lux

If you are buying a forge take a look at swan gas forges. Nice kit.

I think a small gas forge may be on my shopping list now. I think a knife making thread would be useful for us novice's.
 
You say a farrier's rasp is high carbon steel so a fine but less durable edge. So could any old file be used similarly?

Yes mate. Any good quality file could be used. Farriers rasps tend to be high quality and have enough size to make knife blanks without forging.
Readily available too. A local farrier will have bucket loads.
Car boot sales are good for materials. Usually boxes of old tools that can be re purposed and the quality of steel is high on the older stuff.
You can give a rough test of carbon by sticking the tang in a vice and snapping it off. See how it breaks compared to lower carbon steel.
I’ve got some leaf springs set aside for making some timber framing tools with. I fancy making a slick and a draw knife. The hardest part is finding the time to tinker. !

Cherry red is a little hot. Your looking for Something like and orange red then simply switch the heat source off. Leave it in the switched off forge which will allow it to cool slowly. I usually switch mine off and just leave it there to the following day. [emoji106]

Cool as , I will have to look out for a cheap gas forge , I do know a blacksmith but he’s a coke head so unfortunately very unreliable, so a question in the image of the knife made from the rasp would that have needed to be heat treated after shaping or not 
Thanks Mark 

Oh and don’t forget to either drill out the handle for pins before you heat treat or don’t heat treat the handle. You will have all sorts of fun trying to drill that if it’s treated. [emoji23]

Cool as , I will have to look out for a cheap gas forge , I do know a blacksmith but he’s a coke head so unfortunately very unreliable, so a question in the image of the knife made from the rasp would that have needed to be heat treated after shaping or not 
Thanks Mark 

Yes it would. It’s a hardened tool in its original form so you need to anneal it first. Once annealed you can work with it with grinders , belt sanders , disc cutters etc etc. Once you have the shape and most of the angles you want to create whatever working edge you are after you can heat treat and quench it. Test the heat treat with a file and if it’s good give it a couple of tempering cycles in an oven. Do that before it cools completely. You will then be able to set the edge and polish the blade and get into the final sharpening and honing. For final sharpening I use Japanese wet stones and a leather block with a paste.
Farriers rasps are generally high carbon so they can be made extremely sharp but the edge will be less durable than a steel with lower carbon.

Thanks.
I’m mainly self taught. Every now and then I pester some blacksmiths I know to go and use their forges and pick up some tips but mostly it’s me messing around on a small propane forge and anvil in the workshop.

Last bit of Damascus I forged I made a ring and joined the band diagonally with solid 18ct gold all the way through. Started life as an oblong lump of Damascus and square bar of gold. Was fiddly business using a noble metal with steels. Tested my patience for sure.

here’s the last farriers rasp i used. Stabilised maple burr for the handle. Brass pins made from and old door handle. Have it to a mate of mine when I was done making it. He seemed to like it.

I end up giving most of mine away. I really enjoy the making process mostly. They would clutter my workshop if I didn’t give them away.

Damascus steel Custom made KITCHEN cutlery set billet blank WB-873

ROVER.EBAY.COM

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Cutlery sets Damascus Steel Blank BILLET 2 pcs. custom Damascus...  
This is the company I got my blank from in India. I think I paid £14 for mine but remember you have to heat treat it yourself (it may not survive this process).
 
I wanted something cheap for my first go and a got help from a blacksmith with the heat treatment as I've not done it before. The blade has taken a great edge tho and will now be used at work and given some abuse. Total cost to me around £20 + my time.
 
I'm not talking orders unfortunately but if you do one yourself some of the members of arbtalk have incredible collections of timber you may be able to pick handle materials from.
 
Its nice to have your kind comments, it's a generous confidence boost from you all.

There are lots of good materials readily available for learning to make your own readily available. Old leaf springs tend to be good. I’ve made some nice stuff from old farriers rasps which have a high carbon content. Just remember to anneal them first.

Anyone on here able to nudge squaredy for me ? I’ve messaged him about the vented bags but no response
Tia

Danny is amazing at what he does , I grew up watching Hans Rey, like tricks and stunts with Martin Hayes and martyn Ashton . Looking back now it’s hilarious but at the time was amazing, then you had chainspotting with Steve Pete, Rob Warner, Will Longden Pauli’s the two martins. You gotta love the 90s [emoji41][emoji1598]

I went for a few rides with Dave Hemming Serious skills.

I have about 70 used but good for sale.  Price will be reasonable!

Drop me a pm with a price chap. Cheers

Dear all.

Recommendations for a supplier of net / vented cubic metre log bags please

Thanks.

Sorry I wasn’t having a dig. I actually think it’s great bit of kit, it was a dig at my own poverty. 
especially great bit of kit were there’s no drop zone in urban areas I’d imagine 

None taken , it’s not my credit card we were talking about [emoji23]
I know he considered all the various machines. Julian has a log of business with some large property developers , A lot of their developments are in the 10 to 20 million price range on estates like Wentworth and St George’s Hills. Etc so a machine like this will absolutely smash that work and the budgets are there to use it. He’s also hoping for a slice of the road side ash pie with it.
The saw head can be replaced with a winch to turn it into a very good crane. He said to me he was hoping to be able to hire it out to builders etc to increase its potential for earning and keep it productive between trees.
Hope it works out for him. It’s a big spend for guy like him and I’d hate to see it not work out. But he’s a sharp guy and if you want to get into the big boys game there’s going to be an element of risk for sure.
He still won’t put his harness down so now doubt he will be out climbing just as much to keep the bread and butter jobs ticking business over.

 
Very nice crane but I dont think I would have mounted it on an 8x2 chassis, with a tag axle rear and all that weight over the steer axles that is going to be a pig for traction on anything other than dead level tarmac. If I was throwing north of 300k at a truck/crane combination for tree work I think it would have to go on an ex army 8x8 which would have the advantage of being a heavier base unit , a lot shorter and able to get closer to a tree off the road. It would probably spend less time parked up if it could get about off road.
 
Bob

There is a large drawbar trailer going on the back of it for wood chip or whatever really. Would that influence the axle configuration? I don’t know , biggest thing I’ve driven is unimogs so nothing this sort of size.

Great for individual trees but would the day rate add up versus a mewp?
 
for roadside something like like Kwr’s sennboggen would do the trick better.
 
if I was flexing daddies credit card I’d have both till then I’ll stick with a harness 

The day rate he offered me was quite palatable and given how much more quickly it will dismantle a tree and given most of the tree will get loaded onto the lorry directly I thought it was pretty good.

Given that the only credit card he’s flexed to buy it is his own company one I guess the other toys will have to wait a while. [emoji23]

The was a sennboggen doing road side ash die back felling locally recently. Awesome machine too but no where near the reach of the lorry so that probably what’s made him
Choose that.

Mr Fancier I dont think you need to worry about that crane truck  poaching domestic work, it wont fit in Mrs Miggings drive and outside with all the legs out would probably need a road closure. It will no doubt be a success but it wont be off the back of domestic arb, its only a tool for lowering sticks at the end of the day and at 850kg`s a pop not very big ones.
 
Bob

True it’s not aimed at domestic work. It’s aimed at road side and clearance work. It will handle 900kg at full stretch which is impressive. Close in it will lift a huge amount.

I wonder what the day rate will be to hire him in with that machine.
 
I read somewhere that it's costing around £350,000.
 
You could get a tree on the ground very quickly with that setup.

It’s cost 300k. Well 250 plus the vodka and tonic. He has given me a day rate for use with both the saw head and as a crane. In respect to him those figures are not public yet so I wouldn’t disclose them until he had put them out there himself.

 
Anyone know any thing about this setup?  Is anyone at Blue Sky Tree Care on here?

Julian is a good mate of mine. He’s based just down the rd from me. I’ve been chatting to him about potentially using it on a job early next year should my quote be accepted.

Looking for some recommendations for track mats. I prefer the look of the mats that have handle cut outs in them for ease of shifting them around.

 

Thanks people.

 

I run a couple.

We can supply (and plant) instant hedging that will look like it has been in situ for decades, Native, Yew, Hornbeam, Beech, Cherry Laurel.  Typically 150-180cm tall and 40cm +/- wide

I have a need for some native hedge on a job, must be 2.4 metres at point of planting. Can you message with availability and prices please

Another for Robinia. I reserve it for my outdoor pizza oven. Burns perfectly and gives great cooking heat. The oven sits at 400 to 450 degrees burning it. Makes 10 inch pizza cook in about 90 seconds [emoji106]

The main reason would be be load capacity, making larger jobs more practical. Less visits to the tip site... 

If you are producing lots of waste each day and your sites allow for larger vehicles buy one. They are cheap as chips in comparison to a 3.5t van.