle a full load of chippings, and the transit would probably hold as much as a mid sized mesh sided ifor. I could even fab a sort of tail gate to slot inside the rear doors a couple of feet high. I know it would be a pain to empty compared to a tipping trailer but think it would suffice until the level of tree work picked up to justify and afford a transit crew tipper. Has anyone any experience of chipping into the back of a van, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

just bought this little saw for £20 complete with brand new chain. It had been shelved a year ago after failing to start, I blew out the filter, fitted a new plug and some fresh petrol and it fired up after a few pulls. However as soon as I knock the choke off it revs up without pressing the trigger then dies, pull the choke out and give it a pull and it starts again until the choke is knocked off, revs up again without the trigger being pulled then dies. Any ideas whats wrong with it and is it worth fixing and keeping as a back up saw?

Do a good job for a fair price and the work will soon chase you... and all anybody wants is your phone number... They don't want a work of art, they don't want a sonnet written in there, just your number... and the bonus is, by keeping your business card clean, you'll also keep it cheap... hopefully!!!

thanks for the replies guys, plenty of food for thought with your design ideas. looks like the verdict is still out on what works best a complex design which shows quality or a simple design that's easy to get. I think the design depends on two things, how/where it will be viewed, and the target audience. A sophisticated design will work as a business card where the would be customer takes it home, and has time to study it, or for bringing in big money projects where the customer has spent months revising the job. But a simpler design works better for smaller jobs when it pulls up beside you at a junction for a few quick seconds. Two key points which I think are important with regards to the branding/company image are this, its a very young business which hasn't built up the contacts or the reputation to compete for major landscaping projects yet. The bulk of my work will be bread and butter work, fencing, decking, paving etc, not reworking stately gardens. A sophisticated design might look too flashy for the regular home owner looking for a simple garden revamp. The second point is my budget, at this stage I just need something cheap and simple to get the name out there and bring some money in. I think its best to keep it simple until I get established, then I can pay to have a more sophisticated logo to pull in the big money customers!

or this....

what about this? bit more traditional

cheers for the advice folks, I should play it safe and just go with a more traditional logo, name below a tree, leaf, you know, but I want something a bit different, trouble is not making it too complicated or vague. The top design is a bit builder/estate agent, the bottom one was a spur of the moment thing. Any idea how to make a logo interesting, intriguing, memorable without being too complex, after all there's no one as dumb as joe public.