webby1289

Thanks for the advice folks, I'll be keeping my peepers open for some good hazel this winter

That's great thanks. I'll get on the blower to some local thatchers, there's a fair bit of heritage maintenance & listed buildings in my area so there should be a few working I'd expect. Cheers for the info

Hi folks, I'm fortunate enough to work in lots of well managed mixed woodland here in the Cotswolds. I come across a lot of hazel that would be excellent for making thatching spars, but it most often ends up getting burnt along with the brash from harvesting ops. My plan was to start collecting the best stuff and start having a bash at sparmaking. I've got a few questions if anyone can help. Would an introductory course be worthwhile? Does anyone provide them and if so who's the best to go with? Is the market for quality spars reasonable, as in could I expect to sell them quickly or will they be sitting around for ages? Is it something I could do part time? I already work full time in the woods but sometimes have the odd few days in between jobs that I'd like to fill. And finally do spars need to be seasoned after cutting, before or at all? Cheers Lewis

Bloke I know who's 60 and still felling in the woods. Seems it's much more about how you look after yourself than anything else. That said almost every contracts manager/forester I've met was an older chap with lots of hands on experience so anecdotally I guess one thing would lead to another

Bumping this, looking for work again. I've also now got CPCS 10+ ton digger tickets if this is of use.

Morning all I'm a self employed cutter looking for work. I've got CS30, 31, 32, EFAW-F and £5mil liability insurance including cover for tractor based machinery. Experience cutting to spec & felling for harvester, with winching and tractor forwarding experience. Happy to travel anywhere in England and Wales provided I can stay on site in some form. Full PPE and variety of saws/kit. Please call/text 07734014898 if interested. Cheers Lewis

Hi folks Looking at doing some felling to harvesters in big sitka plantations in the nearish future. I've done a couple of weeks in them before and found wedging to be slow and generally a pain in the arse. Felling levers do the trick sometimes but I find it often leads to needing to domino trees over, which I also prefer to avoid. To remedy this I've been looking into mechanical felling wedges, specifically those that can be run with an impact wrench. I've been impressed by videos of them working but haven't heard of anyone using them here in the UK. They cost about £500 as a minimum, so I'd like to avoid buying one if they're rubbish. Anyone used them/heard stories/have advice? Cheers I'm looking at this one, I've already got an impact wrench so that's not a problem. Fällkeil TR24-AQ WWW.FORSTREICH.DE TR24-AQ - mechanischer Fällkeil, für den Einsatz mit kleineren Schlagschraubern. - 2 Kg Eigengewicht - Hubhöhe = 4cm - Druckkraft ca. 12 to

Hi all, Looking for hand cutting work within 30-40 miles of B50 Alcester this week. I have about 8 months experience cutting, currently have CS30/31 and EFAW-F & I'm taking my CS32 next week. Current job came to a close much quicker than I was expecting so I'm looking to fill Thursday & Friday (possibly Saturday too) this week. I'll show up on time & work hard all day. Also looking for longer term contacts (now-Christmas time). Please call/text 07734014898 or send me a message. Cheers Lewis

Hi all, Looking for hand cutting work within 30-40 miles of B50 Alcester this week. I have about 8 months experience cutting, currently have CS30/31 and EFAW-F & I'm taking my CS32 next week. Current job came to a close much quicker than I was expecting so I'm looking to fill Thursday & Friday (possibly Saturday too) this week. I'll show up on time & work hard all day. Also looking for longer term contacts (now-Christmas time). Please call/text 07734014898 or send me a message. Cheers Lewis

Maybe I do just need a change. Endless hedgerow ash get a bit dull after a few minutes ? I don't have any ties, it can't hurt to give it a try I suppose ? cheers

Cheers for responses folks

Had a similar problem with my 241, turned out to be a bust solenoid valve which is part of the m-tronic tuning system

I'm a self employed cutter working in the midlands, been going a year now. I mostly do work felling on country estates. Lots of day rate stuff, fair to say it's pretty cushy as far as forestry goes. I get a pretty good range of stuff, single tree felling, clearfells, thinning, machine work etc & I'm happy with who I'm working for/with at the moment. My question is, would it be daft to move somewhere like Wales/Scotland and work as a cutter there? I've been told by the folks I'm working for at the moment that it's mostly piece rate work with naff pay and very hard graft at that, as the cutters essentially do what the machines can't (gnarly trees, steep banks, oversize and small thinnings etc). I know my current boss is interested in keeping me about so I'm just looking for other people's opinions to help me make a good decision. I'm not worried about hard work or mediocre pay, if these things bothered me massively I wouldn't have got started in forestry at all ? cheers all

https://arbtalk.co.uk/forums/topic/113825-broaching-forestry-work-in-kent/ Here's a link to a thread from a while ago... it's got all the advice I could give at the mo. Applies pretty universally to the tree surgery world as well as forestry as much as I can tell. There's tonnes of work out there, you've just got to know where to look and who to ask, but once you've got a foot in the door it should be a lot easier to find more work as you'll have experience. If you do go self employed then you'll need your own PPE, saws, fuel, transport, insurance etc etc. Best of luck

Hi all, Just wondering what your experience has been with claiming warranty repairs on your m-tronic/autotune saws. Reason being, I have a new-ish Stihl 241 (about 6 months old) which had the bar adjustment pin completely shear off. Since this isn't a consumable part I was a tad miffed since I then had to use a 20" 462 on a first thinning job until I could get it fixed. When I took it in and explained the situation, they plugged the saw into their computer and told me that since I had something like 60ish running hours on the saw, the pin shearing off isn't considered a manufacturing defect and billed me for parts and labour. Pretty frustrating since I'm all for autotune or m-tronic sort of stuff but if they're going to use it against consumers then that might be enough to make me change my mind. Has this issue affected anyone else? What happened?

Looking for work next week, Tuesday to Friday. Fairly green but have experience doing hand cutting and general chainsaw work as well as planting and site clearance. Based near Stratford on Avon but happy to travel. Happy to do groundie work, labouring, planting etc. Reliable and hard working. Own saws, truck, PPE and CS30/31. PM or text/call 07734014898. Cheers, Lewis

i'll be there provided the shift is no longer than 2 hours and starts at 6pm for that sort of money

3 lads and a chipper easy days work

Working with the government at any level seems much too full of bs paperwork, box ticking and red tape to actually be enjoyable. I'd imagine that doing this as an employee would be much the same... though I could be saying that out of spite as I am one of the approximately one billion people denied a job with them ?

Every time I've ordered from Northern Arb (3 times) they've not had what I wanted and didn't tell me so I was sat twiddling my thumbs waiting for my stuff. I have to contact them before they do anything which is not on in my experience. They've also sent me a duplicate order (some pricey chainsaw boots...) which I returned without so much as thank you

Beast of a yank tank. Sadly looks too huge to be very useful though I could well be wrong

I've never had an issue with filling 20l jerries at a petrol station. When I worked at a petrol station in the past I would let people fill 50L barrels... just didn't tell the boss. I recently used a 2L water bottle to fill with diesel along with petrol for my car. As long as the thing isn't leaking or whatever then no reason why it can't be filled

I bought a new MS241C about 6 weeks ago from a Stihl dealer so that I could use it for delimbing/snedding etc. It's had probably about 10 days work put on it so far so I was pretty ticked off today when it broke down on me. Wouldn't start or run. Drove for over an hour to a workshop... the solenoid had stopped working. The part was replaced under warranty but sadly Stihl are unlikely to refund me my lost wages. Is this a common problem with M-tronic saws? Anyone else had similar issues?

Don't have much to add really but glad you found some work. One thing you might want to know when looking at public liability is that apparently the Forestry Commission ask for at least £5 million cover for all contractors working on their sites. Worth knowing if you're looking at insurance providers/quotes. Best of luck

I'm new to it all myself but have been able to find lots of work (enough to mostly keep myself buys 5 days/week) by going the self employed route. It might be anecdotal but I have noticed that a fair few forestry contractors are one man band sort of operations where they can't really afford to take on full time employees but are happy to use labour only subcontractors. I am by no means an expert, but I've found the majority of my work by just googling forestry/woodland management companies as far as you're willing to travel and giving them a bell. The only thing you'll really have to buy on top of the stuff you already have is a public liability insurance policy and register for self assessment tax online. As for finding the people to phone, yell.com is a good place to find the companies/people and the Forestry Contracting Association has a map and phone directory of all of its members, and it lets you filter by what sort of work they do which is pretty handy. http://www.forestrycontracting.co.uk/membership-directory/