5thelement
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Everything posted by 5thelement
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I modified a socket from an old set and put it on an impact gun, works a treat without putting too much load on the clutch, just remember not to depress the decomp button.
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Stihl suggest a ratio of 4 chains to two sprockets to one guidebar. I am pretty meticulous on maintenance and check the sprockets regularly as the wear tolerance is only 0.5mm, you can check the Stihl ones with a little gadget they sell (pretty inexpensive) the Oregon Powerwmate ones have black lines running across them, they are ‘witness’ marks, when they start to disappear, change the sprocket. I use Supertack Bio oil from Clark Forest, have done for years, no problems over mineral.
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I had a pair of Haix Protector Extremes that the soles started to crumble apart on in a matter of weeks, they looked like I had been standing in embers. They asked me to take a picture of the tongue with the manufacturing code. I expected them to ask for them back but they just issued a new pair, it worked out well as I ordered the replacements a half size smaller and kept the others for general workshop work. Just tuck the tongues inside the boot and take the photo, job done.
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Above wall privacy trees
5thelement replied to Emma110871's question in Homeowners Tree Advice Forum
A couple of Olive trees, evergreen and easy to create the shape that you want with secateurs. -
A lot of firewood buyers in the South East are grading Ash with ADB before buying. Any timber with signs of rot and discolouration is being separated into chip stacks for biomass, clean wood for firewood. They are finding that a lot of the timber with rot/discolouration is shattering under the pressure from the ram/ splitter in a firewood processor and creating firewood like rubble that they cannot sell.
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It is Walnut. Usually it needs to be bigger to have the decent heartwood colour that is so desirable, worth it if the price is good, it could be better than it looks.
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All the French ex-pats are hoarding if it up.
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It’s Europe’s hardest wood, they use it for knife scales in one of the factories South of me, dense and silky smooth in the hand. It comes a lot bigger than that too. I removed an 150 year old hedge in West Sussex a couple of years back, four to six inch diameter. I’ve seen it growing near me getting on for eight inches, it’s certainly the biggest that I have come across. It can be a pig to dry and quite often splits itself straight down the middle.
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You can stack most wedges if the profile is right. If I think I may need to start stacking wedges I usually just put a line up before I even start the cut and winch it over. I have not heard that familiar sound of someone pounding steel wedges in for at least 15 years.
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I have Bolle hi lifts that do a far better job than any other wedge that I have used, including steel, personal preference I suppose. If your steel wedges are only 14 degrees, that would mean that you would have to drive it in 8 inches to open up the kerf 1 inch, which wouldn’t finish many of my trees off.
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What are intending to use them for? If felling, forget it and use plastics/hi lifts, the steel wedges weigh a tonne. I use Brades steel wedges for cleaving Sweet Chestnut and Oak post and rail, proper British steel and you can pick them up in decent nick fo £15 each on flea bay, they will last you years if you look after them. The picture attached is of two 8” Brades, the length is stamped on the wedge, and width is indicated with the tape.
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You forgot the Greeks and the Romans, what did the Romans ever do for us?
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Sad to hear about the death of Marvellous Marvin Hagler at the age of 66. I remember watching him fight for the first time in a holiday caravan in Towyn, on a black and white TV. He destroyed Alan Minter and went in to be my favourite boxer, there are not many that came after can compare.
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Braken Spraying - Asulam
5thelement replied to Old Roots New Shoots's topic in Forestry and Woodland management
Marcus Spurway (Forestry) has the credentials and works all over Kent/Sussex, I haven’t got his details to hand, try googling him. -
I used to fell 100 tonnes of Sweet Chestnut coppice a year to create chip for the biomass heating on the estate, they had 500 acres of SC in rotation.They chipped it in house with a machine fed cone type chipper. The spiral cone of the chipper made very regular size/shape chips at 50mm, it worked really well in the boiler and any chip left over after the Winter was spread out on the play areas and around established trees etc. I have just removed six Lombardy Poplars in the Orchard, chipped all the brash and created a good/clean looking chip to mulch around the fruit trees, I use it fresh as long as there are no leaves in it to create heat.
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Whenever I have had to remove a tree that has had the TPO taken off due to a sudden decline of a previously healthy tree, the customer is usually:- a)Upset that it has to be removed. b)Upset at the cost of removal. c) Usually have the intention of replanting a tree anyway. Does the TA state size and species, and do they follow up on establishment of the tree moving forward? In the scheme of things cost wise, surely planting a tree is chicken feed compared with a crane/mewp dismantle? I planted three trees with the kids at the weekend, Peach, Nectarine and Apricot. Three trees, double staked and ties for £90.
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Nope, I just have a lot of Forestry experience to base my posts on rather than spouting nonsense of which I now little or nothing.
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If you can keep the rootball intact and get it replanted straight away you have a chance. Watering, staking and committed after care will be the key to its re establishment.
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I worked a large Ash plantation on the South Downs (SSSI). Spec was a 30% thin, to be completed over two Winters. By the second Winter the ADB was so extensive and the trees in such poor state that Natural England proposed a clear fell to all Ash on site unless they where maidens showing no signs of ADB. The level of basal decay present was shocking., the heads exploding on impact. Depending on your geographical location, Ash will have been one of the mainstays of the Forestry hand cutter, sawlogs or firewood, great timber and kept you sharp. The decline of Ash is tragic, and I don’t know any hand cutter or contractor who looks at it any other way, no one I know is raping Ash and they certainly don’t see it as a cash cow.
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Having spent the majority of the last 5 years dealing predominantly with ADB in Sussex/Kent on large estates, Woodland Trust, RSPB and FC sites. Also doing extensive research planting Ash from all over the world in controlled experimental blocks for the FC. What is your experience of dealing with large scale ADB @skyhuck , perhaps you could share your findings and help educate others on the problems and hazards associated?
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Total bollocks.
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Wow, sorry, I didn’t realise that I was in a discussion with a leading expert in how the political world works. If you think that inept planning leading up to a major part of our history is ‘how it was going to be’ shows inept planning on an exemplary level. I usually find that when I plan a job in depth, it tends to workbetter.
