drinksloe

Alright Not sur eif this should be here or in the maintence section?? Just wondering if anyone knows of any decent websites or even books so i can learn a bit more about hydraulics. Wot i'm aiming to do in the future is most likely attmpt to power some implements with a donkey engine and hydraulic pump, that are ideally hydraulic or in a couple of instances more often powered by PTO's. Had a looka bout and does seem to be a shortage of wot i'd like or seems very expensive might be quite a nice hobby to invent something that i can actually use. Just wondering wot is achievable and how u work out the numbers to achieve flow rates, capacitys, pressure and even sort of converting tat into the sort of Hp a tractor PTO would give u. Or how u even decide the flow rates/pressure u need, easy enough when working with a straight hydraulic designed implement but if converting a PTO driven. Also is there any decent sites, shops, companies that have a decent website that u can browse throu different pumps and motors getting specs etc?? To try asnd get my head round prices and wot can be achieved with different sized donkey engines/pumps. 1 thing that i'd like to do and don't even now wot u'd call it to look it up is create a sort off 'land drive' (was the old fashioned name) trailer for a quad bike so be of a hydralic power pack, dunno if called cage/roller driven, hydrostatc etc and how u can work speeds just for a few hobby projects for myself so not looking for professional jobs, Cheers

I imagine it is to do with the original felling licene and now the grant scheme, the planting plan and species has all been decidied a few years ago. i know they were saying that 1 area which was plated with SS/NS soon after harvesting at commercial densites also has to be thinned out at soometime down to 1600 trees per hectare. To be honest i don't really undestand how or why a lot of the decisions have been made, the committee of folk running it have absolutely no experience/knowledge of forestry (being honest no practical contryside experience really) i know half the committee had never even heard of mounding/dolping a few years ago when i was planting for them It an 80 odd acre site so not just a small area which has all to be planted and growing to get the grant money.

I'll try and get up antd take a photo, we can't leave them in as u can hardly walk throu them there that thick, the planting contractor who's planting that area said it would be impossible to plant throu them anyway. I have heard of nurse crops but the problem is here these birch have had a 5+ year head start on anything we plant, so i imagine anything we cut will only coppice and come back even stronger. (hence the idea of stump treating and no doubt plenty stumps would be missed but just enough tolet plenty light in) I could see the logic if it was a new recent clearfell site as the birch would have to grow from seed which would give the other trees a chaance too set there roots etc unchallenged. This wood will be for amenity value only and never harvested/felled. While u will be right about a selective thinning in the future, 1 of the big problems is i'm the only 1 with a saw ticket and don't fancy having to thin the whole site as a freebie Mulduloch Aye i think the same as u, while we have to cut the birch it will be a waste of time and really only allowing the planters to get the trees in the ground, wihin 2-3 years will be as bad if not worse than now without spraying it. Cheers thou

Cheers saints, must admit i never ever thought of that. Gave him a bell but not really going to work out with distances/timings etc lus he doesn't buy birch he's not cut/harvested himself. To be fair i can understand that when he has to sort/grade it and use it, his boys will be doing that as they cut it and cut it to the right sizes. Was a long shot but well worth a phone call. Cheers departed i thought u could use it as a stump treatment althou i had forgot the concentrations didn't realise just as strong a mix. I don't think much should be bigger than 3" so spray/paint on should be fine and even if the odd larger 1 survives not the end of the world u just don't want them all regening in a few years and smoothering the hardwoods. Just trying to knock the vast majority back to give the hardwoods a chance. I take it stump treatment will be worth the extra effort after the birch is cut??

I thought u could use gycol as a stump treatment? Know we did on the railways, i think a different dosage rate thou. But i stand to be corrected Cheers

Alright. Just wondering the best way to plant some mixed hardwoods in an area with some very strong Birch regen?? Its a local owned wood which has been clea rfelled 5+? years ago and they still have some more mixed hardwoods to plant. Seemingly the planting contractor who is planting some of the area has been down and says the Birch needs cut with brushcutters, which i totally agree with, some could be 4-5ft or higher. My suggestion was it might be worthwhile spraying the cut Birch stumps with Roundup/dye (unless anything better out there), all the brushcutting will be done by volanteers. I'm worried that in 2-3 years time the birch will have came back as strong as anything and we will have to brushcut again, but now there will be trees planted in the ground. Even with the guards (not sure wot size, might just be canes and vole spirals? the last lot i planted there were, but there is also some tubes too) Not sure the size but they said the worst bit could be 5Ha, so in my eyes quite a big commitment for the foreseeable future as the hardwoods will take a while to truely establish (unlike ur SS, which would probably out compete the birch if u brush cutt it now) and not be at risk of shadeing out. Can't remeber the exact %'s but quite a bit of Oak in there which will probably be the slowest Wot would u advise?? The brushcutting is a no brainer and needs done. But is it worth treating the cut stems? Wot sort of cost or ammount of Roundup/Glyco would u need (say to treat a 5Ha plot)? Also bear in mind the work will be done by volanteers so often lacking in numbers (never mind skills or common sense) I thought 3-4 guys with brushcutters and 1 floowing behind treating stumps (if worthwhile)

Just to say getting out the cab to cut trees is not the norm and i'm sure some bosses would moan at u parking the machie up to use a saw. Just the way he was if holding him upand short of cutters he'd just do it.

1 thing that stuck in my mind an old cutter told me, fairly relevant to the operators/companies i know but may not be the norm elsewhere. If ur SE which is quite normal, if ur on the saws u can choose to have a day off or work elsewhere for a few days within reason (as long as not holding jobs up) but if ur on a machine u may be SE but u can't really take days off or even finish early if u want. The boss has a machine worths loads so it needs to be working 'x' hours a week+ so u don't quite have the same control over ur work. Most of the machine boys i know will be doing 12-15 hr days and live up the woods in a midge infested caravan. I mind my old nieghbour swearing a few years back as he had to work between christmas and new year even thou he had booked it off. Boss needed timber forwarded out Also if machies are wot u want ur cutting tickets will still come in handy, i jnow a few harvester drivers who will knock down trees if needed with a saw, dunno if that is normal or not but they are old skool and cut their teeth doing 1st thinnings on a saw

My advice would probably be to do ur saw tickets 1st up to med and windblow and go get some exp cutting, u would no doubt make a few contacts etc for looking to move onto the machines later on. I've heard a bit of rhoddy bashing working further north and struggling for cutters, be a good way to start and get sme experience before going for ur bigger/more complicated saw tickets. U'll will also need EFAW+F wot ever u plan to do in the woods nowadys, only a 1 day course I'm not a machine operator but have worked with plenty and watching and working woth them i always think the boys with cutting exp tend to make better operators (they also tend to be brilliant for helping u out as a cutter, give u lifts up the hill with all ur gear, while the younger boys staight out of college into the machine can some times be ignorant buggers and never try to help u) I can imagine having cutting exp will also help u in the harvester assesing trees (wieght, lean etc) I know i have learnt a lot from just watching the old timer forwarder drivers, taking smaller loads and keeping ur tracks well hagged, while the young boys are all loaded to the top of greedy pins giving it full revs they wonder why they end up getting stuck Try looking up the barony college i've heard of them doing FT courses to get ur machine tickets, but i do think some that come out don't seem to have much of an idea (more common sense failure than lack of ability)

I would disagree we're buying in the exact same quality as we produce. As i've said not all timber is the same and there colder climate does suit ur better qualilty timber I don't think we're that far apart either, many things/normal practices of big business just does not make any common sense And ur bang on these renewabe neergy schemes are just 1 big con when u look a bit closer at them But it happens with all industries farming (NZ lamb, beef from africa and SAmercia, milk from god knows where) coulds ay the same with steel cheap imports

It may be only wood, but considering some/many don't think soft wood is even fit for firewood!! Most houses still rely on n awful lot of structural timber, kit houses are still the most common type of new builds in my area I'm sure if u spoke to joiners they might disagree with u there. Plenty of sawmills do cutting building grade local timber but the better stuff is imported. Esp nowadays with the demand for chip/pulp i've seen whole clearfells sites felled purely for chipping no matter wot other produce could off been cut. harvester/forwarder boys love it as only cutting 1 size And the climate soil and types of tree were planting (along side any thinning etc) will influence the grade of timber. My part of scotland tends to be fat hairy sitka, not really great quality, u go further north and get nice striaght larchs. scots and lodgepole It might not be that we can't produce that grade of timber here but more we either can't produce enough of it or cheaper to buy in from elsewhere. To be honest i can see the reason for importing something like better quality building timber, but i do struggle to see how its cheaper to import kiln dried firewood

To be fair they would be different products despite both being timber/trees. We have always imported a bit of building grade timber from abroad as it often tends to be better quality while we often export ur chip/pulp grade timber to the same countries we import the building timber from. Can see it making sense for them to export the better quality product for extra £££ rather than converting it to chip/pulp when they can import it cheaper Wether this will slow down with the rise in timber prices in UK for chip/pulp grade wood? Dunno if it is still going on to the same extent now, back 10+ years ago u could hardly give chip/pulp wood awy and would sit at roadside for months, now demand is throu the roof, i'd imafgine they will be buying it from across the baltic states now rather than here. This whole world econmoy thing does tend to be completely bonkers, the fact its cheaper to import firewood from half across europe than in ur local woods just seems crazy to me. Or these many wood chip power stations which then import wood from abroad, meant to be saving emissions but the carbon footprint or emissions to get chip onto the conveyor belt must be horrendous. Better just burning the desiel in the power station. There was a fish plant near me that was actually shipping prawns to thailand to be peeled before flying them back to be processed/cooked at the local plant and meant to be a cost saving measure????

Somone was telling me a while back about an old workshop that had piped a waste oil feed into there log burner and just dripped away throughout the day.

Mibbe plastic a section and pull hard round its edges 2 or 3 times. But it won't be easy Dunno the laws over ur way but in UK if u have newts it makes everything bloody expensize and complicated as need licences if u have newts, i doubt u'd even be allowed to pull weeds without a licence.

No there literally just digging a bucket sized hole, no concrete or owt. I don't think they've lined the base with stone, i'll mibee have a nosewhen out with dogs the morro but pretty sure just a big hole I'm guessing they will just drive a digger round every few years to empty?? Or more likely knowing the FC forget about them till theres a major problem again. To be fair the costs of doing it properly like in ur photo would be absolutley massive in my area. I've got 20-30 mile loop of FC track just behind my house + all the many dead end tracks of them. And in this part of scotland plenty of wee burns crossing it too

I know the local FC have changed things sligtly with there 'cundies' recently, over the past few years tend to dig a big hole in front of the pipe and another biggerhole at the outflow, Think idea being for outflow to sit full of water which will dampen the errosive force as well as acting as silt traps on both sides.

Bit late to the party. And dunno if it would work in ur case, but i used to be involved with a fishing club and the ponds had a serious candaian pondweed problem made worse by us in the early days try to cut and dredge it out of the pond. Putting a black plastic sheet over the pond (or atleast part of the pond) it should stop daylight getting to th plant and kill it out. Dunno if it would regrow after being killed out thou with the root structure. It definately works for most pond pests, might depend wether u can do 1/2 ur pond at a time and then move i the following year or wether the lillies would spread out. Be too late for this year but prob worth having a trail go next year easy enough to do and no chenmicals involved. Ps 1 thing to watch if spraying/killing the plants off not so much any chemical but the rotten vegetation can take all oxygen out of the water, we killed a load of our fish 1 year sprayed too big an area and th erotten vege suffocated the fish but that pond was low in oxygen anyway as not much inflow to it

Mibee different soils etc down ur way, but generally in my area soils tend to be acidic so no bad thing spreading ash. Infact spreading lime is back in fashion again too, all the old timers done it in past but seemed to go out of fashion (or too expensive?) lot of pot ash from local burning pants being sspread on fields now (althou i can imgine burning plastice etc would not prodce good ash)

Planted quite a bit of willow round me mibee 10+?ish years ago, only 2 fields left now in the whole area. All ripped up and reploughed, it actually ploughs out better than i thought it would, thought u'd get far more regen coming back Money just not in it. For years there was a field right next to the boimass power station so close the harvester could of fired the end riggs strainght into the station grounds from its spout, but all that chip was taken 70 miles away to be stored for a year before being hualed back. Just bonkers. When that plant was built was meant to be powered entirely by locally grown willow and waste wood of harvesting sites, no willow left locally and soon realised brash and stumps are just a waste of time in SW scotland the costs of extrcating/hualing them plus washing before chipping was massive. The carbon/desiel footprint would be massive The whole boimass industry (like most other green energies) is a sham and a complete white elephant. Subsidies are keeping it going and generally governments/civil servants make a complete arse of them. With the commercial RHI tarriffs u have folk buring every scrap of wood to heat empty sheds so using up all these trees that have been lying for years, Is there not a big boimass plant down south that imports al its chip from canada/usa? Coupled with all this imported fiirewood, from an sustainable environmental perspective its just crazy really

Think we used to call that a high lead system, where u use 1 drum as a back hual for ur main line. I imagine u could weld up a trailer like a drilling rigg that flips up to give u ur tower/hieght that u towed between jobs rather than completely customising ur tractor and mibee making it less useful for other jobs. Must admit always thought it was a clever way of working, often relativley simple to set up and a lot easier than carrying a heavy steel cable up and down steep bankings every load. Am i right in saying on older winches either twin or triple drums where quiter common (or possibly just the few i worked with/seen years ago were) nowadays u hardly seee a triple drum and no new 1's And even most of the doulbe drum's rend to be cable of the same size as main line, the old ones

That was exactly my thoughts, esp with the more budget brands. But even the top end ur lucky to get much more than that geninely waterproof. Being out on a shoot in real stinking weather u can always compare notes/wet patches at lunch time to see wot is the best/driest. But i've really yet to see a brand that has 100% waterproof and satisfaction amongst owners. Know some keepers with some parmo stuff, but more just like a rain jacket and seen them just as wet as the rest of us too (althou mibee using it wrong as still shirted up below so might be sweat??)

Another problem u have is some of the really decent top end makers from the past now get everything made elsewhere (asia) so some of the modern stuff is nowhere near as good as the old stuff was. I've got a proper old 'Swanny' which is a brilliant jacket but warm but the new stuff is rubbish. Ps Swanny's are not good for skiing/boarding the only time i've been skiing bright orange set of fisherans bib and brace anf my swanny which being wool all the snow stuck to it, looked like the abodomable snowman by the time i got to the bottom ? Seems to be new brands arriving all the time (esp from either scandi or NZ) with some quite decent reputations althou with a price tag to match Must admit i've got some ridgeline stuff and really like it, my stuff is actually water proof! Aalthou don't like smocks in general as u always get too warm in them

This is 1 of those topics that even thou it shoudn't (its either waterproof or its not) seems to be personal preference. Depending if they had a good 1 (not a fri avo version) and how they use it (ie standing about/walkig slowly or being quite active and sweating) Throu the winter i spend quite a bit of time working dogs on shoots, so have seen plenty of eye wateringly expensive jackets (£4-500+) and the 1 thing i'd say is they almost all leak. Lot of folk wearing Rab now in past all Berghaus and Mountain Eqiup I'm similar to u and prefer layers, I quite like cheaper berghaus goretext from the local factory shop Not going to say 100% waterproof but to be fair for the money pretty good. I'm too tight and prefer to spend less and have slightly lower expectations as seen the really dear 1's leak anyway Usually start of with the newest 1 and if really bad weather it might be wet by lunch so put the next 1 on when back at my pick up. If u have decent layers on (ie proper base and fleece) even if ur jacket is damp u don't get cold like u would wearing a rugby top/jeans. Got a few Deerhunter items to and usually pretty good. There is a compabny called Sportsman Gun centre (basicly a shooting wharehouse) it has some very good deals on often 80% for discontinued lines. Just got a long trench coat jacket for walking dogs in extreme weather and so long comes right down to welly level so no wet legs, only £26 (far heavier duty than i expected) and got a few of those orange jackets again about 30 quid and 80% off again good for dogs in the winter, not 100% waterproof but has to be bloody wet afore they get damp

Dunno if this is still going on? To be honest i'd probably make an excuse i'm too busy and leave it, sounds like it could be a right baw ache. Also if ur tracking tons of timber 200m away, is it across a proper lawn? Or just rough ground. I'd also be cautious incase u can be held laible for any damage caused while transporting the timber and if u are laible to reinstate any damage. Might not be an issue if not a lot of timber or really dry ground/rough grass but the way this has went on it would not surprise me if u get blamed for something (if the nieghbours still blames the council for work they done 18yrs ago)

I would imagine u'd probably be easier going via any other forestry company or even landowner rather than the FC, so much red tape and hoops to jump throu Even have a word with the harvesting company they could probably sort it all out