Paddy1000111

I just think it's odd.. maybe running the chains a little hard towards the end didn't help. They were getting dull and I kept going until the end of the log which is a lot of cutting on 5m logs. Probably a combination of pushing hard (although the rest of the bar was fine) and a little dirt. Just surprised, it's about 1mm-1.5mm deep 😳

The customer! He's super into his photography and took 60 odd photos for me to use for my website 👌

I'd get a hyperskip chain and give it a go if you don't have one. It was lovely to mill with 👌

Hard to tell because I've not milled with an 880! For cutting though the 881 feels like a chainsaw. I don't know what's different, maybe just the shape? But it feels like a big chainsaw as opposed to a big lump with a bar. It feels nice with a 30" bar on. As far as milling goes it runs a treat. I was using a hyper skip chain for the first 2 chains and that was nice! I had to change to a skip chain afterwards and it was hard going. The saw was pulling itself into the cut and bogging so I fought it the whole way. Hyperskip is definitely a winner!

So strange that you have to do a course. You would think with all the modern technology, tyre tech, brake technology etc it wouldn't make much of a difference between 3.5 and 4.2

Thinking about it, there was the large crotch on the end that I got in and removed as much mulch and crap as I could from but it was almost like compost. I got in there with a brush and a crow bar and scraped it out but maybe you're right and that's what it is. Gutting though on a brand new bar 😫 I'll dress it and sort it but it's knocked a good bit of life out the bar

That's what I thought origionally but it's the cutting side as opposed to the "top" of the bar. Wouldn't have thought tension would matter on the cutting side?

From what I have seen in the carbs they are mostly the same measurements etc. It's more the finish quality. Zama may drill a hole and then ream it for accuracy, cheapo carbs will just be drilled. Zama will have someone going through each cast body and face everything properly and grind any imperfections off, cheap carbs will be slung together and the seals will do the job. The springs are cheaper/thinner/weaker on the inlet needle. The tip of the inlet needle will be made of inferior rubber/inferior coatings. Any chrome plating will be done cheaper/faster so it won't last as long meaning little flakes might break off the inlet needle and get stuck in there. The rubber on the diaphragm will be cheaper and won't last as long. The bores for things like butterfly valves and stuff won't be machined as nicely so the butterfly can get stuck in position (happened to me) or they won't close fully. The bores of the L/H jets and the finish on the needles won't be machined as nicely or as accurately so adjustment gets a bit janky as the tips of the needle may not be true so it opens and closes leading to hard adjustment. There's lots of differences but they are the same size/shape. Everything is done quicker and cheaper meaning lower quality, less longevity and harder adjustment. There's a reason why carbs differentiate in price so much

If you've seen my post on the today's milling forum I was milling some big beach. I have been checking over the kit today and noticed this wear on the bar. It's pretty hefty wear on the cutting side of the bar? It never ran dry and it had both the 881 oiler on full and an auxiliary oiler fitted on the cutting side. Both the guard on the tip of the bar and the sprocket cover on the saw was dripping with oil the entire time. I ran the chains and the bar in following robs guide in youtube and spraying it with oil. Anyone know what caused this? For reference the other side is fine and the bar seems perfect with no hot zones along the length, just one specific spot.

So I finally got the 881 and the 74" bar into some photo worthy wood (Beech)! 6m long and 78" wide at the biggest point so I spent ages trimming. Overall a good day. Got a good amount of boards out of it, they all came out flat and the customer was very happy 👌

It seems that air bag kits are about the same price as springs but the additional stress of air leaks, compressor failure, electrical issue etc doesn't seem ideal? For those who are using larger springs, what ones did you go for? 2, 2+1, 4+1 etc?

Not sure about pickups but I'd love an electric transit if it had the same power etc. Only bad bit would be the weight. I can't imagine the payload would be very good at the moment with the weight of batteries and motors. Considering the mileage I do it would be awesome 👌

I'll take a look! I'm not too fussed about ride quality. I'm lucky that most work is within 10 miles of me.

Are they the ones you went for? How do you find them? I've seen up to 5+1 springs which just seems excessive?

If you can get it out (which would involve disassembly of the shed around it and then drag it up a muddy hill then be my guest 😂 in all seriousness though, I'd love to rebuild it one day!

Ha! Mine is a stationary engine with a big belt driven 240v 13A generator on it! I'll post up a photo of it next time I am in that shed!

Anyone got any links to uprated springs that they have used for a mk8 transit (2016)? Seems to be 1000 options but I don't want to buy some POS ones or spend a load when it's not necessary? I wouldn't bother but the springs have looked a little, urm, sad and I live in an area with shite roads that are full of potholes and speed bumps and I don't trust the oem springs.

Starting to make me wonder if I shut mine down with the priming lever... I haven't started it in about 3 years now as the alternator gave up and I never had much use for it anyway! It would probably look beautiful if it was dragged out and restored but it weighs about 900 tonnes so I never tried

It sounds odd... I've got an old lister diesel (probably the same engine) that runs a big transformer the size of a beer keg that powers one 13A plug. I open the stop cock, crank it with the decompression lever up and then flip the lever down and it fires up. I also stop it using the decomp lever as I think the other way involves letting it naturally shut down from fuel starvation and it takes too long. If it makes you feel better. This kid can start his:

Can you ask the guy you bought it off? If he was able to start it and stop it with no issues and no easy start I'm sure that he can tell you how he did that?

Isn't everything now 😂 I think it will be interesting seeing what happens in the future with manufacturing. Only thing that makes cheap Chinese stuff rubbish is cheap labour, cheap materials, cheap equipment and low QC binning. If you take the equipment, materials, QC and quality of labour from somewhere like Japan or Germany and put it in China there would be no difference. A lot of big companies will be outsourcing to China and with material being standardized and all the work being done by CNC it doesn't really matter who presses the go button. It just comes down to the QC at the end of the day! I think when people say about losing jobs to machines, I bet they don't think that the people who run those machines can be anywhere and the quality of work will be the same. Yet another hit to UK manufacturing

I guess, thinking about it. You would usually pay a freelance brash dragger £80-£90 a day with no tickets. You supply your own PPE, fuel to get to site etc and there's no guarantee of work. You're getting 71.28 a day but you're also getting a pension, sick pay, holiday pay and a guarantee that if you turn up you're getting paid to work. I don't think that's far off the freelancer wage considering the benefits. If you want more you need tickets. Save up and do it yourself or go through the probation and then ask to get qualified. Let's face it, if you're employed they will at least stick you on a cs30 course as at the moment you can't even start a saw to warm it up send it to the climber technically.

I use a cambium saver. Base tie for the ascent like you say, get a groundie to undo it then install and thread it through the cambium saver and tie an alpine butterfly with the a carabiner through the loop just in case on the small ring side with the "tail" reaching the ground when I'm done I just stick a retrieval ball on the line and pull the cambium saver out. Alternatively I guess you can tie an alpine butterfly and then thread the climbing end through the loop and synch it up on the branch. You can even add a ring to the butterfly to make retrieval a little easier. Only advantage of using a cambium saver is I can pull the non-climb side down and add more rope into the system easily if I need multiple redirects without unthreading the climb side from the loop as i just remove the carabiner and undo the butterfly and I can pull the knot down to me and swap it to a ddrt system if I want to as well. If I'm doing an odd job I will have it set up in ddrt as its easier to go up and down and when I stop for lunch I just tie a knot in the cambiums small ring side, clip a carab through it and then I have an srt system to get back to where I was easily.

Thanks everyone for the help. Had a day off today to get on top of things and gave the chipper a darn good going over. Couldn't find any real issues luckily. Touched up the paint here and there, checked the grease tubes and flushed all the bearings through with fresh grease. I think forst changed the flywheel bearings when they "rebuilt" it as they look pretty new and it took 12 pumps of grease before any came out and it came out clean straight away which is a little disconcerting but oh well! Apart from that the bolts (Allen key) that hold the blades in have been pre-rounded for me so that will be fun when it comes to changing the blades. Overall, pretty happy! 👌

Personally I would buy a rebuild kit and give it a go. If you're that worried money wise then buy a chinesium rebuild kit for £1.50 or whatever silly price they go for and stick that in it and see what happens. You could buy a Chinese carb and find it's just as rubbish as your faulty one and it could send you on a wild goose chase (been there, done it) I used to buy a lot of cheap Chinese tools from chainsaws to pole saws and hedge cutters and they were okay but the carbs were always a pain in the arse. They leaked, the primer bulbs always cracked and the diaphragms would usually last a year before going hard and wrinkled. I also had a Husqvarna brush cutter that was built in the 90's. I took it to bits to clean it up and the plastics and rubbers were just as good as the day it was made whilst the Chinese tools fell apart and went crispy within a couple of years. By all means buy a Chinese carb but an oem rebuild kit will last much longer and there isn't much in the OEM carbs that can be permanently fubar'd. Do you know what carb is fitted to it? I think its a Zama C1Q on those and chinese rebuild kits are £5. When I have got cheap kits I have found the parts to be cheap too mind. The needle was thinner, the spring was weaker and the overall quality of the cut out parts was poor, bits of junk hanging off the seals and holes not ligning up perfectly. Made me realise what's in the cheap carbs though.