dangb93

That’s exactly what we do Dan. One makes sure that the bag isn’t rammed full, so it’s got some “squashiness” in it, fold the top over a bit, then just grab the thing with the Klou timber grab. You’ve also got a much more compact load to put onto the truck especially if you’ve got ladder bars across the top or a roof.

You can’t really ask which is better, 4x4 tipper or van tipper! Every situation is different, different people have different types and areas of work and therefore have different needs. Perhaps someone is purely domestic tree work- and a van tipper is ideal. Rough terrain access not needed, extra load capacity for the van tipper because all the chip has to be removed each time… Or perhaps someone is mainly rural work, and most of the time they chip and spray, maybe sometimes needing to chip into the back of a 4x4 tipper. They’re 4x4 helps them to get where they need to be. Or maybe someone is a mixture of both - like me! I have been running a cabstar tipper as our main vehicle and then also a Ford ranger tipper with winch as a secondary chip truck/vehicle for off road jobs. Unless you’re going to have both, or unless you are purely doing one type of work - one truck does not cover all bases.

I went for several years using only subbies. It was great from the perspective that I knew what they were going to cost me, and I didn’t have to pay anything else out on them (no training, no ppe, no sick pay, no holiday etc) but it was extremely stressful when they messed me about, didn’t turn up, cancelled days they’d agreed to do, or sulked when they couldn’t run away to the pub at 2.30pm… But I wanted to stay the right side of the law so eventually I offered one promising subbie who worked with me most, a full time job. This brought me security in that unless he was unwell or holiday he would always turn up and work a set amount of hours a day. And he would wear the company branded clothing, and I could train him in areas where he needed to the benefit of my business. I was previously an employee and got treated like trash despite working so hard, and I thought I would look after this employee. We worked 7.30 till 4.30 Monday to Thursday. On Fridays we worked 7.30 till 11.30 and then went and found something to eat which I would pay for, then we spent 12.30 till 3.30 back at the yard, “tidy friday” checking kit over, cleaning, sharpening etc. Saturday was only ever worked in an emergency or if we were really busy. If he worked longer than 4.30 overtime was duly paid. I put him through several courses. I paid him a decent wage. He had been with me about three years, and when I had my accident last November and made him redundant I had ended up with someone who had refused to come in more than three days a week, who was lazy, spent ages on there phone, moaned at working in the rain, moaned at the task each day, yet all the time telling me he needed paying more. He started off really well, but went downhill from there. He took advantage of all my decent behaviour towards him and thought he should have an easy ride. I spoilt him basically. What I’m trying to say is that there was no easy option for me. Subbies were unreliable and stressful. The employee route is like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s worse than the subbie route if you don’t get it right….

It is almost five months since I stepped backwards into my Bandit ZT at full throttle and what a horrendous journey it’s been so far. Here’s a little update some of you have said about posting sometimes how it’s going… Operation number 7 just been done. They had to drill 4 extra pins through my foot and attach to a metal plate to try and stop my foot (which currently I can’t control) flopping round. So that makes 17 pins through my leg and 4 pins through my foot. Long long journey and a lot of pain as my leg is stretched. My tibia bone has grown back approx 40mm though so far and overall the surgeon said he is pleased with progress (apart from foot drop). And my knee is coming back. I’ve got almost 90 degrees of movement now. Im selling my Nissan cabstar arb tipper in the classifieds on here, if anyone is interested. Partly to raise some funds for us and also because I can’t have multiple trucks parked up not doing anything for the next couple of years…

You’d be surprised. I’ve seen self propelled scarifiers before, with a seat and a collection box, like a large ride on lawnmower!

Evening all As per title I’ve got a fair bit of kit which is not being used at the moment due to me recovering from a serious injury (see thread “To all stump grinder operators “) I was using Trust insurance. I’m up for renewal, and because I’m not taking out liability insurance they won’t cover my kit anymore. Does anyone have a good insurance company they can recommend that would insure plant/machinery/tools in storage, without having to have liability insurance as well? I thought I’d ask on here before I started the almost endless task of contacting multitudes of insurance companies… thanks

I have an Opico mini skidster m10x. I looked into a log splitter for it. In the end I decided to buy a petrol stand alone log splitter so then I could carry it to where I wanted to work with the loader, then utilise the grab on the loader to lift up stems and crosscut them into rings off the ground etc The splitter running off your loader will tie your loader up and it won’t be available to shift timber about etc.

Great video And yet most people believe or are taught that this complex and precise universe came into being as a result of an explosion, or a big bang more commonly known. Yet they cannot tell you what made the bang, or how the bang made everything else, more so to such a perfect and consistent ratio. Some of these people who cannot explain there own theory then mock and jeer at someone who believes that a higher power, God, created all these things, including us. Personally I find it’s easier to attribute our existence and the existence of this highly complex and (as the video shows), precise universe, to an Almighty creator than to a big bang. The rule of thirds is very close to the golden ratio. I’m willing to stand corrected but I understand that BS998 recommends following the rule of thirds when pruning. To make sure that your pruning cut is no more than a third and the remaining part two thirds.

These fiskars are excellent and a neat result can be obtained by taking the time to use the head at the appropriate angle, plus standing at the right angle for the each cut. They can be further utilised on a set of tripod step ladders, as others have said.

Hello mate thanks for your kind thoughts. Without going back and reading the original post and following ones etc I can’t remember all I’ve said but the accident was 11/11/22 and I was discharged from hospital 08/12/22 with a whopping skin graft just been done over the left lower leg (outer 50% - tibula bone round to halfway across the back, knee to ankle) It was very touch and go as to wether such a big graft over such a traumatic wound would work, and it took 2 whole months but miraculously it has healed over. The temporary external metal fix frame was drilled three places into my tibula bone and two places into my femur. So my whole leg was rigid. This has been holding my leg together (without it leg would have fallen to pieces) from the day of the accident until 20/02/23 when I had my sixth operation to remove the temporary metal fix frame and install a longer term TSF semi permanent frame. That’s a frame that’s like a cage that goes from my knee to ankle and I have 17 metal pins through the tibula bone. Because the tibula bone was multiple fractured so lots of pins to align it all now and also the frame I have to adjust it daily to encourage fresh bone in the gaps (they had to saw bits of bone out that were beyond repair). My fibula bone is beyond reasonable repair and will most likely end up staying in the three disjointed and shortened sections that it currently is, held in place with scar tissue eventually they hope. My leg looks horrendous it’s all pink and deformed down one side, but I still have my leg which again is a miracle. My knee is siezed due to not being moved for over 4 months so lots of rehab on that, including lying on a knee CPM machine (Google that to save an even longer post!) 3 hours at least per day. so I have this frame for approx 18months. I have crutches now and can get about a bit. Allowed to put some weight on the left leg again which is a huge mental challenge but I’m getting there. Went out in the garden yesterday and drank in the warm sunshine and hints of spring, buds swelling and birds chirping. My wife is being an absolute star and our little son is happy as ever, he turns 1 year old on the 12 March, and I turn 30 (he was born on my birthday last year) so it will be a happy time as he nearly lost his Daddy. The future? I hope in a year or two to have a better idea if I can carry on with my current tree surgery business. I have put all my kit into storage, and occasionally my brother runs the larger kit (grinders, chipper, loader, trucks etc) the Mewp goes out on a hire here and there to pay for itself, and smaller kit won’t hurt it’s all on aspen. I plan on doing some distance learning while I’m recovering so even if highly physical work isn’t for me anymore due to possible limitations, I hope to stay within the industry, maybe go into surveying/consulting/perhaps even ecology stuff too etc sorry long post it’s easy to ramble on but that’s me KR Dan

A simple question I'm wondering if a few of you could help me out with based on your knowledge and experience; If I had a small 360 excavotor that was light enough to tow behind a 4x4 with 3500kg towing capacity - I assume this would be too small of a machine to be of any use with a excavator mounted tree shear? Is there any basic chart that helps the ignorant like me to match up excavator size with capability?! TIA

You mention further down about a MEWP. Where abouts are you based? We have a 17m Hinowa spider lift for hire. Should get through a 4ft gap.

If that doesn’t solve it, it could be electrical issues causing the no stress to play up. I know you’ve said about cleaning the connections etc but how good is your battery? I had issues another time the same and I found my battery was really low on charge and after charging it right up the problem disappeared. How a battery can turn over an engine but not power the no stress correctly is a mystery I never understood but charging the battery definitely solved it for me. So I had the problem twice. Both solutions were completely different!

Hydraulic drive belt slipping?

I started with a FSI B20 its a great little machine. No idea what they cost now. Then I progressed onto Bandit ZT (now SG40 I beleive) again a great machine. Kept the little FSI for back up and those jobs where Bandit couldn't get to etc But what ever machine you buy please ensure that you turn the cutter wheel off before leaving the controls - see the thread "To all stump grinder operators", to find out why...

That’s very kind of you to offer thank you so much, but I was only posting to raise awareness and hopefully prevent someone else going through what I went through and still am going through. We are comfortable at the moment I would feel bad people giving us money!

For the benefit of all the details; I was grinding out a row of leylandii stumps along the edge of a driveway. I started on the stump closest to the house, and space was restricted (as often when grinding next to a building/fence or whatever) I would also add that I was generally really tired and also really stressed out mainly with lack of staff and being unable to find staff. And to make the job more stressful I discovered a gas pipe running alongside the stumps very close. I spent 2.5 hours digging by hand and cutting through roots by hand to expose the gas pipe so I knew exactly if it’s whereabouts. That further made me start to rush a bit because I had already spent longer digging by hand than the whole job would take. It was a fairly windy day and one of the Stein 3 part grinding guards I was using kept blowing over despite me pushing them in the ground where possible. One of them blew over closest to the house. I would normally leave the grinder running with the cutter wheel spinning and walk around to the outside of the guard, picking it up by the top and standing it back up towards the machine which is silly enough, but on this occasion there was no room to stand the guard back up from the outside because the house was there and the guard had fallen into the house. So with my mind on other things (and also really tired that day) I walked between the machine and the fallen guard, reaching over to the top part of the guard and standing it back up. Had I thought about where I was for a moment, I would have realised how close I was to the machine with my back to it. As I turned to my left , to walk back to the controls, the machine grabbed my leg and spinned me round and threw me across the lawn a good 6 feet…and the rest is in my main story original post.

Do you sometimes leave the control panel without switching the cutter wheel off? Then please read on… I have done this thousands of times. Whether it’s to move a debris guard, reverse the machine away from the hole and rake clean, whether close revs down to speak to someone, or to walk forward and investigate something. “I’ll keep away from it won’t I ?!” I am here with mostly other peoples blood in my system and I’m able to sit write this due to Magpas paramedics, ambulance staff, members of the public, A and E staff etc If I needed my left leg to write, this wouldn’t get written either. On the 11th November 2022 I set off on a normal Friday morning to take out some stumps. My wife said “you haven’t got a packed lunch” and I replied “I’ll be back by mid day, it’s not a huge job” I returned home not a few hours later, but a month later, disabled. I was busy grinding and the wind blew one of the debris screens over. I left the controls of my machine with the cutter wheel spinning and moved forward to stand the guard back up. Having stood the guard back up I turned to walk back to the controls and WHAAM. There was a sound like a canon firing, a blurred second of confusion and then I was lying on the ground. Dazed I looked down at my left leg which was smashed up with bones sticking out, bits of stringy flesh everywhere. I screamed at myself in my head “you stupid idiot, look what you’ve done” I screamed for help again and again, my voice growing weaker and trying to compete with the sound of my Bandit ZT1844 still running, with my pfanner type c trousers flapping round and round in the machine. When I could almost no longer shout, a lady appeared and started screaming into her phone for an ambulance. She came off the phone and I shouted to her, explaining how to turn the machine off. I was terrified that someone else would get too close to it. At last, she found the key and silenced reigned. Then I looked down at my leg again. The blood was pouring out quicker than it could soak into the soil. I started realising that I was getting weaker and weaker by the second. I was dying. The horror of that moment, I will never be able to put into words. I screamed with what energy I had left for a tornequay. A bit of string. Anything. Two gentlemen ran up to me with a dog lead and we managed to get the bleeding slowed down. The paramedics arrived and got me into the ambulance. I could then relax a little. But not for long. Since then I have had 5 operations to try and save my leg. With a sixth due soon. My business is mothballed and I have no income. My business which I have spent the last 6 years working so hard for, putting everything into it. We have a 10month old baby and my wife can’t get back to work even part time because she is my carer. The reason why I am sharing this is because I just hope that if even one person reads this, they change their working practice. Or put on their risk assessment switching off machine before leaving controls. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I take full responsibility for my actions. But I know how many other people leave their cutter wheel engaged and walk around the machine. I’ve seen it. And like I started this article, I’ve done it a thousand times over. But one time is one time too many. Please please take time to work safely.

Anyone?

Hi, wondering if anyone can help me out with a question or two; I’ve been asked to remove a large beech stump (tree was apparently felled due to meripilus giganteus ) the stump has a fair amount of the brackets on it still. if I grind the stump and backfill with the arisings will the fungus carry on living on the grindings?! and if I grind it out, and then dig out the surrounding area, skip it all, and put fresh topsoil- what about disposal of the old soil and arisings?! (And would that even get rid of the fungus?!) thanks