maybelateron

Agreed about prussic loops in principle, but not the body thrusting so much. One one my men prefers his prussic loops on the grounds that he feels he can't trust a mechanical device like our zigzags not to fail. Each to their own I guess, but he doesn't even use a slack tender pulley - WHAAAAAT??

This is a bit galling, considering that an 80 year old (not being agist, just the plain fact that reaction times slow with age) could legitimately drive a heavy 4x4 + twin axle caravan at 60mph on the M25 in the rush hour after dark (not being agist, I am the first to admit that at 60 my eyesight is not what it was). Best of luck.

I take it you mean they are charging to take the chip in? One firm near me is paying £200 per 35 cu yd skip to buy in the chip from tree surgeons. They will even pay for conifer chip. They can burn the fine dust left after screening it, in their own boilers, and they sell the rest.

Sadly this is all too true with respect to all the local councils I deal with.

I did a job for a former JLR development engineer. He still has his Disco 3 as a general hack. He said it was both the best towing vehicle he had ever had, and also the single must unreliable vehicle he had owned.

And 95% of politicians

I am on my second Disco 2 TD5. I regularly tow up to 3.5 tons, and it does it very well, and this is without a remap. Both mine have been auto. Less electrical gremlins than a Disco 3 or 4, and the TD5 is pretty bullet proof, especially compared to the TDV6's liking for shoving a con rod through the block or snapping the crank. I have had two air bags fail, but was able to limp home slowly, cost of replacing them (with new bags) was minimal. Need to check chassis before buying, have had my 04 reg repaired on one rear leg, otherwise sound underneath.

I did think the price your tree man quoted seems a lot, even if there are a few problems that are not clear from the photos. Clearly a good idea to get another quote or two. Been said before, but sorry you got a few replies that were perhaps a bit harshly expressed about the non viability of it being taken down in exchange for the timber.

I would be asking myself if I really want to tender for them.

As has already been said, utter twat. You do have my sympathy.

I think this may be the most important factor of all. I haver seen some experience climbers do crazy things. I saw one guy spike the first 20ft of a Poplar that was leaning over a tarmac surfaced car park. What did he think would be the outcome of a fall??! The reality is some people are just inherently risk takers, while others are not. I have heard many young lads quote the saying that if it's thicker than your wrist it's OK as an anchor point. Do they think that applies even if it is Willow/Poplar and four ft out from the crotch? For years I have climbed with one DRT main line, short strop, and 30ft strop. If I were to cut my main rope I am still able to have another sent up to me, or if I am too high up, be brought up to me. I have never found that my long strop is too short to reach a safe secondary anchor point.

What's the odds the Ranger was stolen too?

When I used to have a grounds maintenance contract I was using a boom sprayer on a calm day to apply lawn weedkiller. One of the renting residents came out and gave me a real hard time about the evil of chemicals. Meanwhile he was smoking a rollie - don't suppose he saw that as a chemical or carcinogen. Or maybe he was worried the weedkiller would kill all the wildlife growing in his false dreadlocks!

That looks really professional work.

Looks to me like it would still be loaded/set correctly, albeit with links in a chain so to speak between it and the bridge.

So true. I sell less logs now than when I set up in tree work in 2001. Much happier to run my two stoves and log burning boiler for our own heating. I have a few longstanding log customers who order well ahead and will wait if need be. New customers asking "how much is a ton of logs?" just don't get the idea when I explain I sell by volume. When they say they can't imagine what a cubic metre of logs looks like, I wonder how they know what a ton of logs looks like. Aha, light bulb moment .... all the new owners of stoves (logburners as they love to call them) have read the Bear Grills manual on heating with logs, and have their own weighbridge built into the drive of their suburban semi. OK, rant over.

Ouch. Having a hernia repair this afternoon, and not looking forward to the enforced rest. Still, I woke up this morning and there are plenty who didn't would happily swap places with me. Hope your tendon mends well.

Agree with you on that - we were taught this on my Chapter 8 course some years ago.

A chain is as weak as its weakest padlock.

Words fail me. Quel grand Plonkeur

Yes, everything else is coping well. Have now done about 60 hours with it, and still amazed at some of the nasty big gnarly bits it will split.

I have a Venom 22 ton and find it excellent. I have not found anything yet that it cannot split. We sometimes take it to site to split rings from large trunks, to make them easier to move. Rock Machinery were honest about the 4 way splitter head when they said they could not yet provide a durable one. They threw in a free one, which soon started to tear itself at the weld. An experienced welding/fabricating friend had a look at it, repaired it and fitted a few shims where it was not fitting snugly over the 2 way head. It is now working well in 2 or 4 way mode and I recommend it highly.

The old saying was "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach". I feel these days it is more appropriate to say "Those who can, do. Those who can't, regulate those who can". On a separate note regarding the two ropes issue, I feel that common sense is overlooked too quickly, and replaced by regulation. For example - always choose an anchor point that is thicker and stronger and healthier than the minimum requirement. If there is not one that has this margin of safety, just don't use it. Greenhouse glass is cheap to replace when you couldn't get a good enough work position to ensure no risk to the glass! As for BT cables, if it looks like it could be iffy about getting far enough out to clear them, when doing the quote, tell the customer you'll do your best but if the cables get broken they will have to share the BT cost with you. If they think that is unreasonable, I don't want their custom. I use one double rope and a short and long strop for all but the most basic of climbs.

ART positioner, with swivel. Excellent, simple, and easy to clean resin off (I use meths - to clean it, not drink). Very, very occasionally in awkward manoevres/positions I have know it catch on other clobber on the harness bridge, or a rope, and allow itself to run some rope through due to the angle being pushed by the item it contacted. Never been bad enough for a change of underwear though.

Looks good. We took the crown off a decent sized Sycamore, heavy rain all day. Made it really slimey. None of us would have climbed it today it was so foul, with a cast iron street lamp in the garden right below it. Only managed to get it down as my mewp fitted in perfectly. Got to go back and get the stems and trunk down on Wednesday - when it will be raining again