drinksloe

Cheers difflock. Glad its not just me then. Some of the machines aren't really that old but just not a very common size or got tracks on. U'd think u could just put the make and model and figures would come up somewhere esp when ur on the makers own websites.

Cheers both of u i did come across that site, which is the exact sort of thing i'm looking for althou typically doesnae list the 1's i was looking for. ? Cheers thou

Alright Been dodging the weather today and googling a few things, wish list if u won the lottery (and old scrappers i could afford) When u get to the smaller scale machines compact tractors/crawlers finding it really hard to find any info on models (HP, dimensions/wieght, and Hyd flow rate/pressure etc) A lot seem to be far more common on the continent too which doesnae help much Is there a site that is quite good at listing more bizzare models. Found some info on plant wiki but still quite hit and miss really Even when i have been on the manufacters offical site it tends just to list the more recent or current models and not so much the older 1's (and some the tractors are compeltely absent espite liting tracked dumpers etc) I will add my computer/internet skills are rubbish so possibly doing something wrong but tried Goog and yah and just seem to be getting the same old clips and pictures and loads of crap thats not even relevant (zapmat, supa savers etc all offering me the cheapest 1 nd usually not even similar) Would of thought it would be relatively easy to just type the make and model in and get all the stats and specs but doesnae seem to be working out that way for me Cheers

If it works for u thats all that matters. I bet i'll start noticing it now when i never have in the past. To be fair he still works the tools everyday and can swing a 16lb mel like a toffee hammer. Think he thinks u get a better top line with the mel and less sweetening it off, he is a bit of a perfectionist.

No i totally appreciate the difference between sledgeing wedges and swinging a fencing mel (usually with wedges ur swinging at a queer angle with feet at wrong level too and at times cock handed if u can't get in on ur good side) Do plenty of that too when needed but honestly have never felt anything other than knackered? I've done a lot of fencing by hand in the past 1 boss done a lot of differnet fencing so couldn't justify a tractor/chapper for the ammount we done, yet we'd still take on plenty of 1000+m stock jobs, just ld school and near retiring age Another ! of my old bosses still doesnae believe in chappers even thou he has 2 Suma's, only uses them for strainers everything else is done by hand. He thinks its a better job?? To be fair on good going ur almost as quick melling but bloody hard work in harder ground Can mind when fbre gla shafts 1st came out on mels was like night and day compared to old hickory shafted mel's, and only ever had fibre glass sledges so can't compare. Couldn't justify 100+ quid on 1 thou, and esp as i use steel wedges on bigger heavily leaning trees would probably not last too long

Wot type of shafts did ur od sledges have? Just when ur getting bothered so much by vibration/shock. I have done a lot of fencing by hand in past and they used to say u don't get vibration throu a hickory shaft compared to a cheaper timber shaft, but modern fibre glass shafts u never feel it. Must admit i've never really noticed much shock using a sledge with a fibreglass shaft (or not enough to really worry about)

Cheers for that link stere, they plastic sledges look ok, and cheap enough at that too, only 14 euro if i've read it right?? (is that only about a tenner?) I didn't think they'd do steel but seemingly thats wot they advise. Have u bought of that company before?

Wot sort of wieght is in ur alum mel?? I've not seen any light enough that i would want to carry on to a forestry site. Usually all 14lb+, dunno wot a sledge is 6 or 8?? I take it that fancy plastic sledge is the same as the smaller mallets that u can replace the nylon ends?? Never seen a big mallet like that either, but mibbee would have the wieght (and no doubt my steel wedges would knacker the nylon heads too)

Don't think i've ever snapped a hi lift but still get annoyed with myself if u don't catch it square on and giving it big licks it mushrooms/splits on 1 side down the grain, usually pretty well worn by then. By rights u should have ur sledge with a larger dia head than the wedge, (like a fencing mel) give u that touch more wiggle room and stop it mushrooming the same. Always thaght about welding a plate on my sledge for it but never go round to it (also not sure if u can weld onto a sledge head with an arc/mig welder??) If u have a load of softwoods to do the best/easiest/quickiest thing is a long felling bar (5ft odd) amazing the leverage u can get and surprising the trees u can get over with it. But u still need ur wedges too for either bigger or heavily leaning. I tend to carry a bag with wedges/sledge and leave it where i'm working and just take bar tree to tree untill i need the wedges again Must admit if its really sitting back i have some steel wedges i start it off with, in big timber there really isn't much of an issue with catching ur chain as u should have plenty of room. Aye cut homemade wedges or snedded a long 'pushing pole' to to get some trees over when i would of been stuck otherwise

The probelm with concrete is it really does not like salt/grit and it willl lift the top skin of it. Dunno if that is an issue down where u are if u get much frost/snow? Must admit i prefe concrete over tar for ease of washing and if turning/screwing wheels but the salt does make a right mess of it.. U can get water permable tar now but guessing the steepness of slope would make it a waste of time. I'd probably go with wot toad said tar plus an eco drain, just got to dig a soakway for ur drain

It might depend on wot u plan to do after the course which wedges would be most useful. Woteer u'll buy wil have a use, not like they go out of date or anything. But hi lift wedges are very handy, i'd buy 2 and double ring them. It might depend how big the trees actually are for the course thou, but really u could buy a set of Kw's and 2 hi lifts and u'll be covered for every thing (or buy 1/2 cheaper nylon wedges plus hi lifts if cash tight) Never priced those KW wedges Hi lifts are quite handy when u work 2 or more togther on bigger trees (if ur doubling up wedges which works fine but u might run out of wedges if u need 2/3 hi lifts)

But it's only rated at pulling 3/4T, even ur smallest tirfor will lift 800kg and probably pull twice that, so not a heavy duty machine. I take it they need to use 3 strand rope rather than ur normal braided lowering/bull type ropes? Quite a bit of money for something so lightwieght that would probably spend most of its life on a shelf but i could see it beinghandy occasionally (if it could handle normal rope)

Where you import from and how much. Looks the tits Was thinking the exact same!! Also be intrested in wot size of rope it can handle and can it handel more normal 'bull' rope rather than the stuff in the photo. Bet u must have arms like popeye thou first winching it up the banking and then cross cut/ringing it woth a bushman. Bugger that, i think any enjoyment/novelty factor would be lost after the 1st piece and the petrol engines would be coming out.

That would be the dangerous thing with it being so close, ur always going to beat the polis there, so u either have to sit and listen to them attempting to smash throu wot ever locks/detterants u've added Or u do wot most folk would probably do if some low life is stealing ur tools, confront them. Even if ur lucky enough to come off on the winning side, the chances are those sort of scumbags will turn up again and target u on purpose and really mob handed just to get back at u. Sadly u can never really win against scum like that who have little to loose and know where u live. Years ago a mate and another trucker who worked for same company in a layby for the nite heard someone at the wagon desiel tanks, phoned polis who told them to ignore it and trn radio up, the other lad phoned boss who said the same. My mate loved a good ruck and was itching to get after them but boss had to threaten to sack him if he did as didn't want all his haulage companies wagons targetted, could cost a fortune in long run if a few tyres got slashed, far more than a few tanks of desiel. Completely wrong but can understand the thinking

To be honest it would often vary from job to job depending if u need to put the post in at same centre's or not, soil conditions and ammount of concrete posts were put in with (seen posts put in with silly ammounts when done by the house builders labourers, usually in a bob crater shaped hole so doing no good either). With a digger ur best bet would be to leave ur post full hieght/high (same as with tree stumps) so u can get digger bucket over them and give them a good waggle 1st before lifting, As u don't really want to be digging round them if ur hoping to use the same hole. I'd hire a few diggers to see wot size copes best, ur always/usually better with as large a machine as u get get acces for. A breaker is a bloody handy tool as well, even a heavier electric breaker would do the job of breaking posts out, and used 1 many times for that job, still a bawache getting the concrete out at times even after u've got thhe post out. But a breaker is handy for many thing doing domestic work, we'd quite often use it for putting a fence up ontop/alongside a small garden wall so ur posts were on top of the founds, handy for breaking them away to get ur posts in tight to the wall. Not that dear now either, well for the cheaper makes, and if ur not using it very often a cheapo screwfix brand breaker might be all u need

Must admit i'm with mathew above, I wouldn't hang a gate with thoose type of hinges, esp not for a top hinge. Mibee be fine for a bottom crook (while i often do bottom crook upside down for security might be a waste of time with those as u'd just unscrew the screws holding it in) I'd be wanting a bore completely throu and fastenes with a nut/washer, over time swinging shut, idiot's climbing gates at nose ? and general wear and tear etc will soon loosen/slacken either drive in crooks or screw in like ur's. As has been said plenty of packing is always handy esp if on ur own, a lot of strainer 'points' off cuts always come in very handy for that as whole range of hieghts and can wedge gate from both sides if its trying to fall over on u.

Mibee depend wot u classify as 'forestry' work. If ur talking about putting 1 gallon of fuel throu it 5 days a week then definately not I bought a wee cheap 30-40cc saw just as a knock about saw and actually surprisingly good. Done some small scrub land clearance and felling/snedding some small hardwoods (up to 12-18") and done very well and worked hard al day, but was really just a back up/spare saw, wouldn't want to rely on it every day. But for a bit of respacing work occasionally it would do the job. The 1 problem i have found with mine is the rear handle has too much flex in it so if ur just slightly too late in pulling out of the compression cut and bar starts nipping the handle flexes and throttle cable gets stuck on full, but u just lightly tap the side of the handle which fixes it

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.

Aye i was thinking the same as u Baldbloke, if u could dry them properly in there bags in a kiln could be a cheaper alternative to kindlering. Watching that clip earlier of the branch logger working, to me it actually seemed quite quick, well atleast the chipping side of it. Seemed almost as quick as a chipper really Wot seemed to take up a lot of time was climbing over to the far side of the machine over tow bar/trailer to shake the bags so often. I would get sick of that pretty quickly. If the bags were at the same side of the machine so u could shake/kick them as u loaded the logger it would speed it up a lot, pus having bigger bags if possible If they could be dried in the bags there could be a market and the way things are going prices and demand for timber is only going to go 1 way in the future

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

Just thinking about tis yest at work, and similar to wot LPG eddie has said above. If ur getting a tractor and hi lift trailer in and out loaded an not making a mess its probably not the sort of site u'd be using a small Lgp forwarder/chipper combo. If u can travel out with a full trailer load of chip u could also travel out with a botex/full size forwarder of brash to roadside to chip direct into bulkers or take a decent sized PTO/crane fed chipper in. Will really all depend on the work u think u'll have for it and wether u can justify the costs of having a chipper sat idle (if not using it a lot) or the extra costs to adapt it to how u wanted it.

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)