Conor Wright

I was tempted to say pleached leylandii but unless you have space they will get out of control quickly, actually, even if you do have space they will probably become a nuisance. Cotoneaster can make a very nice pleached hedge, flowers and berries add to its appeal.

I stand corrected, was about to comment that it looks like the "20 ft ladder and a blunt polesaw" cut, colloquially known as the "spikey pikey"

No worries, had a google, surprised how little visible smoke there is when they're up and running. I googled tyre burning furnace. Seems to be plenty out there. Still not too gone on the idea I must admit. If I had to run a kiln, I'd consider burning a lot of things before I'd try tyres. The flip side is that if a tyre was to end up being burnt either way, then the furnace is the lesser of two evils, I guess. On this basis alone it may be something we end up seeing more of. A counter intuitive "greener" option of sorts.

No wonder we need things that actually improve with age!

Not fussy really, if Its 18 years old and full of alcohol, what's not to like?! I'm going to hell...

The only tyre burning furnaces I know of are the industrial ones used in lime kilns. (They usually burn a variety of material, tyres being one) I may be wrong but to get it hot enough to "cleanly" incenerate tyres you would need a fairly complex device. Would it not be simpler and cleaner to burn the bark, sawdust and offcuts instead. Then recycle the tyres into crumb rather than burning them? If you have a link to the furnace you're talking about I'd be interested in having a look.

Best kind of customer!

I agree, Suzuki never designed a decent car, should have stuck with bikes. At least that birch draws the eye away from it.

I had an Active strimmer which served me well. They have daft model names though, mine was a "big 4.5" Couldn't fault it, bought it in a hurry after my stihl fs360 was stolen. That was a good machine too... Bought an echo split shaft brush cutter/edger and to be honest I'm not that impressed with it, all revs and no grunt. On balance I'd recommend stihl, closely followed by Active.

The saw chip from the processor gets put into ton bags, I get between 15 and 25 euro a bag. It usually goes under chickens or sheep. Wood chip goes for cattle bedding in bulk, sometimes to smallholders too. Clean woodchip goes for flowerbeds/shrubberies. Usually 10 quid a scoop. The dust off the woodmizer goes into used meal bags and I get 3 quid each but have limited buyers, a few mechanics use it for soaking up oil. I end up mixing half or more of it into the compost pile. Virtually everything has a value, finding the buyers can be a challenge. Finding buyers that are straightforward enough to make it worthwhile is the real challenge. Given that I've occasionally scooped up hammers, files and even a timber tongs before, a 15 euro bag of chip could end up a real bargain for someone!

I have an lt15 which, while it has served me well has also been frustrating. It needs regular readjusting to keep it cutting square and isnt as well built as it appears at first glance. In my experience woodmizer backup leaves a lot to be desired. I had an issue with the electric control for the height adjustment. Theres no woodmizer dealer in Ireland at the moment (that I'm aware of, maybe this has changed recently) woodmizer uk were poor to deal with, woodmizer Poland were fairly crap too, eventually got the part from an electrical goods supplier in Texas of all places. A friend has a logosol in the same price range which is a far superior machine in my honest opinion. Blade choice makes a hell of a difference. Woodmizer own blades are not as good as ripper 37s or bahco, even an unbranded pack I bought cheap online were no worse. If I was buying again I'd go for logosol or trakmet, maybe step up to one of the american brands if I wanted to cut wider, although the alaskan is there for big stuff.

Had mice nest in a bale of net bags before, wrecked about 500 of them. Never had trouble with ton bags. Plenty of poison and a decent farm cat should help. Have had mice nesting in bags of logs before but with negligible damage to the bags. Rats get shot on sight or torn apart by dogs. It's the rules. They're crafty bastards, rats. A farmer friend recently showed me a video of one covering a trap in straw to set it off before taking the bait. I'd be more concerned about weils disease with the rats than the actual damage they cause.

I had a couple of branch loggers, great machines but I struggled to find a market for the "loggings" Ended up putting a match to 35 cubes of the stuff when I had to move yards. It burns well... Mine were rêbak machines, a polish company that's no longer operating. Couldn't fault the machines but changing people's minds about what constitutes "good" firewood was beyond me. I think that attitudes have shifted enough in the last year or so for someone to make it work as an eco fuel zero waste help the pandas kinda business.

2511. Best thing I ever bought. Although it can be a bitch to start when its half warm. 200t just gathers dust now, usually go straight from the 2511 to an echo 501, sometimes a 261. Guess I've become a convert from stihl to echo... Mostly working from a mewp. Minimal climbing for me.

I ran a 42 inch sugi hara bar on a 660 with an alaskan for a while, it could manage it, just. Had an auxiliary oiler on the alaskan but did use the same bar for cross cutting a few big butts. it oiled enough with the standard pump but was very much on its limit. It's back on a 32 bar now since I got an 880 and I doubt I'll ever use the 42 on it again. The weight of the solid sugi bar made it unbalanced too.

some ash and syc milled recently, some nice pieces in it, plenty more to go too. thinking it might be worth making a solar kiln, anyone done this? I can sell dry timber all day long, less interest in green stuff. It's a long wait for a return when air drying... also a few big spruce, all for 6x3s. Made a few raised beds out of them.

Nothing went wrong, it's just 35 years old and gets worked hard. Theres no denying that parts are expensive for them. As I said, it keeps going. Just time for some refurbishment if I want it to continue earning me money and hold its value

Slowly getting there... I'll stick up a few pics when I've done something worthy. It does need some TLC but it keeps on going. All it really needs is a new set of tyres... And a lick of paint, a few panels, an engine overhaul, new chip body, shock absorbers, uprated springs, a better front linkage, maybe a clutch, new brakes, couple of air tanks, a few pipes and hoses, some sound proofing, better lights. Not much really... Mogs, all the comfort of an old tractor, all the running costs of an old mercedes.

Finally a few pics of the 20 year old takeuchi post rebuild. It took way longer to complete than anticipated. The engine was sent for rebuild in September and I got it back just in time for christmas only to find it wasn't quite right and had to come out again. It was over all a very poor experience. Suffice to say I wont be going back to that particular company. Apart from that, the rest went fairly smoothly. Pinned, bushed, painted,(with a little panel beating thrown in!) new hoses(mostly, some were unworn), grab and rotator fitted along with extra hydraulics, lights, radio, radiator, slew gear, fuel lines, fixed a few niggles and rattles and then ran out of money. So the quick hitch has to wait! Went for a change of colour because why not, not like I'll be selling it anytime soon. Plus it makes it readily identifiable and as it was painted part by part, even if it was stolen, the tracker removed and resprayed, it would have tell tales in hard to cover places. Happy with how it feels now, stronger, faster and tighter. Cost wise, meh, I possibly could have bought a fresher second hand machine, maybe sold it and got a new machine, but now I know exactly what I have. A simple, reliable workhorse in very good condition. Gutted that I lost a lot of pics halfway through, not because I wanted to post them, but they were helping me to put it all back together. This led to a few moments of confusion and some swearing, then more confusion followed by some disassembly. A few people questioned why I was doing it, maybe rightly so but it's done now! Would I do it again? Yes. Would I take a different approach? Yes. Was it worth it? Financially, yes in raw cash, probably not if I included my time. Actually, definitely not if i included my own time at the hourly rate a decent mechanic or fitter could charge, but they would have done it a lot faster. As an experience. Yes, I gained a lot of knowledge and enjoyed the majority of the experience. Would I recommend others do it? Probably not!

Another machine added to the "I want" list..

Milled this the other day, log dog?

Nice job. I'm happy to see someone else who left the thumb on with the grab. had been doubting myself but so far so good. It doesn't appear to have much of an effect on the amount you can lift and then you still have the thumb for bucket work. Best of both worlds.

Ladder was to cut off the branches. I see why it was a hard days work for you. top tip, the rest of us use chainsaws.

About time I put up a photo of the digger again, it's pretty much done now, just waiting on the rotator to arrive. Took waay longer than it should have taken. The delays getting the engine back were ridiculous. It's back together now and working but no more pics til the rotator is fitted!

Really like the third pic, you've got some nice wood there.