Gav73

Might be an odd one, but have you changed the 2 stroke oil you use? I had a 170 - great little saw - and to say it was a “diva” would be an understatement. It would only run when I used stihl HP ultra. Anything else in it (even normal stihl 2 stroke) and it would cut out/not start etc

Definitely split green. I once split some huge beech rounds that had been down for long time. They were bone dry and one exploded on my splitter - it went firing about 5 metres in the air and landed 15m away 

Good news an impact wrench works - just needs to be a powerful one!

2 hours ago, AJStrees said:

when you say impact driver, do you mean impact wrench? The torque on an impact driver will be less than a good impact wrench. I had issues getting my bolts undone on my wee chipper. Tried heat gun and a lot of welly on the impact driver, didn't budge. Did the impact wrench and it got the toughest bolt out. 

That’s a good shout, I’ll see if I can borrow an impact wrench to see if that works with some heat 👍🏻

On 15/01/2023 at 21:41, maria warwick said:

I’ve got one too ! Electric start ….. brilliant bit of kit ….. i use it for small jobs. I can lift it into the back of my car ! 

Have you tried changing the blades yet? I got a spare set when I bought it and the “kit” to change them (which is just the socket to fit the bolts) I have tried everything to get the bolts out, impact driver - both air and 18v battery. Nothing can shift them!

Puffballs?

49 minutes ago, spudulike said:

Not bad little saws, relatively tourqey but no AV so can give you vibe issues in your hands.

Not worth a fortune, £80-120.

I have one and it was billed as the most popular chainsaw in the US many years ago. 

It has a halfway house rear to top handle which is a bit strange but relatively comfortable.

cheers spud, yes no AV - definitely couldn’t run it all day, but it was fun to run a tank of fuel through it and everyone on the job that day had a shot with it. General consensus was it felt comfortable to hold and got the nod of approval for an old tool - especially from the younger guys when they realised it was older than them!
 

Came across a stihl 009 recently and was wondering if anyone on here knows of any collectors who might be interested in it? 
 

it’s a 1983 model, has the original manual and is fully working - it’s been maintained by both the original owner and then his son. I’ve used the saw and it’s runs like a dream!

 

they also had a second (non running) saw, they say probably just needs a service, which they bought for spares in case they needed it. 

Ok looks like I'm sticking with the axes.  Tbh I'm happy with that. It's good exercise and a lot of it is done while I'm minding the kids playing in the garden so neither the work nor the time involved are a big issue currently.  A small electric splitter that I could grab from the garage and plug in clearly isn't worth it and a petrol splitter would probably still be noisy for the kids playing and would have to live in the garden if I could find a way to get it there. 
 
That just leaves..... What about the electric kinetic splitters?  Like the portec. I'm guessing fine on the straight grain stuff but how do they get on with knotty uglies?

I still have my old kinetic - It’s rapid, but lethal. The rack and pinion soon wears out and the rams buckle if you try splitting something too big or gnarly. You really have to have your wits about you when using one.

They are also very low down and back breaking.

If you’re anywhere near me, you could come and have a go with both the kinetic and the rock to see what you think

Get yourself a rock petrol splitter. Even the budget versions will be far better than that thing. I bought the venom 1m 20ton brand new and it paid for itself within 6 months on some odd splitting jobs for people who tried the axe and realised it was hard work!

Looks like its hydraulic then!
Any preference Forest Master or Rock?
 

Rock [emoji1303]

I have an old kinetic splitter that only comes out when I’ve forgotten how much I detest it.

When it was new I loved it, it was very quick. But it also very quickly became a problem too. If the wood is gnarly in any way, the ram will soon get knackered, as will the rack and pinion. Mine went through 3 rams before I chucked it into the corner of a shed. All the bolts lose their thread because of the jolting and it’s a very uncomfortable working height.

It’s also worth noting mine is lethal with a severe design flaw, it’s got two levers, one as a safety and the other for engaging the ram. The safety lever lives above the ram housing and is only small. It doesn’t take much to slip off and have your hand going where the ram is firing out of!

Much better with a hydraulic, it will last longer, yes it will be a little slower, but you won’t be spending as much time on repairs, maintenance or down A&E

I've bought the AMR with it's own PTO pump, the 35 handles it well. I have even tried billeting the logs, I don't know if it involves more work than blocking and splitting right away, any one able to comment?

 

One of my splitters will take a metre length and my preference is to split at that length, it’s quicker to split a large volume - think about how far the wedge needs to go into the wood before it splits, if it’s not too gnarly it will split within a few inches, this will be the same regardless of the length of the round. It’s then quicker to stack and it does dry better as there tends to be more air gaps.

Once seasoned, I load them onto a rack and cut them in bundles to the required lengths.

All round much quicker.

Saw this, it's almost like a scale model, tweeny drum chipper:
 
 
 
 
 
Awwww innit cute [emoji8]

I got one of these on the cheap a few months back. So far it’s chomped through 3 whole 8’ conifers and a load of dead ash brash. Takes anything up to 2” and goes through pretty rapid. Works for me as anything 2” and above goes in the stove anyway

Got to be honest, it’s a lot better than I thought it would be!

The Vulcan flew near to here on its farewell tour and I managed to find a spot in a lay-by right underneath - I was amazed how relatively quiet it was. Another mega plane, very impressive seeing it flying. 

It was unbelievably loud when it roared over me, it was very low though. Got to agree it was very impressive

I was lucky enough to see the Lancaster flanked by a hurricane and spitfire fly over every year as a kid. They were on their way to an airshow. Never forgot the sound and they looked amazing. Can’t remember for the life of me where they were going, but I remember it being a big thing as people would phone to say they’d seen them in other villages and they were on their way.
Only other thing that got me in the same way was the Vulcan bomber when that did its farewell tour. I was stood at a petrol station as it roared over. Everyone stopped and looked up - amazing

Did one cube of leylandi with Fiskars x25 this afternoon after a nice early work finish - got a sweat on [emoji106]
normally give it away or swap for homemade wine, but trying to bulk up next years stock due to increased demand. Will mix in with hardwood for customers and burn ourselves 

Leylandii burns great when it’s well seasoned!

Same here. I’ll be burning the whole year as the kitchen stove does the cooking and hot water.

The living room stove still gets lit at 07:00 but we will see how long that carries on for.

I’m not paying £1.17 a litre for heating oil. Either the price comes down and I will buy more or we will continue to run two stoves which costs me virtually nothing to run.

With the wood fired central heating going in later this summer I hope my oil dependency in the winter months drips to near on zero.

We moved away from oil and onto just wood fired central heating over 12 years ago - best decision ever!

The stove paid for itself within a year against the price of the oil and the amount we went through trying to get the house just above freezing temperatures.

And with all my firewood being almost free (just time, fuel for the chainsaws/splitters etc), 24 hour heat and hot water, no gas or oil bills - it’s a no brainer.

Need a roof and the sides cladding in something, but coming along….

I wouldn’t put anything on the sides, any rain that hits will soon evaporate off and the more airflow the better. Nice overhang on the roof either side, front and back will help keep most of the weather off

61 plate ?? What model is that.
Shouldn’t matter where it comes from you’d think, reality is it should not be happening. Seems in this case  Ford agrees with this as there’s a dedicated section of customer services dealing with this and centres set up to sort the effected vehicles. But yes the undersealing is definitely worth the effort and cost. 

It’s a Xl 4X4 D/C Tdci, that’s all I know.

My 61 plate ranger was immaculate underneath when I got it at the end of last year, as was everything in the engine bay - but that’s what happens when you buy an ex fire service motor with 21k on the clock, has been kept inside and maintained to the max.

 

But yes, the first thing I did was get it undersealed before it left the dealership

 

You must spend a fortune when you drive into town solely for Milk. Then the next day for Bread. Then the next day for butter……..

Learn something new every day. I didn’t realise home bargains also sold milk, bread and butter, might have to start doing my weekly shop there

Hence why I said it would be the only reason to go to all that work. [emoji849]

It would be a lot of work and expensive for me to get in the car, drive to home bargains (other cheapo shops are also available) and spend money on firefighters when I have everything available to make them at home for nothing other than my time to put a shovel of sawdust into a bucket, and mix it into some melted wax.

I’m not sure why you think it’s a lot of work? it seriously isn’t, it takes a couple of minutes to make 50 firelighters.

It would probably cost me a fiver in fuel to get to and from home bargains with the current fuel prices and I would have used an hour of my time - when I take all that into account pack of 50p firelighters doesn’t sound cheap to me.

Oh and I’d have an extra bucket of sawdust to dispose of too [emoji23]

That would literally be the only reason to bother with all that effort
 
A box of firelighters from Home Bargains is 50p, job done

It’s not really any effort, I’m shovelling up the sawdust to dispose of it anyway and it’s taking up no more of my time that I would be using disposing of the sawdust - and it’s saving me the effort of having to go to home bargains [emoji23]

Whenever I’m cutting I always try to save about a bucket of sawdust and chip. I use this for homemade firelighters, it doesn’t get rid of a vast amount of sawdust, but every little helps.

To make the firelighters I just melt some candle wax, mix in the sawdust (the hot wax gets rid of the moisture in the sawdust in a cloud of steam) and then put the mixture into the cardboard inners of loo rolls (cut into three). Doesn’t take long to whip up a batch of 50, the kids seem to like making them and they are work brilliantly for lighting the stoves!