drinksloe

Any time i've done it we just clipped it too the rabbit net or occasionally just the rylock if unusually no rabbit net. We just pulled it hand tight as we went and clipped it on.

Must admit i'm another spare bar and chain bloke. (but oppenspace makes a good point about the clutch, most of mine are all internally) But a silky in the piece bag is also worth it too for real emergancies I tend to more stick bars in tree stems if it sits back on u unexpectadly (usually throu operator error, not looking at tree enough) and too small to get wedges in or for some reason have bar at wrong side of a heavily wieghted outsider and too heavy for the wedges. I u jam it snedding u can often wiggle the branch to get it out. U could try instead of doing another 'step' type cut a more open type felling cut and take a wide open gub out of the compression side and then come in form the other side as normal. The ones i do occasionally struggle with are branches going down almost vertically with a lot of weight on them.

Dunno about the older stihl's but on older husky's they were screwed in. So u actualy have to turn the whole HT lead a few times.

Aye my old boss had a breaker and it was a brilliant little thing, thats why i thought of it, would work really well if i could run it at the right angles to split the rock. Althou i think i've undervestimated the hardness, just broke both my teeth clean off my wee bucket! Most of the rock is coming out 1-2ft cubes or whell barrow size but had a few big bits break off pool table slab/rock armour size. Think i'll have to bite the bullet and get a pecker. Should really be thankful only been like this the last 2-3 ft and not the other 20ft+ above it, but also glad as i know its never going to 'rush' on me. I original rough estimated 2-3000T in it but i don't think its been quite that much, did mean to count dumper loads but it was never going to happen

Must admit i did want a ripper tooth for it, but there about 500 quid and i've took most of the roots out now that i needed. But the bucket i'm using is still only 6-8" so really just 2 teeth, it is breaking it but it just takes a few scrapes which is shaking the machine. I'm a bit of a woose when it comes to machines and don't like being to hard on them + its my own digger and i'm worried about damaging bushes, pins etc that may already be sligtly worn Can u hire ripper teeth from plant hire places? I must admit i'm a bit like carl above that i think the electric would be handy to just free up odd pieces, and save all the hassle of changing buckets I take it its not a big job to take the pecker on/off. Noise polution is not relly an issue where i am, and i think it will only be short periods at a time if i go down that route Cheers so far

Alright I realise not arb related but seems to be a lot of knowledgable folk on here that have done all sorts jobs I'm digging away a big banking at the back of my house and am just beginning to hit some hard rock/shale stuff just as i'm getting near the final level. Most of it is coming not too bad but down to an 8" toothed bucket but still bits are still too hard and i don't want to damage or shake the machine to bits. The rock is wot i'd call grey quarry rock and there are quite a few quarries within a few miles of me with the same grey stone. So it does splinter away if u find the seem right The question is would i be better off hiring a pecker for the 5T digger or would an electric breaker do? (never worked a pecker before) I'm not expecting it to be constant big stones/seems so think i will get sick off constantly swapping the pecker and conecting hoses (don't even know if the pecker hoses are connected/work, they should do but an oder machine and u never know wot previous owners might have done) Bad enough constantly swapping buckets and its got a semi/manual quick hitch, so i shouldnae really moan. So far i've got about 6 or so stones needing a few feet/corner knocked off and 1 massive thing thats 5-6ft tall right on the face, but i'm only 1/3 of the way along and still rough digging i dare say could be a lot more when i put the levels on and have to be precise

I've just had a mamouth battle with 2 stumps joined together had to split the 2 with a combo of axe, chainsaw, chopping pinch and pressure washer. Have to say the pressure washer worked a treat esp cmbined with the axe and my chopper (pinch with a 4" brick bolster welded to it) Even now with the roots seperated and out the 5T digger will only just bulldoze them with blade and not lift them. Must off been a hell of a wieght in them when together. Depending on the soil but tree roots don't always go that deep, if u think ur deep enough not to be breaking any as u dig no point in going deeper. I'd just keep working round the stump with a toothed bucket trying to undermine it as much as possible. If u can get a petrol/desiel pressure washer it will fairly blast the soil away and undermine it If i'm digging a stump out i try to leave the stump as high as possible to gt extra leveage The other thing try and find a root that will give u good leverage for pulling, strong and out to the side from stem, i usually attach chain to the blade to take pressure of the machine but usually working with smaller machines. Wouldn't have thought that machuine would of struggled

Being nature its 1 of those things there is no absolute's, althou u do generally get a feel for it. Generally a badger holes is more like a sideways 'D' shape with a flat bottom while a foxes will be rounder, generally badger setts will have many holes while a fox often won't. Only ever seen foxes share a sett when its quite a large sett. But also badgers will have satelite setts away from the main sett too. In my area foxes only go down holes to cub and in extreme weather, very hard frost or lots of snow. As has been said badgers live down holes FT, so usually very fresh soil infront and sometimes old bedding. Trail cam will be ur best bet or look round the surrounding area for a latrine in a badger often up hedgerows/fencelines. Or look for foot prints in softer/wetter areas of soil, badger foot prints are quite unmistakeable. I mind once walking a mile up the rail track to fell a decent sized dangerous oak on a shutdown with an 'ecologist', turns out they had the mile markers wrong licence was invalid so i coudn't fell the tree and to make matter worse was never a badger sett in a million years, a single holer in a massive sandy bank with fox footprints/smell at it. Some ecoloogists wouldn't know a fox hole if they tripped over it. To be fair ur terrier boys are the folk to ask, they have to know the difference between them. I thought u can still fell trees on top of a badger sett ur just not allowed machinery within 30m's? of it. I know i've definately felled trees to harvesters off active setts before, but possibly they had a licence? Same on railways deveg'ed over them but no machinery/chip piles near them.

Possiby a bit of left field thinking, and i'm not sure the exact wording of the General Licence. And not really the correct use of the GL. The GL will be on defra website and is quite a hefty piece of legislation But for some species u possibly would be allowed to destoy the nest for various reasons, usually crop protection, conservation or environmental health (air fields are another) are the main ones usually used. In the GL it ists the species and ways ur allowed to control them U could destroy a corvid nest if u could argue the above reasons and meet the critera. Pigeons are on the GL but not sure if nest destruction is allowed. Fir the OP depending on the bird species and situation, but if the birds are pretty used to humans u could probaly move the nest box to a nearby tree and the birds just carry on as normal. I had a robin nest in the electricty fuse board cupboard of a house i'm doing up last year, fledged 4 chicks althou 1 drowned in the toilet on an early flight

I'm pretty sure ANY electric cable within 9m of tree and u have to phone the electric board anyway and they'll run throu the options. Was a similar thread on here about that just recently. The network suppliers should keep branches a safe distance from the wires for free

I recently had to buy a new welder for tacking up a small shed extension i was building of a genny. I bought a new type Stealth arc welder, (sort of digital display) think it is an inverter welder, absolutely brilliant far better than my old arc and is so smooth to weld with esp on really low amp's with finer electrodes. Very very impressed with it Even my old mig wouldn't weld of the genny (5kw) and this 1 does get a fair bit of penetration even on the thicker metals easily. If ur not doing a massive ammount and esp if on thicker metals that are going to be worked/abused i'd just go with the arc welder, even the slag seems to come of easier with the new welder (possibly as easier to adjust to the correct ampage, old 1 was a dail and i never really knew wot ampage i was welding with) Plus with ur costs of gas hire etc or needing clean metal and indoors/no breeze the arc certainly has a lot of benefits for heavier outdoor use

Is it not slightly ironic that to replace struggling subsidy stealing sheep farmers u would replace them with forestry which is also subsidised?? Sorry struggling to understand the logic. Do u really think if u blanket planted Sitka Spruce the lake district just to get rid of parasitic farmers that would have no knock on effect on tourism or wildlife? Subsidies help to keep whole rural communties afloat, schools, shops, garages open etc U talk about the damage farming does to wildlife (althou hill farming is actually very environmentally friendly) and yet u want to plant non native trees instead. Hard to find any logic in that. Esp as many upland environments are pretty sensitive, UK has around 85% of upland heaths in the world, but we should just plough/mound it to grow trees? To me most of this thread just smacks of jealosy and a few folk spouting the usual half truths. Still don't get why its such a big problem as most of u aren't competeing against farmers for work, so subsidies make no odd's. While farmers are competeing on a global/EU market where all EU is subsidiesed. Woud u rather UK just handed all the CAP money back to EU saying we don't want it? The sad basic fact is nowadays most folk don't care about there food, its living standards or how it was killed. If u compared that to tree surgery its just like getting some cowboys in to spike up trees and hack them to bits as long as cheap.

So wot about all the relatively poor farmers sitting in tennent farms?? Someone mentioned a hill farmer in the lakes earlier. Not all subs go to dukes. But dukes by there nature do tend to own large areas of land Sadly money goes to money no matter wot industry ur in I'm not massively in favour of subs, but it was not designed by the farmers and they're just working with wot they've got. I bet most farmers would happily get rid of them if they were guarantee'd a fair price for there produce with a level playing field. And before anyone goes on about 'guaranteeing a fair price' how many on here would quote £200 for tree work and householder only offers u £100 u would walk away from the job, not so easyy when u've already done the work/grow the crops/raised the stock and have to sell it Just on the pollution front again there is so many regulartly bodies and quality assurance schemes nowadays never mind SEPA (or english version) farm inspections/visits and even dog walkers etc, i do find it hard to believe that many farms openly have pollutants running into burns all the time. Not saying accidents don't happen thou I know locally a wee while ago there was a big thing about e.coli on beaches and were fencing off any watercourses within 5 miles and not allowing stock to drink out of the burns the way they have for hundreds of years.

I work in and around a lot of farms and it is night snd day to wot it used to be 30 years ago. Back then most burns anywhere near a farm were a sludgey algae brown mess that u couldn't even see the bottom of shallow burns as rocks were so covered in algae bloom. Every burn looked like u get when a septic tank blocks. (To be fair both slurry and silage effulent where a relatively modern thing, due to changing farming practices, so they didn't know just how to deal with them or how pollutant they are. I've not seen a burn like that in years/decades and see more evidence of to near blocked/brocken househod septic tanks than i do from farms I'm not saying u don't get some run off from the fields thou while not ideal its not on the scale it was or ur making out, atleast i my area. Some of the grant schemes now make this far more likely, just crazy. The Nitrate Vulnerable Zones don't let uspread slurry at certain times of year for local areas to try to stop leaching into water. But all it means is all the farmers in 1 area aren't allowed to spread it gradually over winter when weather suits and desperate to put slurry out when the date comes so every one in neighbourhood is out spreadng, if it rains that night the local burns will be full of it, but thats how there told to do it. Kevin all the sign says is discharge, that could come from anywhere. Eggs i also have no doubt farmers are the biggest polluters but thats only cause there is so many of them covering almost all of a catchment area. To be honest kevin i think u just like mumping ur gums about farmers so it won't matter wot anyone says. Must admit i'm impressed wth ue dedication to it thou, for someone who can't stand farmers u spend a lot of time reading about farming. Ps Countryfile isn't really about farming, its townies ideas of farming, same with Autumn/spring watch has very little to do with wildlife just the disneyfied version townies like. Don't know many farmers that watch either

Most of the problems u've highlighted are absolutely nothing to do with the farmers and all to do with EU/civil servants, and stupid policies. A few years ago in my area the building/plant/civil trades where on there arse absolutley no work going apart from 2 roads jobs and 2 windmills, (so basically all government funded jobs) all 4 jobs main contractos were iriish who generally only employ irish subbies, esp so with the plant/civil engineering side as seemingly there was some EU grant for new plant which made them far more competative when rendering against UK based companies. Those big long term jobs would really have helped the local area at that time. So its not just farmers who get grants but generally there not competing with anyone else. Mibee after brexit is the time to really look at the agri industry (esp the hold supermarkets have, not just on farmers but supplies in general) and change do away with the grants altogether. But i'm sure u will be the 1st to moan when ur weekly food shop goes up I also find it hard to believe many/any farms nowadays have slurry/effluent runing straight into burns. Yes 30 years ago but not now, it used to be the norm 30yrs ago, in my area i've never seen the burns so clean. Which is baked up by the massive numbers of otters living in them

Would a dogs tooth cut have made any difference?? The holding wood seemed to 'pop' anyway so not sure wot difference it would of made. If its going to pop some holding wood then i doubt the 'tooth' part would be enough to stop it kicking out I must admit i don't think i've ever down a proper dogs tooth cut and tend to do the exact same as the boy, usually an slightly oversized gub and just bore straight out the back of the cut Think the main reason is the gub is to small so hinge in wrong place and too much wieght not over the hinge i was always taught to ideally keep the back cut only slightly higher than the gub and the nearer the stronger the hinge,

I'd say the hinge width isn't actually that bad for the size of tree but should off had a deeper gub in it. But hindsight is always 20/20 and esy to critise from behind a computer screen To be fair to the boy i think he knew wot he was doing (even mentioning a ratchet strap althou any rope etc should do), done the right cut and knew the signs when it was going wrong and got out the way quick. Think thats half the battle knowing when/wot things could go wrong and then when they've went wrong and getting the hell out off the way quickly. If u've cut enough trees u've had things go wrong, just got to hope u don't hurt anyone/anything. Sometimes u just get it wrong Is that not wot the boy done subby, a dogs tooth cut? Just the hinge was too far forward and the back holding wood popped

I may be wrong here but i sort of get the impression that the owner puts no commercial value on the wood so it doesn't need to be 2nd thinned or even ever felled and is just wanting some more light in about it for looks/conservation. Obviously it may impact on future price if he ever sold the wood if not done by a more normal method, but i bet a lot of folk buy woods without ever looking at them anyway

I'm not UA qualified but pretty certain 1m is the 'danger zone' and usually have a 5m clearance for HV and possibly 3m for LV. I'm sure it is described in the proper terms on the UA part of this site I thought ur not meant to work with in 10m without being UA ticketed. When i was cutting on the railways was a 5/6m clearance we were cutting, can't really remember even having branches that close to the overheads and if they were u'd have a shut down/possesion anyway.

Ur right but sometimes even with all the gear u have to resort to that sort of stuff. Usually ground to steep or wet. And it is a PITA I spent 1 very unpleasant day scrambling up and down a sheer face with a wire rope pulling already proccessed logs down (harvester got up but no way could the forwarder follow) Wouldn't have been so bad if trees were converted If its just for amenity value. The onwer might actually be cheaper just cutting the timber to waste and leave it there as extraction could very easily be a PITA. The litte he gains in timber value is offset by labour saving?

If u go for it this would be the way to go, we used to call it a 'High lead' system. Set a block up on far side with a haul back cable, but even setting that up wil not be so easy iif not using strainght lines and a racking type system Believe me u soon get sick of walking back and forward dragging a heavy winch cable, althou must admit never dragged it on the flat, usually a hill u can barely walk up. How long is the wood? I think u talked about 29 trees? So about 60m? Possibly more achievable doing wot ur talking about as still fairly narrow, some of the more experienced biys will being doing racks 100m's long where a winch/ur system would never really work . Felling sitka can be a nightmare when in the crop like that esp if not heavy as it doesn't have the wieght to break free from all the branches friction to nieghbouring trees. I've seen some trees wedged over at 30-45%+ and still clinging on to the crop. Might be worth having a lad sitting in the tractor all day and use the tractor winch to pull the trees down, stop it to sned etc. But that means paying a lad to sit in the tractor all day while ur working ur bits off

Thats intresting Marko I travelled throu Ukraine on a train a good few years ago going to a fitba game. 1 of the other lads in the group was combining business with pleasure and was involved with a massive scots/uk tattie growing group/co-op. And was tryig to see if it was possibly to invest out there. I think he was 1 of the 1st groups looking to invest out there (i think at the time it was hard to take profits out of the country) Must admit i was completely shocked by the living standard out in the countryside and just how poor they were/are. People literally living in wot looked like bad allotment sheds (just built from random bits of timber nailed together)and farming with horse and carts. It ws like stepping back in a time machine. Growing pumpkins? on the railway bankings and onthis train the toilets quite literally where a hole in the floor and the pedal flipped it to the side of the track. As an aside at the polish/ukraine border they lifted the whole train up and changed the wheels, just slid the whole runnibg gear right out, seemingly the railway guage is different from old eastern block countries Yet the big sheds/infrastructure is there for large scale farming, just when the soviets left everyone got 1-2 acres of ground but no one could afford to buy/run a tractor as all the parcels of ground were to small (in fact very similar to wot snp trying to achieve if they got there way)

I think i'm right in saying a lot of the fluctutation is now made worse buy those city/stock broker parasites trading on the futures?? markets so pushing prices up/down for no apparent reason other than for them to make more money. Usaully with weather in a bad year ur yeild will be down but so will everyone elses so demand prices should be higher so ideally it woud even itself out. Milk prices now are still at around 1990's levels (about mid 20p's) althou this time last year some were getting as low as 11-13p a litre, yet wot else has stayed the same price ?

Just about the planning thing it must be different in some areas but my local paper is full of planning applications for farm sheds/slurry towers etc most weeks all going throu PP. I dare say most won't be refused but i have heard of them altering things

I think u have the answer there. the money is earmarked for farmers that we have already paid to EU, no ones ever really going to turn it down. Is the system flawed? Course it is, is it the farmers fault thou? No Under the last SFP system it was surprising how little grants some farms got while others where getting mid boggling ammounts and even quite a few getting nothing. The problems is more civil servants than poiticains, there usually a bunch of idiots who dream up stupid ideas and schemes to allegedly help wildlife (most of the new entry level ideas are a complete waste of time/land) but attach plenty of needless paperwork to it to keep them all in a job. Parasites really Even thou any schemes have good intentions they usually make such a cock up off them they either don't work or eave massive loopholes that greedy folk exploit. I bet most farmers would far rather have no subs but paid a fair price for there produce. Doubtful that would ever happen esp now with supermarkets/global economy and the vast % of population not caring where food comes from or how it was looked after, all they want is it cheap. My point about RHI sub's (which is a prime example of a great idea not fully thought out and being abused massively by some) was not meant for individual claimants But how that combined with boimas energy tarrifs are keeping the price/demand artifically high due to sub's. So keeping firewood prices up but also keeping harvesters/forwarders and hualiers in work and standing timber dearer. Not unusual nowadys for whole woods to be cut just for boimass, ignoring any prime logs that would normally be harvested It wasn't that long ago u could hardly give chip/pulp wood away now its in demand Sometimes farmers don't help themselves moaning before jumping into a flash motor. But i wouldn't do there job. I imagine most/many onhere are tree surgeons etc, now imagine u go paid similar to a farmer. If i had 3 equal sized trees in my garden and u took down 1 a year, say 1st was £200 quid which is the correct price, would u want to come back the 3nd year if i only gave u £100 the 2nd time? Farmers produce a product not ever knowing wot its value will be, throu no fualt of there own (global markets etc) the same thing could be worth 50% less some years. Grain regularly fluctuates between sub 100 and well over 200 quid a T