Dan Maynard

I am very curious about what caused the initial damage, but we can see it was a while ago and the tree has survived so far. In your second picture there is a nice ridge of callous on the left, where the wood is growing back. How are the leaves on the right hand side? My opinion this is one of those trees which depends on your garden. There are three options really: 1. If you want everything perfect in the garden then fell it and replant, it's never going to be a nice neat perfect tree. 2. Cut the right stem, this will remove a lot of decayed wood but probably unbalance the crown and leave a huge wound at the base. This will decay, as you can see cherry is not naturally decay resistant. 3. Do nothing, the tree is already reacting to the damage and could survive for years. I've seen cherries hollow so much you wonder how they stand, in the meantime it will be a haven for invertebrate and bird life. I don't see any point in option 2, it moves the problem but doesn't solve anything. There is probably included bark at the bottom but close to the ground this is less of an issue as both halves anchor to the ground. If mine, if there are decent leaves on the tree then I would just keep it like it is. When/if it dies back then I would fell it. But my garden is not the neat and tidy type and I'm a wildlife enthusiast.

Game changer always has me asking that question too. Surely at some point it will end up across a branch where a rope one would just bend?

I'm also on hitchclimber and been intending to do this for ages, not quite got round to it. I did buy the Schultz effect though, and it's really good. He explains a lot of different approaches to things and reasoning why, and also a section comparing approach using SRT and DRT to move around the same tree. I would say it improved my DRT climbing already.

I think it's unusual to use ash for cladding but it could be ok, it will only decay if it's damp. Plenty of overhang on the roof and nowhere near the wet earth. TVI in East Anglia will have as many wet days as Les has dry ones in Wales.

And just to add, whether it's been briefly in a kiln or not I'm afraid the bottom line is that it's wet and isn't going to dry well tightly stacked in a cellar. Only options I can see are to take the wood out and stack it where the wind can blow round it over the summer, or else turn your cellar into a kiln with dehumidifiers and fans (but that will take weeks and cost a fortune in electricity).

Conventional wisdom is that the cost of extraction will not pay back, it's so bulky it's hard to move around. Price has been fluctuating recently but maybe £10 a ton? If you clear the trees into a whole tree chipper with a shear/grab then leave the brash on, this is what they do with road building type clearance.

Surely when milling the pulling chain is doing all the cutting, so the nose bearing is just pulling the slack side of chain back to the tip? It doesn't really make sense to me that this should cause nose bearing to go. In normal cutting use you would expect to knacker the nose by boring hard or perhaps using pushing chain because then all the cutting tension is applied to the nose roller. I am thinking either kerf is a bit narrow or load caused by sawdust getting dragged back round must be making it difficult to pull the chain back to the tip? Otherwise what's overloading that roller?

Now there's what you can do if not trying to keep to 3.5 tonnes.

Pretty sure my 261 has an adjustable oil pump, that's 2010 model.

I haven't used the 24hp one, would be interesting - but on the older 37 I would say the stress control rarely kicks in unless you stick big bits of wood in all the time, so there is plenty of power spare. 24hp may actually be enough for normal use. Maybe they would do you a trial?

He can go deeper though, say in a coal mine. Not in Suffolk though.

You'll always get much more wear at the splice end, so having two splices can mean twice the life out of the rope. Or if you damage the rope and need to cut a section off you still have a splice so again doubles the life. Then again if it's a long rope you don't use much then it will still need retiring at 5 years so maybe not save anything.

I don't think hawthorn, what I've had split really easy and was paler than that. I'd say pear still possible. Can be small trees but I've cut 18" hawthorn and pear.

How many cubic metres are there? Is 5 cube a quarter a drop in the ocean or would it be a viable to do over a few quarters?

Proper clotted cream in Cornwall is more like butter.

Are you trying to wind up the people from Cornwall? Or Devon? Sure one of them will say you put the cream on first.

Ah, they're the only general building tool maker that bought a proper chainsaw company up too (Dolmar) so it kind of makes sense. I have Makita battery toppers, I'm a fan too. I'd go with the 18v Makita if the stems are wrist thickness, it is so light, think they do a rear handled version which will be better for control. Or the battery Echo is excellent apparently but more money.

It will only take 5 or 6 seconds to cut so 40 minutes is say 400 stems, when you're not cutting, it's off. Two batteries would do a load.

Have you tried a 230 with sharp rollers? If you're chipping straight stuff it's just the hp and so maybe not a huge difference but give it something gnarly and the 230 gobbles up stuff you'd have to dress and fiddle about with to get the 150 to take. Huge difference to throughput, I think if you go with a four man team anywhere then a 150 could easily become a bottleneck whereas a 230 won't.

I would season your wood outside in pallets and then bring a winter's burning in to the lean to in September/October before the weather turns so that it stays dry over winter for burning. Put some pallets over the floor first so as to keep damp out of the bottom. I have mostly IBC cages, these work really well as airflow is good but the only snag is getting the logs out after. If you are building from pallets I would suggest put three sides around a base but leave the front off with maybe a couple of low planks across, that way will be easy to lean in after and grab the logs.

Turnover is vanity..... Well someone had to say it.

It is definitely a field and not just a really really big garden? I think we've had this question before and not sure we really got an answer where you draw the line.

Battery saw.

Here Tree Preservation Orders and trees in conservation areas - GOV.UK WWW.GOV.UK Explains the legislation governing Tree Preservation Orders and tree protection in conservation areas. Paragraph 132 . If you click "protecting trees in conservation areas" it gets you close.

I hadn't heard of this but looks like it's exempt from needing a 211 if it needs a felling licence (pasted from .gov). Never had to get a felling licence, imagine it's not quick. What other types of tree work do not require a section 211 notice? A section 211 notice is not required where the cutting down, topping, lopping or uprooting of a tree is permissible under an exception to the requirement to apply for consent under a Tree Preservation Order. Nor is a section 211 notice required for: the cutting down, topping, lopping or uprooting of a tree by, or on behalf of, the authority; the cutting down, topping, lopping or uprooting of a tree by or on behalf of the Forestry Commission on land in which it has an interest; or cutting down a tree in accordance with a felling licence or a plan of woodland operations agreed by the Forestry Commission.