Dan Maynard

Essentially, yes if you tied an alpine butterfly and put a knife through the loop the two ropes would stay together by an alpine bend. Obviously you would usually start with two ropes to make the bend so you have to tie it differently.

Cheap Chinese one probably brittle and just as likely to break, wouldn't bother with that.

I stayed in Guy's Thatched Hamlet while doing courses at Lancaster in about 93. I had to stay near Preston a few months ago so booked myself in, have to say the place looked as if it hadn't changed at all in 25 years including the train set in the Italian restaurant. Wasn't there a pub nearby that did 32oz steaks?

I saw a variant of the alpine butterfly called alpine bend the other day, looked sort of similar to the Carrick. I don't think it's superior to the Zeppelin, bit trickier to tie so didn't learn it.

I believe the enemy to be evaporation, as that leaves behind resin deposits. The Stihl manuals say for long term storage run dry but for a few months fill the tanks. I've always stored my saws brim full and used quality two stroke oil, there are 10, 25 and 45 year old saws in the garage which have never had the carbs stripped, I would now be more worried about letting them dry out than leaving old fuel in them. I'd just store them full and give a run every month or two so you know they work ok, nothing more annoying than a backup that doesn't work when you come to use it.

Olive oil user here. I think these microbeads may have been plastic in the past which obviously end up in the sea, so interesting to see Swarfega mention cornmeal scrubbers.

If your barn is rent free then you have potential to run the business on very low overheads part time, personally I would be thinking of start small because you need to build up a customer base. Maybe you can do it as a Saturday job this winter rather than both rely on it for income. I see three parts: timber source, processing, and selling. People have mentioned the first two, but you also need a good customer base in the local area looking for firewood as you want to minimise time spent driving it around in the van. I think you need to get started to find out, selling might or might not be your thing. Advertising and word of mouth spreading will probably take several seasons to build up unless you are brilliant at that, in which case just buy in wholesale and move it on. I am thinking of thevillageidiot, he has a plentiful supply of wood which he splits and dries but chooses to sell wholesale rather than deal with the public and all the delivery. It's not wrong, just a different emphasis on the business.

I think it's going to be a question of waiting till I get chance to try one out, at least I didn't buy the 3M as that seems a dud.

Sounds like a great holiday, were you logging it all up with that saw as well? Made some measurements, I think the new one is 24-25 inch and the old one 25-26 but it's a tricky operation. I was initially convinced the problem is the narrower shell, that is only about quarter of an inch though. The main problem seems to be the rear strap, on the old one it had a pivot each side so it goes up and down. The new one has a special flip in and out feature but lost the pivot. That makes it about 3/4 of an inch less from front to back, maybe not a lot but enough to make the pressure uncomfortable.

In the last picture he's gnawed all the bark off to make it look lower.

Haven't a picture I've seen a few laden oaks in East Anglia this year.

I have a slasher from granddad's farm in the van, handy for brambles and sometimes debranching. I've changed the handle, think my dad may have changed the head.

That'll be a Russian spy tapping in to the phone network. I had a short on the supply coming in to my unit yesterday, the first chap from UKPN who came and saw the old cable clip glowing on the metal post couldn't go up and switch it off back at the supply pole as that would be a two man operation. To their credit, two man crew turned up in a couple of hours with a MEWP, all sorted once they'd filled in their RA forms.

Climbing kit on holiday? I'm trying to work out if you've gone in the Transit (and this is why you have a crew cab) or whether you took your climbing kit with you just in case you get stuck in France for ages and have to do a few jobs whilst you're there? Anyway, thanks for that. I'm going to measure up both the ones I have here this evening to compare.

I like the idea of trying out, sadly my nearest arb supplier has closed the showroom and doing collection only. Then I thought - have a look at the APF in September. Nope. Luckily there isn't a rush.

Thanks for the replies guys, it sounds like 'expensive but good' Protos is the way to go, Gustharts will be pleased. Have to choose a colour now....

Yes, more sap in summer.

I've started to give a liberal dose of engine oil from the can and spinning that around by hand before running up. But does anyone actually do the soaking in a pot of oil? I'm thinking not.

I've been wearing Petzl Vertex Vent helmet for 4 years, it's a bit faded in the sun so I thought should really be replaced. I thought I was taking the easy option to get another the same - however Petzl in their wisdom updated the helmet in the meantime (2019). The new one has a structure around the edge so is not as wide inside - it just doesn't adjust as big. I've done a search and found people asking about small heads but not big. Anyone else had this issue? Especially if they used to wear Vent at just below max size setting? I've seen Protos fans saying it's great and fits their small head which Petzl never did so I'm not hopeful about that, however good a helmet it is. Sizing numbers also appear to be of limited use as Petzl didn't change the size range numbering but it's definitely smaller now. Anyone with 3M as that may be current favourite? Thanks all.

Cutting lubricant will extend life of drills but that add sounds too good to be true, and probably is.

Does it work well enough with plain water? I'm curious why you started putting the screenwash in. Oil based emulsions are commonly used in the metal cutting world but I'd have thought you don't want any oil on the wood? If water works though it's 100% safe and no need to justify, anything else probably has an occupational exposure limit to think about.

Those bolts at 60Nm are M10 thread what thread are yours?. I think the Greenmech is 45Nm but you need someone who has one to chip in.

Customer had a dry pond when we started the job, after break it had ducks swimming round in it. To be fair break was extended slightly due to the lightning.

Or the government have to step in like with flood insurance? Hopefully it won't get that bad.

There is a strong element of personal preference here, so it's kind of a 'no right answer' question. A very popular setup is zigzag plus pulley, I had a climb on a colleague's setup last week and I found it ok but difficult to be smooth on descents. The lower friction is a plus when pulling yourself up, but then you also fall down easy so have to work harder while you tend slack. So to me the extra £100+ for a pulley is not worth it, I'm happy sticking on multisaver and Hitchclimber. However I would say that it's definitely worth having an adjustable cambium saver over basic fixed length: -It fits big and small trees -You get the chance to position the rings the right distance from the crotch which can be brilliant to avoid rubbing the stem as you move around -You can pop it anywhere around spars to get a temporary anchor point, good for blocking down but also other times in big trees Or, to put it another way my multisaver is getting the odd fray and nick, when it is scrapped I'll buy another to replace it.