Dan Maynard

Ah now you've got me at it..4" is about 100mm so which is it, 4" or 10mm?

As Khriss says the tree will most likely be lifting the patio slabs. If you want to stick with slabs and so decide to re-lay then ideally don't sever any roots but rather lift the height of the patio. Or gravel that area. My impression is that It's not a big tree, unlikely to cause cracking and also unlikely that it can cause cracking on the inside without cracking on the outside.

A JoBeau M500 has 24hp and 5" chipping capacity, and will drive itself up the ramps into your pickup. Sounds perfect, only snag is if you can find one secondhand it won't be £1500, probably double or treble. New they are over £10k I think, I bought mine secondhand. In reality even though capacity is 5" I don't chip a lot which is even 4" with mine, it's too slow and too labour intensive because as the operator you are the stress control on the engine. Up to 3" or 3.5" depending on species you can just chuck it in and the chipper will self feed while you pick the next bit. If you are serious about chipping a lot of 4" then you need a roller fed machine like a TW230 which will munch that happily all day. If I have a job with a lot of that to chip like a big conifer wreck or big tree then I hire in. I don't think you can get more than a basket case road tow for £1500 though. The problem I see with cheap road tow chippers is the there is enormous potential for expensive maintenance, hydraulic motors, valves, electrics etc etc. A wee chipper is an engine, belts, drum bearings, blades and anvil. If the engines ok you can refurbish the whole thing for a few hundred quid yourself. So a £1500 budget is more realistic, some of the cheaper ones can even be had new for that. I think you've got to decide how much use it'll get and how to make it pay, for me the wee chipper is a great solution. If you need the capacity then put £1500 deposit and get a bounce back loan to buy a decent road tow.

Yeah he sold her one last time.

Very rarely take a saw to a shop, all the basic stuff is easy to do and (touch wood) by keeping on top of that don't have much trouble. When I did have an issue with my Stihl kombi which I didn't understand I went to the local machinery places and they were 6 weeks minimum so I investigated more and fixed it myself. Maybe a garden machinery shop will spend more time on mowers and bigger machines? Sharpen, change the plug, change the oil, all in a mad rush in spring.

What about doing it for more than Morrisons but do it better? Might be better business to compete on quality rather than price.

The great advantage of the HAAS compared to homemade is that it's simple - you buy it, it works. The doubled up elastic length inside means that it keeps a reasonable force over a longer travel so you don't need to adjust anything for different height users. HAAS is kind of expensive but I don't regret buying one. Haven't seen the 4SRT.

There is a difference between full and semi chisel chains, if it's not obvious the full chisel have a sharp top corner whereas the semi chisel have a rounded edge (Oregon have pics). The full chisel need to be razor sharp to do anything, which is where you need to keep tickling it. A semi chisel chain never cuts quite as quick but deteriorates much more slowly in use so you can pretty safely sharpen two or three times less often. Domestic stuff like your pole is quite often semi chisel as it stands abuse better.

I can't think of anything that's not bar or chain, unless sprocket is also knackered so the new chain is immediately battered. See recent threads by RobD.

If you're on a farm in do you have a tractor? Tractor hydraulic log splitters are more powerful and a lot cheaper than petrol powered, you might buy one for the cost of a week's hire of petrol one. Then you can have it as an ongoing project, I would guess a couple of weeks at least to get through that. Does look like quite a bit of it would go through a processor, if you got someone in for a couple of days you'd be busy running the loader and it would make a huge dent in the pile.

Can you do that end first? Any knot I can think of lets string out of both ends as it tightens and so will be loose inside the balls. Otherwise you want something like tent pole elastic so you can pull some out before knotting and then it will pull back when you let go.

Back to the original question definitely not a silver birch. I recognise them. Could we have a picture of the ground around the tree? See if it drops walnut size beech nuts?

349 euros per day is ok if you can knock out a couple of 700euro stumps, though. Or one at 700 and a couple of smaller ones. You've got more in your back pocket and less aching shoulders at the end of the day. Tricky to take for a week though, you'd need a lot of stumps lined up and of course need to look after the teeth.

It's hard to tell from the photos if there is a risk of unbalancing the whole thing by cutting off all the weight from one side. I guess it would be a more precautionary approach to remove one stem, leave it a few years, then take another. I wonder what the long term future is for a three stemmed oak anyway? Will the stems grow into each other and split it apart? I was wondering if you look at that as a coppice tree that needs harvesting every 50 years then now is your turn. Just make sure to build a good cage around so that the regrowth isn't eaten off by deer or rabbits and then there will be a similar multi stemmed oak for someone else to harvest in 50 years time. This should definitely be done in the winter if you decide to do it.

I believe 5.5 is the traditional size for 3/8 and still is recommended for Oregon and Husqvarna chains. Stihl dropped their size down to 5.2. So they're both right in a way. You can open the 'drop a file size for the last part' debate if you like, I think this is related. As above I tried Rotatech and gave up, no point having good saws and crap chain.

I don't think the cost seems miles out, was a monster. I think if I was faced with the same I'd be hiring a bigger machine just for the day and then hopefully get round a couple of jobs. That way should make just as much in a day even with the hire charge, and not put as much strain through the old shoulders.

I had a customer whose neighbour had an Alianthus, when I mentioned the seedlings in her garden/path/patio she really went off on one. Apparently she was a bit fed up of digging them out.

Welcome to the club! Sharp blades make all the difference. I work on the theory a bit like a chainsaw or penknife, if you give it a light sharpen often then it keeps the edge and doesn't take much doing. I lift up the hopper and give it a rub with a diamond sharpening pad every few hours chipping (ie every few jobs). Leather gloves else I cut my finger (which I've done a couple of times). Yours is possibly already too blunt for this to work, could be worth whipping them out and having a go, but hand sharpening works best if you start with new ones and keep them sharp. I also don't like chipping dead stuff, blunts too quickly, and am scrupulous about keeping brash clean. But that's just me.

I'm reading Oliver Rackham's History of the Countryside. Thousands is the most likely answer, depending on where you live a swathe of the country was replanned but even then many of the ancient paths remained.

Is this where it tore out? Seems like there were four branches coming off the same spot, I wonder if it had been previously cut at that point and then all the sprouting left on. Maybe worth looking closely for other previous pruning effects.

The word comes from the Scandinavian snäddare, meaning a smooth log via the Old English "snaedan". This is from Wikipedia but I've read something similar somewhere else, just can't remember where. Is it right?

They've brought out a new narrow chain that is .325, may be worth a look? Supposed to be 20% faster, of course I just bought two of the old chains. Light 04 is the bar, obviously you still need to change bar to suit narrower gauge.

Good result. Didn't agree to take the rest of it down then? Give it a few years....

I think it depends on hours as well as age, and there is also a sort of lower price it doesn't go much below as long as it chips. At least that's my impression of the 150 valuation curve. I guess the other way is ask for a trade-in price when you get a quote on the new chipper and see if you prefer the low hassle low risk option.

That is simply astonishing. I'd be coming off ebay too. I've just left you a couple of positive reviews, I guess like a majority of people who are happy I don't normally leave reviews but twats like that leaving negative feedback need some countering.