5thelement

Is that Rod, Jane and Freddy?

Bet they all walked there too as they don’t own a Rangerover?

The training you are delivering to your apprentice is commendable and reminds me of my own experience after leaving college with my RFS tucked under my belt. My first employer had set up in 1958 and was 67 at the time, he had forgotten more than I knew and taught me things that aren’t in any books, logging all the things that we had covered, including using the Forestor Mill. I certainly didn’t learn the majority of what I now know from getting the recognised training/assessment route. Unfortunately, these kinds of employers are very few and far between. One only needs to look at what regularly comes through the doors on my training courses, working lads already in the industry who have been ‘trained’ by the boss, talking and performing absolute shite with knackered 261’s with bits hanging off. Most employers cannot be trusted to deliver adequate training so it must therefore be trusted into the hands of recognised/regulated private companies like LANTRA, sad but true.

And I said largely, not totally. Some of the areas being thinned that that were later clear felled had no public access, some limited. Machine operators, contractors managing the woodland restoration, restocking, FE staff conducting ecology surveys, and the odd keeper monitoring pens were recognised as important safety considerations.

Chainsawbars.co.uk deliver to France. Treat ourself to a roll of each one and make them up yourself .👍

What NE and FE say on paper, and what they allow are not always the same thing. I spent my last 5 years in the UK mostly cutting ADB affected trees, the majority of this in a SSSi in and around the South Downs. Most sites started out as a 30% thin, within two Winters they became clear fell and replant , largely down to safety and public access. Large machinery, forwarders, skidders and 360’s were used on all sites.

Has anyone got a copy of the Ben Law Roundwood DVD that accompanies the book of the same name? Cant find a copy for live nor money.

I have a full range of Tirfor and an Eder 1800. The Eder is quick, light, powerful and runs on the fuel I have with me in the woods (Aspen), 50m of dyneema and a block gets most things down without much effort, but an expensive outlay for occasional use. Get a Tirfor TU16 and a decent 3 to 4 tonne snatch block, you can pick them up on eBay for a good price, way better than the cheap Chinese ‘Tirfor type’ shit with dubious build quality. Get an Eder or similar when funds/needs increase.

That’s my point. If there was even the slightest chance for them to get involved, they would have been all over it, they haven’t and still aren’t.

Yet the data, (if it exists), isn’t in the public domain, and no COSHH advice has been published by HSE/AFAG in regard to chipping Cherry Laurel, even after all these car crashes, deaths and acute headaches/nausea/vomiting being reported.

Or the vegan death cult who all passed away after meditating in a room where Laurel had been used as the incense.

But ‘Thunder’ does turn milk sour? ….right?

I’ve heard this Laurel claptrap for years. The imaginary ‘Guy’ who filled his car and didn’t make it to the tip, sometimes a ‘Woman’ who had bags of chip put in her boot by a friendly tree surgeon, then didn’t make it home, in some cases she crashes and kills a small child. As with all Urban Myths, it changes depending on who is regurgitating said story, I’ve heard at least a dozen versions, all nonsense. There is a small percentage of cyanide present in a few prunus, I’ve chipped and burned them for decades, love the smell, I know no one who has every been harmed, including myself and never seen or heard of any genuine proof either.

Spent the day doing something different with wood for a change. Helping a young French carpenter erect cruck frames on his Ben Law inspired house, complete with Ben Law ‘Butterpat’ round wood joints. Suprising what an Eder 1800, three Tirfors, a few ropes and a couple of lowering devices can achieve. The perlins are In the workshop ready to be added when the frame is completed this week.

Just knocked up a bit of Cornish Pasty supper to soak up the Rum. I am helping out some French guys tomorrow, winching up an A-Frame for a house based on Ben Laws place. I will save on for each worker, be interested in what they think of the Empanada Anglais.

That’s me most weeks.😂

It’s going to be a ‘Dark and Stormy’ night here. Bermudan Black Rum, crushed ice and the only Ginger Beer I could find in France,

Looks like a very straightforward re-pollard of a willow with no overly heavy limbs.

And you don’t try to turn pollards back into proper trees like Manco does, you re-pollard them.

Lapsed pollards can be total shit, proper pollards can be works of art. I past these london Planes on the way to football with the boy this morning.

This course is probably of little interest to anyone in the UK unless they intend to apply a work visa in the EU. The UK Health and Safety Executive/AFAG have recently recognised the ECC/ICC accreditation to be equivalent to that of the UK NPTC chainsaw credentials, so it would certainly be of use to EU nationals who may like to work in the UK.

I’m pretty sure Margaret Thatcher had the same operation .It was the ‘hands turning into a claw’ that jogged my memory, she kept the horns and tail well hidden though.

Maybe the OP has 100 grands worth of used chains?

Even more so when you start screwing up arrangements with your main trading partners.

That’s a lot of Buckfast.