Glencairn

I seem to remember that there were gnasher codewords in that wallet, but it was a long time ago and I'm struggling to recall the details.

I'm pretty sure magazines are accounted for in NI, I'm not aware of the situation in Eire. With the ammunition, I would pull out the lead with pliars, ,melt it into a project you might be working on, the powder I would spread on outdoor plants because its essentially fertiliser.

And putting snow chains on one of the two wheels is no fun.

Anecdotally I go on holiday in the Highlands, in the five years since this thread was started I've been noticing more and more all season or winter tread patterns on cars than previously so the message is definitely getting out there.

I emailed him a few months ago, as I didn't get a reply I'll find someone else.

Not to detract from the entirely reasonable idea of exchanging a days work for firewood. Managing expectations - I have family who run a working farm. They would never allow anyone to go away with any firewood. Not only do they have numerous properties on the place all miles away from mains gas, they also changed a couple of them from oil a number of years back to pellet/wood boilers. In days gone by they would supply firewood to a few longstanding customers, but I'm certain that they wouldn't ever be interested in letting someone do work for them in exchange for firewood, even though their farm has plenty of plantations Stick with the idea of an elderly person who needs the help, or someone in the arb business who could come to a deal. I don't feel working with farmers offers the most opportunity because they would simply be looking at the value of the wood to them, not the worth of the help which can often be done on an exchange basis with neighbouring farms.

Similarly I started out in my early 20's with a handful of acorns in my pocket when out nearby sitka plantations. At one point I was about to plant one on a crannog, but had to stop myself realising it could have had an historical impact. These days like peds, I find more value in moving tiny seedlings from footpaths where they would otherwise get hit with a brush-cutter.

All you can ask for is a Forestry Land Scotland scavanging permit. There are conditions - hand tools only. I've asked a couple of times and was fobbed off.

I was in the market for a mid range saw. Smaller than my big saw, but larger than my small saw. So somewhere in the order of 40 - 60cc's As I say I really wanted to be able to choose the echo, I already have one and it's reasonably good. I was not however willing to pay an extra £61.00 over a viable alternative that is at least as good if not better. Echo could have sold a lot of these and had their own corner of the market share, but they have dropped the ball not putting their price point lower than the alternative husqvarna.

Very droll! The echo at £619.00 - it would have to be made from a titanium case for me to choose that over a husqvarna 550.

I really wanted to buy one of these as a good viable alternative to the mainstream saws, but I found them to be a too high a price point so much so that I felt I had to revert to husqvarna that offered better value. If echo were in a position to offer their professional line saws at a lower price point than the alternative XP I think they would do really well.

I'll wait (im)patiently. I looked at the equivalent stihl. It's 40% more expensive. I'm sure they are good, but I have my doubts they are that good to justify the extra cost. I tend to enjoy buying German made stuff, but I've got to draw a line at that and leave it to the most dedicated stihl fans.

Thanks for all the advice so far. I had this idea that over time petrol engines will be phased out and that regulations had probably ruined the recent ones that were made to be more compliant with emissions regs. What I had hoped was to be able to source a good example of a bottom of the line up, pro model and when I looked up the ones that caught my interest they all seemed to come with the kawasaki engine. My experiences of buying my husqvarna brushcutter were that I opted for an entry level pro model. When I received it and saw on the plate it was made in China I was a little disappointed. Thanks for the pointer towards Toro, I had been looking at Kaaz, if Toro are a tougher machine I'll keep on looking at those. I imagine Stere is right about decks, polymers have come a long way in recent years, perhaps the industry simply hasn't caught up with the times...

Where's the best value to get a lawnmower with one of these? Looking at aluminium decks. Much (probably inefficient) google searching found this: Gardencare LMX51AV PLUS 51cm lawn mower - Gardencare Direct WWW.GARDENCAREDIRECT.COM

I have rheumatoid arthritis coming on. Obviously I need an XPG Ordered one in August with a one month wait from a good supplier that advertises on this website. They have revised their delivery and have now stated mid December, now this isn't a complaint, but is this the industry standard now? I didn't think I was asking for something especially niche!

Is there an opportunity here? What I'm thinking is a lot of us might have random chainsaw stuff sitting on the shelf that they are unlikely to use. I know I have a clutch drum and a chainsaw bar that I could part with, although not the one the OP is looking for. I wouldn't put a price on them because I'm not actively looking to sell so haven't put them on the classifieds. If someone was in a bind I would get either in the post within a couple of days.

Vodafone really screwed me around. My mobile contract had been with them for fifteen years and I was keen to take them up on their offer of competitively priced home broadband. They were supposed to do a working line take over from BT. Due to various elements of their incompetence only part of the switch took place which resulted in BT maintaining billing me for a service that had already been switched to vodafone. The end result was a debt recovery company being instructed against me by BT for a £200 bill owing. The staff at vodafone were only really able to speak to you from their call centres, there was no way to email or write or to gain a reference number to allow continuity. A couple of years later I found from checking my credit record that vodafone had been maintaining a presence on there when I had actively not used them due to how terrible they were! Although not the cheapest I now flip between EE and plusnet because their staff seem to be able to get stuff done in a professional manner and I accept you need to pay a little more for that.

+ 1 I tried buying British with nomad and whilst its undoubtedly well made I've found little niggles here and there that don't stack up with the quality of swazi. My brother in law had this great swanndri that I borrowed for a little while and liked it so much that I bought one for myself. Only trouble is they had outsourced the manufacturing to outwith New Zealand and the wools so thin you can see through the weave, I was really disappointed. I've been buying harkila in recent years. Its very warm, perhaps too warm for above freezing UK conditions and dare I say over priced. My local supplier is a decent bloke and was able to discount the previous line by £100s otherwise I would never have paid RRP. So as Rich says, continue buying swazi!

You could do the massively pre-empting step of phoning the police rather than complaining about this on a discussion forum. Tell me you did, I really want to believe you did.

I feel the need to buy another chainsaw coming up. I probably don't need one, but I definitely think I could use one. I currently have stihl, husqvarnas and echo. I'm a bit concerned about buying something from one of the main brands that is made in China. I recall XPs weren't made in the far east, but don't know if that's changed, was the 365 always made in Sweden? Is it still the case that Makita are made in Germany? Sounds a bit too good to be true. Excuse the brand snobbery but I grew up on the old stuff.

I hope you would have the integrity to actually come out and refer to me directly if you are including me as one of the "experts" that you would rather didn't work on their own saws. If you've just got in a sly dig against me there, I'm calling you on it.

I run a 385, when I got it I had to tweak the setting on the carb as I wanted to use a 1:40 mix. There's clips on youtube to show you how. Bear in mind the vibration can loosen the bolts in the exhaust muffler, even with a metal detector I couldn't find them both, so got generic stainless replacements on ebay.

This sounds like the quality of fix that VW were offering post emissions scandal. Give them something that's working perfectly well and receive something freshly knackered back. What a shockingly litigious world we live in.

I've been looking at getting some Goodyear Wranglers for a while. I take it they fitted one of the old tread pattern and one of the new duratrac type?

From what I understand after attending a meeting about the current funding cycle in Scotland, the sheep and trees initiative is in no way involving having sheep grazing near trees - rather having a large landowner with thousands of acres of sheep farm give a couple of hundred acres to sitka spruce. So not quite how the average member on here would expect, but rather courting the large landowners. Of course someone from the government could quite easily say that this is incorrect, however this is very much the way it was spelled out to me.