maybelateron

I always err on the side of caution, and never push the boundaries at all, but I did check with my accountant about clothing that is not PPE. If it is embroidered with you business name on it you can put it through the books they said. However, that is no longer relevant to me as we just use standard Hi Viz tops now with no embroidery, but this is then classed as PPE.

Yes I have. It is my go to tophandle for pruning and early stage of dismantles, unless I want to use my battery one for peace and quiet. To put it in perpective if I could only have one top handled saw model this is what I would choose, and simply change over to the MS261 when needing something bigger. The 201T is a great saw, but as an older climber with hands and wrists that are no longer young and strong I do need to use the Echo as much as possible.

As has been said by several people, those blades are utterly shagged/useless and a gravity fed machine like this needs sharp blades to pull the material through. I quite understand the problem the hire people have with users chucking stuff through that wrecks the blades, but nonetheless it is ridiculous to send a gravity fed machine out with blades that haven't a chance in hell of pulling the material through. As has been suggested, you should not be expected to pay with the blades in this condition. My first machine was a Timberwolf 18/100G gravity fed. With the blades newly sharpened it would pull straight conifer branches through so fast the discharge spout would block, especially in the rain, until I learnt how to stop it pulling so fast. Once the blades had just lost the edge very slightly it pulled in at the perfect speed, then when they needed sharpening it was a pain to feed material into it.

I have a steel bumper (insurance company informed!) on the front of my Disco 2 with two towing eyes, proves very useful.

I wonder how many people forget to account for the loss of traction that can occur, depending on the angle of the rope, and slope of the ground, and whether the driven axle is at the anchor end of the vehicle, or the other end. For example: Unladen rwd 3.5T pickup trying to pull a big tree with short rope attached high in tree, and truck is driving uphill forwards - not going to be easy as the rope will reduce the pressure the drive axle tyres apply to the ground. Same vehicle, same tree and rope position, unladen, but reversing to pull gives more traction.

I am never impressed when people include "experts" in their trading name. We have a firm near us who do just that, and I have seen them being reckless in their lack of traffic managment. Just seems arrogant to me. Rant over🤣

Was this Bartletts or is that just a joke?

Not wishing to sound like a smart arse, but if you're going to fell it in one so close to the road at least have the sense to stop the traffic while doing the back cut. Wonder if HSE are aware of this incident.

A good point.

I can't remember using my MEWP as an overhead anchor in the past, but I have on more then one occasion climbed onto the plinth around a church spire/tower while still attached to the MEWP basket, or onto chimney cappings when removing vegetation. Of course, no organisation is likely to endorse this in our current litigious society. I suppose if a very heavy worker started swinging on the rope under the MEWP and got far enough out with a swing they might exceed the "safe working load" for the machine. But then what fool would do such a thing?!

Do you have something inside your trousers that keeps splitting them? Sorry, childish comment, but someone had to make it. I have used Stein Sentinel and Stein Guardian type C for a few years now, with no problems when climbing. That said, my 63 year old hips may not stretch them to their limits.

Whereabouts in the country are you?

Looking for a quote, but I have to say I really don't like to see trees cut down. I have a big old Beech in my front garden, on view to everybody, and I want all the branches cut off back to the trunk to save me clearing up the leaves every year.

Or if you like working on/restoring old machinery get one with about 14 cfm air delivery. Enough to run a needle scaler, the most awesome bit of kit for getting thick rust scale off old machinery.

The guy who trained me and did my Loler inspections for years was an assessor for the AA. He told me that he assessed one firm (already Arb approved) and fed back to the AA that they were not up to scratch and needed a bit of nudging at least. He said the response from the AA was along the lines of "we don't want to go upsetting people too much"

Cheers ta

Oak reduction, all handsaw cuts, nothing fatter than 40mm diameter taken off. Quite challenging, also pretty pointless in my view but customer wanted it doing and happy to pay.

Totally agree with you with regards to Safecontractor. I am coming to the end of my final year bothering with Safecontractor now the only commercial work I do is for two local parish councils. Ten years ago I had to get accredited with them for a contract I had. The only thing it proved was that I could say the right things and fill out forms correctly, in addition to having the certificates I need anyway. I could not believe when I had a phone call to say they were nearly ready to sign me up, but I needed to submit my scaffolding erectors certificate. When I asked why the young man said for when I was working on trees. How on earth can an office based excercise which asks such a stupid question really say I am a safe contractor?

64 plate Iveco Daily 3.5 ton 20-21mpg usually towing 1.5 ton chipper 04 plate remapped Disco 2 auto 21 mpg often towing Series 3 Land Rover with 2.5 NA Diesel, who knows what mpg Wife's all electric Hyundai recently did 140 mile trip on £4, using our Octopus energy electricity. Even cheaper in summer from our photovoltaic panels! Just a pity decent size vans/tippers can't have such nice economy, but I guess moving trees from A to B needs lots of energy, as does towing MEWPs chippers etc

Very true, and long dangly beans!

Tree is way way older than the houses. This estate was built around the turn of the milleneum in the grounds of the former county "asylum". Lots of wonderful trees on the site. Also many residents who buy a house on the estate then complain about the massive tree overhanging their house etc, when conveyancing would show said tree was protected. I have a good working relationship with the local TO, and I really feel for him when what he really wants to say to moaning householders is " you knew the protected tree was there before you bought the house, so NO you can't take it down, the tree is as safe as a tree can be". The whole site was subjected to a blanket TPO around year 2000 to stop the developers taking down an excess number of trees.

I know that tree very well indeed. I use to do the grounds maintenance at St Edwards Park, Cheddleton. Without doubt it is an Indian Bean Tree, aka Catalpa. I have looked at it in the past with Steve Massey from SMDC, and worked on it. I suspect it has been in slow decline for some time. Catalpa are always later than Ash to come into leaf, and every year it is easy to think they have died. Tim - I am Charles Piggott, Moorlands Tree and Groundcare

Buxtons supply them: https://www.buxtons.net/workwear-clothing-ppe/clothing/clothing-accessories/stihl-ms-protect-arm-guards

I have two grinders. One that fits on the arm of my mini digger (Bobcat E10z). This is a multi tip wheel and teeth mounted in a purpose built frame with a V twin Honda engine mounted above it. The reason it has its own engine is that the smaller diggers don't have enough oil flow to make it work well. The teeth are easy to change with just one bolt to undo. The teeth are also easy to sharpen with a diamond wheel, if you wish to do so. My other grinder that I use more, as it is less of a faff to get to the job/mount on the digger arm, is the Rock Machinery SGR 33 model. I think this represents excellent value, and I have always found them to be a very decent firm to deal with. This uses "Green" teeth, which are available from Rock, but also other outlets. They can be turned 120 degrees VERY quickly on site and have 3 cutting faces before needing replacing or sharpening. It is more complicated to sharpen these due to their profile, so I just replace them as needed, as I don't do lots of stumps. If I had wanted to invest more funds I would have gone for one of the FSI models, as a guy from Stumpbusters whose opinion I value says FSI are good quality, whereas he said if you but a Predator you need to be good with spanners and a welder (his words, not mine)

I certainly am, every day. I feel we owe it to the Ukrainians, and would feel disrespectful to them to not follow it closely. As far as I am concerned this is all too reminiscent of Hitler and ww2, not that I was alive in that era. If we don't actively support them with arms etc we have only ourselves to blame if Putin crushes them then moves west into more of eastern Europe.