bilke_user

Hot water and soap. Sitka sap is no bother to come off I sell mostly spruce as firewood and if it is fresh cut it weights in at about a third more than dead standing stuff. On a 20t load of dry stuff I normally get between 65 and 75 90x90x90 bags full If your pal is going to get a contractor in with a harvester and forwarder it will likely cost him between £16/ton and £20/ton to get it at roadside If it's first thinning sized stuff you'll be looking at cutting about 6t/day by chainsaw then figure out how you're going to get it to roadside. In all honesty you'd be better off buying the stuff off the lad at a fair price at roadside, unless you don't value your labour too much. I know lads who are happy to take a couple of weeks off their day jobs and almost kill themselves to stock up with "free firewood". I don't see the attraction of that, but do see that some, who don't do any real physical work day in day out, can get a bit of satisfaction from doing a couple of weeks hard labour for themselves.

He's out and about working in this, and knows that his reward later will be this....

If I was closer we could do business. May I ask why you don't want Spruce softwood ?

I'm drying spruce, birch and larch from green to under 20% in 18months in a two sided farm barn on a hill with great air flow. Oak takes about 2 1/2 years. I'm in North Argyll and average annual rainfall here is 126" . Working 2 years ahead isn't too bad and you soon get used to it

Not so long ago when the price of solar panels plummeted simply because RHI went from sky high to not worth doing

Details of the Palax road towable. Looks to be good for small stuff <10". NEW Palax D270 Active This newly redesigned model based on the old Palax Ks Active This machine can cut, split and stock pile logs up to 270mm in diameter • Very Safe – Rams stops when guards are open • Very fast – Quick circular saw cross cut operation • Very Low Maintenance – No V – belts • Very Easy to Use – Simple operation • Very Low Power Required – gx390 Honda industrial petrol engine This machine has been in production for many years and has been very well developed over that time to give you a machine that just keeps delivering firewood off the end of the conveyor without down time. Excellent portable machine for tree surgeons. • 13&quot; Hydraulic chainsaw. • 2way - 4way Splitting Axe • High Speed Valve - Automatic Variable Speed Splitting • 2.7m Discharge Conveyor.

Oregon 73LP. Pretty much the standard chain in 3/8 pitch

Nokian chainsaw wellies or Haix leather chainsaw bots

The firewood processing business isn't VAT registered so no vat added. I don't charge milage, instead I tell customers that are a bit away that I'll leave base at 8AM and will be with them at whatever time it takes to get there. Never had any complain yet

Is that rate + VAT? I charge mine at £280/day with one operator based on an 8 hr day, or hire it out at £180/day without operator Busy enough with it, but there's little competition up this way and a lot of folks with stoves. Its way cheaper than buying in processed firewood but what puts most folks off is the lack of space they have for storing a day or two's processed stuff

I had a wagon and drag delivery of seasoned larch and spruce in 5m lengths last month. Load was full to the bolster tops and was pretty light (21t) I got 95 bags (90x90x90cm) out of it Half processed to 8 inch and the other half to 16 inch. As good a result from a load as I've had. Previous best was 82 bags, but stuff was a bit heavier and not to bolster tops

We get mix of seasoned larch and spruce in 5m lengths between 6inch and 14inch for £30/ton delivered. Lorry and drag are loaded to top of bolsters and only 20 ton on the load............a processed load makes 95, 90x90x90 bags. I'd not be doing firewood if cost was £70/cube

True, it won't stop that but it will stop something bursting under colossal pressure and causing fatal or near fatal injuries. Had ours been fitted with a shear bolt 21 yrs ago I'd still be shooting off my right shoulder and be able to shake someones hand without missing on the first attempt

"The story above about losing an eye worries me though, as i have a hycrack that could possibly do the same thing?" My advice to anyone having to use a Hycrack is to get a PTO shaft with a shear-pin fitted. Even after the shaft hitting the tractor shaft guard (and bending it) and a guard on the splitter (also bending it) it still had enough power to lift me off my feet and throw me back about 6ft. The estate I work for (and still do) were great about the whole thing, the owner told me to make a claim against their insurance. Unfortunately the same could not be said for Hycrack, they simply stuck to the line that they had the safest splitter on the market that had a great safety record.

21yrs ago I lost an eye (and had the broken orbit bone pressing hard against cerebral membrane) when the hardy spicer blew apart at the tractor end of a cone splitter. A 10" length of PTO shaft with a knuckle at the other end hit my eye and resulted in me losing an eye. HSE at the time were satisfied that the machine was in good order and that the only thing that would have stopped this happening would have been a shear pin or slip clutch on the shaft. But as the splitter was less than 9 months old and was greased and worked according to the manual's instructions there was no case of liability. However our estate's insurance paid out due to me not being supplied with a helmet with eye guard!!! Wonder if the eye guard would have made any difference? Ophthalmologist said after operating on me that any eye guarding could have made the injuries worse Needless to say, the cone splitter was never fixed and was put in the scrap bin

What stuff are you wanting processed and how much is there? Where in stirlingshire?

Difficult to say where they are made, their website is so vague oaths that one can safely assume made in China and assembled and distributed from their German facility and marketed from their HQ in Italy. They make a big shout for their Loncin engines, (basically a Chonda) and again don't give the game away as to where they are built. £5k might seem cheap (£5k still makes a decent sized wallet bulge a bit) but for what's being offered there there's more tried and tested machines available with a great spares back up service.

They do vented ones too, but on their website, not on ebay I use dead standing softwood that's sub 20% and process straight into the standard bulk bags then store in the barn

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LARGE-WHITE-BULK-BAGS-FIBC-BUILDER-WASTE-1-TONNE-TON-BAG-SACK-JUMBO-BRAND/181151253961?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=480283497075&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649 Good quality bags at £3.30 delivered

Not available new any more

Self propelled or tractor hydraulic?

Don't get hung up on thinking re-splitting larger stuff is slow, it's not! Re-splitting a 15" log takes less than a quarter of the time sawing and splitting an 8" stick does and produces twice as much wood. Would you rather be splitting small stuff with your axe or larger rounds? Bigger wood means less handling and more production. I find the wood that is a real pain for productivity with the Farmi is the stuff that only needs split once. At least if you have to re-split big stuff you don't have any sawing to do to gain big advantages in production. If low production and small holding use is all that you need then the Farmi would be overkill for sure, and the Woodland Mills machine would be the way to go. Both are way quicker than a chainsaw and axe and will do the job you ask just fine

As soon as I find a replacement for mine (bigger and faster and also towable) it will be on the market. It's been kept in A1 condition and when not in use it's cleaned with an air hose and stored indoors. £7500 is what it will be for sale at. It's only two year old and won't drop any in value for a good while yet. Try buying a new one when we exit the EU and weep at what the price will be! 2nd hand prices won't drop much My advice would be to bite the bullet and get a new one. Amazing how much work it gets and how quickly it pays for itself

I just put pallets on the ground and pile the logs onto them, for big piles I use building paper to cover them, it lets the pile breathe so any wet stuff will dry out without the pile going mouldy. IBC cages are another option, but cost a bob or two more than the pallets initially

That's the tractor mounted one. The trailed one I'm running has an additional 13hp Honda engine, c/w extra pumps, the trailer and an optional log lifter Riko WP36 and Farmi WP36 are identical, except for the stickers. The ID plate on them says Farmi