Acerforestry

If you intend to start in forestry / hand cutting, bare minimum for most sites is CS30 / 31 (chainsaw maintenance, cross cutting and small felling, I think they now use different numbers in relation to tickets), plus first aid for forestry. That will get you statrted, shop around a little for prices as they vary a fair deal. Good luck

Christ the thing is spares repairs on fleabay then! It's only worth 200 in running order

Thanks spud, probably should have mentioned I can handle most of the strip down and a mate is an ag engineer, he would reassemble. That said, apparently the parts are steep anyway according to the Husky dealer

I use a couple of Mk1 Husky 545's for small felling, this am. one stopped dead in the woods and on stripping it down the clutch just fell on the floor when the brake cover came off. The crankshaft sheared just above the height of the needle bearing; is this really a viable or worthwhile repair considering the saw has a fair few hundred hours on it, I rang a local dealer for a price on a crank, but not heard back yet.

As said in several posts early on, I used a Mk2 for the first time on Monday and power-wise it felt more like a 560 - I'll be buying one and the cheapest i can see so far is around 520 quid from garden machinery limited, though with a 13 bar. The chain speed must be off the scale with something that small, it ran bloody well with an 18

Ok some interesting points - I did note that biochar appears to be quite a buzzword, I was told by the bloke who ran the hedge laying course I was on the other week that there is a charcoal festival in Sussex in the summer, but damned if I could find any info.

I agree. I cut mainly sweet chestnut poles (sned off branches, leave stem in entirety down to about 2 inch top diameter) for fence manufacturing - although there is less cuts than for product, dragging and sliding entire trees around isn't great for your back, hips or knees. Hand cutting generally is hard, if you can make 180 a day in East Anglia that's a higher rate than in most of the country

I'm using the term incorrectly, if we are to be pedantic (don't take that the wrong way!) - I mean a few cubic metre bags of processed hardwood. split (that has just come in, as cordwood). I disagree that smaller quantities can't be beneficially lowered in moisture a a damn sight quicker than any other way other than a proper log kiln will do - my storage space is limited and arb arisings / the odd birch from coppicing come up frequently through the winter, and we don't all have huge yards. If you want said wood to be gone this season, how else are you going to do it? I don't have any covered storage other than one end of a polytunnel, so i will give this a shot. And I reckon it will work

Since I'm now over the half century and still in the woods hand cutting at least some of the time, my attention getting drawn (for very necessary reasons) to other ways of supplementing my income in addition to shoving chestnut trees over all day. Have many other on here had much financial success in commercial production of either or both, charcoal and bio char. I have access to considerable amounts of waste wood that is suitable for both applications, and I like the general ethos. Also have somewhere to site a decent sized kiln. Is this something of a road to nowhere or worth a shot, thoughts on this please

Ok, so I don't have the space to site a steel container to convert to a log kiln, in fact as I only only shift a limited amount of firewood I wouldn't really have the need for one I guess. But I'm curious, would an old domestic heating oil tank convert into a mini log drier (I'm going to avoid the word kiln now as it may not be properly applicable). I'm only really proposing that if at least it stripped at least some of the moisture out of green-ish cord it might be a worthwhile idea as there is an abandoned tank at my yard; take an angle grinder to one of the side walls to form a hinged door, weld a mesh floor in a few inches high. Drill some ventialtion holes and do a makeshift chimney. Finally put a small log stove in one end that can run on dried waste. There wouldn't be room for fans but is there any reason why that couldn't work at least to a degree? If i'm at the yard on and off for hours some days anyway it wouldn't be a hardship to keep feeding the stove.

Andrew Cervino's, comfy, light and last well

The mention of the racket like a wardrobe falling over bought back a couple of memories - I've never seen anything physically out of the ordinary but on two occasions my wife has heard very loud bangs in unoccupied areas, one of those occasions when I was also present. She used to run a cleaning company and a client had passed away, though cleaning the large period house continued, for the remaining family. Until one occasion when my partner was downstairs in the kitchen, with a young friend / employee upstairs- with nobody else in the house....she was very startled by a very loud crash behind her in the kitchen / hallway area, the sound of which bought her friend running downstairs. No explanation, nothing had moved but the kitchen was noticeably colder...and they ceased working there after that event. The other time was in my mother's house, my father had sadly passed away some years prior. We were sat in the lounge talking when again, the volume of the bang we could hear downstairs could only be described as sounding like a wardrobe had been shoved over...we went upstairs to check - nothing, not a thing out of place. No doubt to my mind a lot of things occur that we can't explain.

We were driving through a rural town on the wine route the last time we were in SA, and went straight over (not intentionally) what was apparently (I described it later to an expert) a Cape cobra. I'm normally pretty inquisitive about wildlife, but that was one time it was wise to not get out of the 4x4

I guess you just have to keep an open mind here, if you can use a battery saw for half the day before you are out of whack and having to go back on the two stroke, it's a start in the right direction. Certainly the Wranglestar vids seem to indicate that the battery power saws are getting better

Interesting, I did have a quick browse at battery saws but ruled them out as probably lacking the power - but this is only paling wood stems, the biggest generally at the moment would be 8 inch. I think i need to look at a few comparison vids. I'm not a health nut but generally the forestry blokes are probably more at risk of side effects than most tree workers as the saws are running pretty much constantly

If this is pretty much a repeat of any recent post, let me know where to find any comments and we can abandon this thread - but I couldn't find any. I'm thinking of giving any alkalyte fuel a go as being in a nigh on constant cloud of benzene and wood dust 6 days a week I think is making me feel a bit ropey, and although coppicing doesn't really lend itself financially to paying what the alternative fuels cost I'd rather still be breathing normally for a few more years. I have a couple of 545's that have run only on usual unleaded mix, and a mate is desperate to shift a 550 so I may buy that and use the alkalyte just in that one. Is the shift from normal to alkaylte likely to cause any running issues, cheers

Ah that explains it, i did see an ad online from SA, price was six thousand Rand-odd, is that roughly what you paid? Should be a belting saw, you don't get the larger models over here. Only thing is spares tend to be relatively pricey

I've had a number of Tanaka saws, this model I've not seen anywhere in the UK - where did you get it? You're getting first or second pull Jap reliability, and if its a 70cc a fair amount of grunt suitable for larger diameter timber.

I have a Stein rain jacket, bearing in mind they are about 50 quid (ish) which these days is not a lot. mine's 3 years old, zip still fine and it does what it's supposed to. Unless you go Goretex I reckon these are fine

It seems if you have suitable soil / trees / location the aforementioned company may be able to assist, for sure

Yes, fair comment we have the North downs (chalk and sand) just a few miles from here where I cut chestnut. Maybe that's why the dog goes nuts whenever I let her out, someone's already started locally!

Lol, seems a small price to pay. i have looked at a load of blurb about this online, and it has to be said that if it were possible to introduce the black variety to the UK, i'd be mystified why some enterprising soul hasn't already done so, given their high value

Apparently there is (very secretive) woodland in the UK where truffles of some type are found, and harvested. I wasn't aware of the soil type being crucial, but very interested to hear further info. Since my terrier is randomly digging at tree roots in the woods whilst I'm working, I'm curious as to how refined her nose is...

I find sycamore one of the fastest seasoning hardwoods, forget ash in that respect. I'm burning sycamore felled this May / June and it's perfect

I would assist if distance wasn't an issue - I'm in mid Kent