drinksloe

I also guess from ur post u don't have any tickets or experience yet??? (ignore this if i've picked up wromg end of stick) Plenty of good advice above. Really its not the type of industry u should be setting up on ur own after just gaining ur tickets. So much that needs to be learnt from experience about actually doing the job never mind pricing them etc I'd 2nd wot J and others have said about forestry work, low overheads etc even compared to a SE climber no ropes/harnesses etc and LOLER every 6 months. But if u really want to do arb work u really must work for another company 1st and watch learn not just the climbing but how long it takes u to do certain jobs

Sw scotland, so not far from clarks/jas p etc and most of the common forest machinery boys have yards inabout longtown/carlisle areas now (ponsse, komatsu, JD, valmet) Just wodering if any similar 'hot spots' or even 1 decent dealer worth a wee nose round on the way back up.

Cheers ed, they are all the type of thing i'm looking for althou all pretty close to where i live. Qitte lucky a few forestry shops round us althou more focussed on proper big machinery thou

Alright Just wondering if anyone knows of any decent forestry dealerships not too far of either the M1 or M6 corridors? from derby area heading north Travelling from scotland down to sort of derby area to look at a compact tractor sometime this week, i hate trafic (and really not used to it coming from my area) so will drive down overnight to see machine 1st thing. So wondering if any decent places worth visiting on the way up the road as not often i'm as far down south. Is there any decent dealerships not too far away from either the M1/M6? Haven't decided which way i'm coming back don't think they'll be a lot in it as terrible roadworks on the 66 and M1 last time i was down. Sort of looking for smaller scale stuff either compact tractors or stuff to fit behind them (timber trailer or ideally a 3 pt link timber grab, winch). The only 3 i can think of are a Riko place about Weatherby and Kellfri dealership at Bishop Auckland (both up M1) or that Treadlight Forestry (riko) that advertises here althou not sure if its open throu the day or not? Never seem to get an answer on the phone (althou does look a bit of a trail of the M6 too) Never been to any of these dealers before so have no idea if they have much in stock to have a nose throu. Or i'm i better just heading up the road always got plenty of wee jobs to do in daylight hours if i got home early enough.

Ur mibee right about the objector owning the woods althou i just assumed hr owned other woods in that area. It would depned on the contrct/lease/agteement but i wouldn't be happy if i owned woodland and the management company (wether wildlife trust or not) were going against my wishes. But to be fair i woudn't be expecting to put anyone in danger like that cutting the trees at 2m. Just because he owns woodland doesn't mean he knows wot he's talking about. To me it just reads like a typical paper non story

The way i read the article it was the other bloke the objector who was saying fell at 6ft/2m essentially pollarding the trees. I don't know enough about that area or ash die back and how common/devasting it is in eng to really comment on wot is right or wrong. Reading the article i can see both points of view and both have valid points, it really all depends how many ash are affected and to wot extent. The objector said fell/pollard anything over 50% dieback, but the trust boy says trees already have 80% dieback, if that is true then it really is a non story as the objector would be felling them too. The only issue then is wether pollard hieght or coppice hieght?? Dunno the age of the woods/trees or % of ash but it will open up areas to potential windblow in the future Surely it wouldn't be that bad a job to hand fell? Folk have been felling dead ash for years even before dieback came, just got to be extra careful. Get a decent skidder/winch, throw line the anchor a decent hieght up. probably ur biggest problem would be felling tree the way they are leaning as u couldn't trust ur normal 'safe' cuts to hold, u'd prob be safer winching it against the lean so winch has the pressure. With a big enough winch u wouldn't need to be anywhere near the tree when it started to move so little dange of limbs dropping of LPG eddie, wot sort of machines would u use for a job like that? Only seen harvesters in softwoods so don't know how they'd handle all the big limbs at ackward angles, no doubt saw always be at wrong angle. Plus most heads only have a 80ish cm bar and while i've seen them take trees far bigger than that i'd imagine they really would struggle with a large hardwood. Also i bet getting/guessing the wieght/balance right on a big hardwood must be hard just the way a crown grows, very different from even a big softwood which is usually pretty obvious where the wieght is and all wieght in the stem intself (again making it easier to do multiple cuts on oversived trees)

Does the +F 1st aid cousre pretty much not do that (atleast with a decent intructor) I know the 1st time i done my +F the intructor shocked me with quite a lot of stuff, back then he went way of the reservation with some of the stuff he was telling us (torniquet's etc, but when they were still a big No No) basically his bottom line was anything serious at all (not just cutting based, stalking or just outdoors in remote areas) ur basically dead unless u have a phone reception and even then u could easily be hours before u get any 'real' helpand bugger all u can really do about it. When i was on the railways seen a lot of different boys cutting and many scared the hell out of me, i wouldn't trust them to cut their finger nails never mind trees. But they all had tickets. While i'm not against more money in forestry esp to hand cutters, that would not actually solve much (apart from my overdraft ? )training/injury wise and could actually make things worse as more folk come in and try to do it Not sure if i said it on this thread or a similar 1 but went down hill since they stopped u waiting 2 years after doing wee trees to medium. U learn a hell of a lot in those 2 years often by u making mistakes taking shortcuts (usually complacncy and/or tiredness) but atleast ur making mistakes in small timber which is easier to correct (plus ur cuts have to be more precise as less room) So when u get onto the big boys it just seems easy as u have so much room for saws and wedges Going off topic but a lot of this box ticking/tickets is now the norm in society in general and the problem is a massive lack of common sense in a mssive % of the population (not just the youngsters) the standard of tradesmen is decreasing as are their numbers in 20 years u really will struggle to find a decent tradesman More and more tickets will not help and niether will refresher courses unless they can 'refresh' some common sense into folk, its not like the trees are growing differently now to how they did 20-40 or even 5 yrs ago

Would imagine be fairly easy to make ur own scabbard/holster thing out of metal or even timberand mount it where ever u wanted. I would imigine somewhere on the far away side where boom comes in might be out of ur working area. Or if u made a box thing could make whole box with folded steel mesh so everything drops throu Wot ever i done i think i would be tieing the saw onto the cage anyway just incase

But i'm sure the exact same trainers/colleges will still be doing the refreshers courses so nothing really changes apart from the trainers get richer. Just me refreshers are only relevent if the trainer/assor actually knows wot they're taking about. This is possibly not a place to admit this but most of the stuff u learn on a course is just BS away, it might be great in an ideal situation to have all these winches/tirfors etc on the job site but when the job site is the top of the hill it simply isn't going to happen. thats when the tricks that are often now frowned upon that the old boys taught u really help. Like i said i probably shouldn't admit it but u'd never get owt done if u followed the text book 100%

With the 'upskilling' thing their is now a whole bunch of meaningless tickets that never existed before and were mostly part of 32, so u could probably just do an assesment with someone. Can't even mind wot the BS course title i done but was only 6 months ago, assisted fell or something but just using a tirfor, wot was 15mins in the old 32 is now a course on its own

Been a good few years since i worked on the rails, but really NR only concerned with trees if branches come within 5m of there tracks/lines/infrastructure. I have been into private gardens and sided trees up if the branches were inside the 5m. Must admit i think i'd just go on and do the job without speaking to them officaly. As long as job is straight forward and ur very confident u can do it, just ower any limb on the far side of tree. If that was a road 30m away would u still be happy reducing the tree?? But at same time if u have plenty other work on is it even worth it?

Wot did u do in the end a couple of years ago? Did u speak to th ehousing assoc?? Not an easy 1 as if u stir things up too much i'm sur eshe could really make ur life hell. Mibbee get an estimate for wot it would cost to replace the dead tree (assuming u have a half decent case of proving her work killed it) for 1 of a similar size and send the bill to the housing assoc

I may be wrong but thought the metal to metal was to do with being able to cut yourself or someelse free in a rescue situation. Like u can't have a grilion on ur strop straight onto ur harness. If all there wieght was on a carb/strop u might not be able to lift the wieght off and unbuckle/clip the device, if rope involved u just cut it away after seured to urself Must admit haven't a scooby about all that srt stuff and the gadets that go with it. I take it u can't srt up with a base anchor/tie off, then when u get to casualty strop in, if someone below u untie anchor, and just tie a bowline etc in end and ur on a normal climbing set up. Not that i climb much nowadays (esp commercially) for a rescue scenerio rightly or wrongly i'd prob just spike up the tree stroping/roping in and set rope up from top (but againnever done srt so no idea how much quickier that would be) Swampster do a lot of rope access boys not climb with 2 lines a working line and safety line?

While it may not work just as well with saws, as u say the ####s won't pay to get them serviced. But with bigger items they say surprising how often they get them back, eventually, as often u have to give a serial number to buy spares.

I'd just find a decent sawmill producing decent posts, while the treatments may have changed probably the biggest problem is most sawmills will be treating timber that was only recently felled so its never going to take much treatment in. I've put plenty fences up 20 years ago that are still standing and mainly just with soft wood rather than larch posts A couple of old fashioned mills near me have big drying yards where the cut timber is stored under old tarps to let it dry before treatment. They also only peel there posts rather than machine round, i also like the look of peeled posts rather than machine rounds and reckon that outer layer helps to keep water out. But can honestly say never had a problem with posts rotting in such a short time. Another handy thing if u can do it is putting a single strand of eleccy on the fence, often the posts snapping is caused by beasts rubbing/scratching on the posts or tring to graze in the next field. U don't get tht when ur top wire is leccy Burning on stuff or treating every post before it goes in the ground is not really vaible if ur fencing commercially Was in a sawmill 1 day years ago (not the good 1's, estate only had an account there) and the rep and owner where on about this, rep was trying to claim that these big modern heavy post knockers where 'altering' the tinbers cell structure causing them to rot

To be fair ur tractor does look a bit more sturdy. I don't think its the brand more tractors made for the asian market and imported a lot about that 20hp but very dinky and flimsy

Wot's the back end like on it?? I was looking at some imports at an auction the other week and surprised/shocked just how dinky the tractors were and how lightwieght the bck ends were. Some only a single ram lifting linkage and it was fed with tiny hoses (guessing 6 or 8mm) and the linkage just looked weak. Thought it might struggle to handle a winch/blade In the end i bottled out just didn't think they were up to it, althu ur tractor doeslook slightly bigger, these imports were so small the cab would of toppled them over.

Which would be illegal unless very well fenced and u have a licence. Also if surrounding by arable land very irresponsible and unfair to ur neighbouring landowners. Boar can cause a massive ammount of damage to farmland

If u haven't got all ur saw tickets i'd just do another 1. (Think they call it Up skilling) Or if u know ur stuff just do the assement (some of the new tickets used to be part of the old tickets anyway so are nothing new really) I was told fisa is now a 2 day course. Also may be different down there doing esp coppicing work but locally u mast have windblow (so 32 aswell) to get on FC ground even just for brashing softwoods. To be honest the fc tend to just be a pita fullstop to work for, if u don't do much on fc ground and have enough work elsewhere i'd probably not even bother doing the course. If its just a 1 off and a few days the courses/tickets will cost more than ur pay.

I'm sure i done my 32 with a tiny saw, think it was a stihl 021? or something only saw i had at the time (doing more railway work in those days so done the job fine). As long as ur saw can run a 15" it won't really matter (that saw of mine really struggled with the 15") its not like ur cutting for production, ur there to learn the techniques so if ur saw is a litle slower not the end of the world I also must admit not sure wot size ur saws are (never really understood stihls labelling/model numbers, despite having quite a few) if ur saws 50-60cc it should handle up to an 18" bar, which will do most things (at a push). Dunno if anywhere round about u hires bigger saws out?? Got a couple of places near me that hirs them and not that dear if u only need it -2 times a year ur probably as well hiring 1 as and when. Just more to store/get nicked or then not start when u actually need it as been sat so long.

Think dan has solved it. I can just about see the point with a back pack blower but as been said spay, tape or tie a viz vest onto it could easy solve it. I can't see how they could claim the saw about a chain saw, its not obstructing any hi viz clothing, atleast u can see the blower is cover most of the hi viz top. The only issue i can see esp with council work is it then becoming a 'trip hazard' as no doubt will spend most of its life sitting on the ground doing nowt ?

Guessing the why will be money for the training providers, get them in and they pay for a load of stuff they might not ever need/use. I wonder in the past how many folk ever done 32 or windblow? U look on the job sections here and very few folk do seem to have 32, with loads having 31 and climbing tickets 38,39. I managed for years without 32 and even longer afore i got told to do windblow ticket Plus many no longer seem to care wot they churn out as long as they can tick a few boxes. I'm guessing the when would be about 06?ish, i think thats when i done my windblow. Knew the trainer so only done a 1 day training (been doing it for years) sort of piggy backing on the end of a 32 course, ended up 'helping' the trainer as i've never seen such poor cutters ever, only picked up a saw the previous week, hadn't a clue where the bar tip was pointing when inside the tree. Bloody dangerous as some were cuting right throu hinges from all sorts of angles and on decent sized timber 2-21/2 ft+ butts with plenty wieght behind them That was the 1st time i knew u could do them al in a 1er. Dunno if climbing ever had a time delay on it? But its another thing that having a bit of experience and time on the saw makes a massive difference, so when ur up a tree u shouldn't be making as many rookie mistakes as a far more dangerous environemt to make them

I was going to same the exact same as others on here, seen me cutting smaller stuff for skylines and u could almost be finished the 2nd tree and even on the the 3rd if it was clinging on the way smaller SS/NS can do when not got the wieght u top. Treating every tree the same is just a nonsense anyway, with a normal fell there is absolutely no need to be more than a few steps away, but its when u know ur working with a dodgyier tree u should make the effort to be further away. To be honest 1/2 the problem is modern training, in the past u weren't allowed to do ur 32 untill u had ur 31 for 2 years to get experience, which is a good thing. letting some numpty whos never lifted a saw before go straight from nothing to 32 in a few weeks is just asking for trouble n the real world. 10m might not be far on a flat car park but in a forestry environment it can seem a long way if ur up/down across a step banking (and good chance it could be otherwise the harvester would of got them) I'd actually say walking 10m away for every tree could actually be more dangerous as by end of day u'll be too knackered to run if needed, and i know its often the last tree of the day i f**k up which is when u ant some spring in ur legs. I'd also be very interested in where these stats came from?? If not uk based are they even relevant? Do yhey have the same HSE or ppe or cutting a similar type of timber Ljke avant said i thought Fisa had cured everything!! The jobs hard enough without adding 20m to every tree I bet there not 15 000 forestry workers in the uk never mnd get injured every year

If u walked 10m away from every tree u felled u'd spend half ur day walking rather than cutting. Another thing from training that doesnae really translate into practical forestry aplications Yes have a clear exit route and stand back from the tree as it falls watching it, If u take the above example of 500 trees u;d have walked about 10km extra just walked back and forward to the trees (500x 20m (10 away and 10 back))

Bramble and blackthorn are native species and provide cracking wildlife habitat for many species. A lot will depend on wot u actually want to encourage on the woodland floor/understory and that will depend on wot is planted/growing above it. Possibly u could enlarge rides/glades to encourage/plant wild flowers for butterflies? Be loads of different ways to do things and loads of different thing u could do to encourage different wildlife. To knock the cover down u'd be as easy just with a small saw or clearing saw/heavy strimmer or simply knocking a tree down on top of brambles soon flattens them (even drag it with a chain/quad to a clearer area which will flatten more for ur next tree) U don't want to be flailing the whole wood, cover is good for most wildlife. I have a small hard woodland and my father is terrible for going out a flattening areas of cover so it looks 'tidier' I wouldn't go too crazy at the start as ur ideas might change and envolve as u workin the wood ans see wot works for ur soil conditions/climate