JonnoR

I love this little thing. Climbing a pretty steep slope with this lot on board barely taxed the motor. It's supposed to have a self-unloading feature on this trailer, but when it gets heavy I can't figure a way to drop the pins necessary to have the rear cross member slide of the main chassis and dump the logs. Like most of the issues in my personal life, I either need more lube or a bigger hammer.

Spent a few hours dragging the thinnings out of the forest.

Find out what type of saw he uses, buy the same one, then cut the biggest overhanging tree on to his house. Claim ignorance.

Buy a lathe and make bowls, 'cause you're not making any money from lumber fella.

I will definitely give that a go!

Yeah, I finally figured it out. It makes for VERY itchy scratch marks!

Don't worry - I was preserving the chain for the day, as the moss is full of granity sand and throws sparks like a bastard. I went round with my gnarly saw the next day! The Hornbeam coppices lovely.

Some pictures from recent thinning activity in the wood. This is the first major work I've done in this area, with more significant block thinning, rather than felling the odd obvious struggling tree. Leaving oaks and straighter hornbeam/ash. Lovely lower story trees waiting to flourish I think. Very exciting!

Bomb them from space, they're ****************ed. Make a buggery out of the logs if you must, but silver birch is a pioneer tree and hasn't evolved to live for ever.

If you have room, the wood framed Froling pellet silos are great. They keep it all low humidity and you can order bulk quanities which are pumped directly in the silo. Mine will take 5 tonnes at a time and it's way cheaper and more convenient 'en vrac'.

I've got a Froling too. Great boilers. They run incredibly well off pellets. I buy about 4 tonnes every other year, and that supplements my log burning and for periods when I'm away. If you're going to start replanting, or supporting natural regeneration, you might want to consider getting the hunt in from time to time. The farmers won't thank you if you end up with an out of control population of boar, and the Roe will decimate your sapplings.

There is a very large private forestry community in France, which means there are all sorts of initiatives to help inform landowners, whilst maximising their contribution to timber-dependent industries. I had a free assessment conducted by this quango: CNPF, la gestion durable des forêts privées WWW.CNPF.FR and found them very helpful. I have a dual fuel (pellet/log) boiler and would rather pay a little cash for pellets, than feel under pressure to get rid of slow growth hardwoods. Give yourself time to really get a feel for the wood. Mark trees in the summer, which look to have lost the race to the canopy but perhaps don't rush into felling them straight away. They grow slow but irreversible mistakes are made quickly. Do you live in an area with a communal hunting agreement in place? If so, the local hunt will exercise their right to hunt your land, unless you withdraw permission.

Hi Feu, I own a hardwood forest in France too. The first thing I would say is that if you haven't already got experience of working with trees, don't just leap in. Depending on your ambitions for the property, having (or learning to conduct) some sort of survey on the place is vital. Secondly, wait a year or so before putting a saw to ANYTHING. Understand the lifecycle, put out trail cams, get some expertise in. And learn to use a saw on simple stuff. I was lucky enough to live close to Mick (who posted above), who helped me out massively with a danger tree that was beyond my capabilities. Also, depending on your age and motivation, don't leap into getting heavier equipment, because you'll find an excuse to use it, and you'll denude your forest quick sharp! I now own some lumber handling equipment, and a couple chainsaws, which makes life way easier for firewood, but don't fetishise the harvesting of timber because it's counterproductive to your environmental ambitions. And don't let any wood pikey neighbour 'help'. It's cheaper in the long run to pay a professional, than rely on some bellend who's only after a bit of firewood! DM me if you'd like - I'm an enthusiastic amateur, so I won't give advice, but I'm more than happy to share just how retarded I was 5 years ago!

I've got the rear handled version mate, and I initially found the same thing. I knock the gullet out of her every other sharpening, and sharpen it at a less steep angle and it's fine now. They don't really last that long on anything dirty, but clean 20cm hornbeam she'll just need a quick sharpen when I change over batteries.

Same experience for me, further south. I gave up trying to get French distributors of two-wheeled tractors to quote me - beyond some dodgy guy who obviously works for the French distributor but seemed to be trying to sell me his demo model - 'we don't usually sell direct to customers, but in this instance etc etc'. The Dutch are way more proactive

Hi Big J Thanks so much for chiming in! Really interesting observations, as were the other contributions 👍. The Lennartsfors should be really useful in my random, quite densely planted hardwood forestry (especially for the first major (overdue) thinning exercise - so for my own use, I doubt I'd need to expand my kit to the next level in terms of productivity, expense etc. I had considered that as it could be so easily loaded, it might earn some money for similar use cases as my own - and sufficiently retard proof to allow for standard equipment rental. The forwarders like the log bullet look great for sure but they are quite expensive and to my brain seem to occupy an awkward middle ground in terms of expense and utility that I can't quite fit with my own thinking. Spending incrementally more on the next step up, in terms of capability, does not seem to compromise much with regards to lower impact operability, while opening up more demanding higher volumet work. With regards to expanding my plant to the point where I can earn money from an owner/operator model, I had considered spider excavators setup for skyline, and then in the summer using the equipment on building, drilling and other non-forestry work. With an 18t dumper and the spider, I can see some potential for longer term contracts, but I'm still looking about to survey the market in these other sectors. In any case, I really appreciate the advice and observations - it really helps to clarify things! Jonno

Ah, another man of culture I see!

Out of all the people in the world who I'd like to see punched in the face by Tyson, Jake is up there. I've been shot at a few times, and those buggers are nowhere near that wanker.

You make really valid points. For my personal use I think the Logbullet poses issues of access and storage, but I did take a hard look at one, before settling on something with a smaller footprint. Adding a tipper bucket or auger expands the functionality beyond purely forwarding use, and helps me out with other tasks. I nearly pushed the button on their remote control 'Essence' model, which lets you attach a mulching mower, but that's silly bloody money. Thanks for the feedback!

In that case, I've not spent as much time studying as I thought!

You make a compelling argument! I actually studied Swedish at uni, as a second language on my course - despite having never been there and my only exposure to the language was grainy VHS videos 😄

I'm not moving to Sweden to explore this idea 😄

Hi All, This might not be the right section at all for this question, because it involves equipment that is by definition not 'Large equipment'! I finally pushed the button on a Lennartsfors Ironhorse (the flex2), plus trailer, crane arm etc. I'm tiring of hand hauling lumber up a sodding hill in my woodland, but it also got me thinking that other smaller scale woodland owners might also be feeling like me. In the view of the great and good on here, do you think there could be a niche for a smaller scale equipment rental enterprise, to support limited scope thinning operations for the group of lower scale private landowners trying to manage their stands? I'm thinking of one of the smaller Menzi Muck machines (probably rented out on a plant+operator basis when I'm not using it), a low impact small forwarder like the lennartsfors with hydraulically equipped trailer/crane, or even some sort of compact skyline setup to help rip out thinnings in smaller forestry parcels. I think it should be super easy to trailer to hard to reach sites, and with additions like augers and dump buckets it could be useful beyond the forestry work I envisage. One of the things I'm assessing is whether there's a 'Goldilocks' midrange of potential customers, who probably don't have the tonnage of lumber to justify higher costs associated with renting and moving heavier machinery (HGV costs, higher personnel hours to run more complex plant etc.,) but might also require an efficient way of extracting timber for personal use or smallscale firewood production. Might there be sufficient business to be made to at least offset ownership costs for my own use? I'm looking at some additional bits of land in France and the UK, so would likely need some proper equipment mysefl, as I manage more land. Speaking with Mick D he suggested that maybe @Big J might be someone who could expand on the utility of smaller plant to support sensitive site extraction. Grateful to all for feedback! Jonno

That's great. I guarantee I won't be sorted by then, so I'll be in touch!

Your collection is scarily similar to mine! Yes, those narrow tall bodies seem to match my own. When I have them in front of me I can check, but I put money on those dimensions matching my own. Thanks for taking the trouble to post the pics mate.