coppice cutter

Big fan of Japanese stuff as well, I've a collection of Silky saws and now cut mostly by hand. Also have a Yoki billhook, and an Ono axe, they are works of art. But Fiskars seems to be one company who can take modern design and production techniques and actually use them to produce stuff that both works well and lasts well off the shelf. A niece was looking at a house to buy a few years ago. In the garden was an old dilapidated wooden garage and along one wall of it was a whole array of old hand tools, slashers, billhooks, sythes, sickles, etc, etc. If she had bought the house (which she didn't unfortunately), I'd have got them, restored them, treasured them, and even taken them out to play occasionally. But for day to day practicality, buy something to do a job, take it home, work it hard, set it down, lift and repeat the next day, and the next, and the next, etc, Fiskars seem to have it nailed.

It's so light that I seldom go out in to the wood now without it, even walking the dog. There's always a briar trying to encroach on a path, a low hanging branch about to snap, a fruit bush getting smothered by cleavers, etc and you can deal with it there and then. Light enough to safely use one handed as well. I've one of the original S3 brush hooks, I've trimmed many loads of coppice with it and it's still going strong. This is shaping up to be a useful companion for it come winter time as well.

Could I just add, that saying as you've gone petrol and the machines are new, there's few things that will give you any greater benefit from using alkylate fuel than a hedge trimmer. I've an old Robin, well over 20yr old but I've had it from new and it hasn't done much. Hated using it, the fumes stuck in my nose the rest of the day. Switched it to alkylate last year and it's been a revelation, so much so that I've started trimming one or two bits and pieces that I usually just left until the winter and done with the tractor. No need to drain over the winter either when not in use. You should give it some thought.

Mrs CC, a nurse, approaches jar sterilisation at jam time with the same sort of clinical thoroughness that she approaches wound dressing or stitch removal. I used to think it was ott, but probably not.

Not sure about that. Not many peasant farmers still on the go any more, but seems to be more unhealthy people on the go than ever. Most of those I know on DLA/PIP or whatever it's called now, have never done a hard physical days work in their lives.* But anyway, that would be an interesting debate for another place, no wish to derail another potentially useful and long running thread any further. *edit* - probably worth adding that there will no doubt be some incapacitated due to a life spent working in the heavy industries of the past, which were both brutual and body killers. Although to be blunt, there's probably not many such people left!

I think that in retrospect the widescale shift from FYM to slurry has been a poor move for the land. After nearly thirty years of using slurry, I've now returned to FYM and the change in soil condition over the past five or so since the change has been profound.

He wasn't wrong about much. Here he is commenting on 'progress' in Sub-Saharan Africa. Totally contrary to the common narrative (as he seemed to be on most things!) but makes a lot of sense. Sorry for the de-rail!

Took a punt on one of these this spring, based entirely on positive experience with other Fiskars products. WoodXpert™ Brush Hook XA23 | Fiskars WWW.FISKARS.COM The longer handled brush hook has all the good qualities of its little brother including the redesigned backwards... Early days yet although I've used it a fair bit already. It is superb, the best way I can think of describing it is to say that it is to billhooks what the X series are to axes. Highly recommended.

The wonderful John Seymour always preached that the various arts of preserving your self-grown food were just as, if not more, important than producing it in the first place.

Actually some of the conservationists are starting to twig on that if they introduce an excessive number of pine martins, once they're done killing the greys then they start killing the reds, and the upturn in red squirrel numbers is short lived. Not saying that trying to decrease grey squirrel numbers is a bad thing, but unsurprisingly, addressing a problem which has built up over more than a century is going to take more than a few years.

An elderly neighbour left me in a 36v cordless Black&Decker hedge trimmer to "have a look at". It was obvious that it had done next to nothing but apparently was just out of warranty, was working fine and just stopped. So I split it and started to check all the individual components. Long story short, battery, motor, all the individual micro switches are fine, but the power goes in to a wee tiny printed circuit board before the motor and doesn't come out again. I disconnected the motor and put two wires on it straight from the battery and it worked grand so the PCB is definitely the problem. If it was my own I'd probably just by-pass the PCB and take my chances but I don't want to do that and give it back to a man well in to his 80's, not sure exactly what the PCD is supposed to do but lithium stuff can be weird so I'll report back the issue and his son (who bought it) can chase up to see if there's any chance of repair. Anyway, I assumed the motor would be shot, as presumably did the "garden repair centre" who he took it to before me and said they couldn't find a problem, but it wasn't the case, so it's probably not a wise assumption to make. However if it's under warranty you don't need to worry, get it returned and find out what the problem is.

Cat's are too smart to get caught, so they sit back and orchestrate everything. Sneaky buggers.

Just seen, he's officially going. So, for those who follow these things, who's the new PM? Hope it isn't that feckin cat!

Sames. And as some have admitted, he seemed to make a half-decent job of the London gig. Was never the same man after his covid experience, I think he was recalibrated rather than cured!

Ah well, things could be worse. You'll be laughing about it by Christmas, ........................maybe! Seriously though, y'all dodged a bullet in that collision, goodness knows how. Unlucky in one respect, incredibly lucky in another, take your pick I suppose. Safe home!

I reckon Larry planned the whole thing all along, sneaky bugger. Never trust a cat!

If I'm building an engine and supplying the parts then nowadays I use Mitaka parts from Grampian Motors wherever possible. It's not that everything else is shite necessarily, but there's dodgy stuff out there and Grampians stuff has never let me down. I'd now pick it over Wiseco, ProX, Hot Rods, or any of them. It's amazing how many blaggers can even be found in the BSB paddock, plenty of talk and a confident attitude can get you nearly anywhere it seems.

Main problem with strokers is that people never change the big end bearing as you have to split the engine/gearbox and crankshaft to do it, so if they're changing a piston they feel the con rod for play at the bottom end and if there's none it'll get left alone. They don't realise that a big end bearing won't have any play right up to the point it disintegrates sending debris around the rest of the engine and trashing itself so you need to either change the big end bearing while it's still good (or rather, appears to be!), or accept that some day it will let go and grenade the engine. Leaving that aside, any other failures in a stroker are generally down to a fault somewhere else, or in some cases poor quality parts used at a previous re-build.

Not really, things don't go pop for no reason and any 2-stroke crosser should run a long time between rebuilds if everything is as it should be. Have you any idea what triggered the destruction sequence.

Bandits are good but getting increasingly difficult to find a nice one as because they were a cheap bike people abused them secondhand. 03 600 Fazer better, but fewer to choose from. Don't rule out a CB500 either, so much better than you'd ever imagine a small parallel twin has any right to be.

To put it in perspective, before the Shogun I had a Volvo V90 estate, last of the 'proper' Volvos. It was a 3 litre straight six petrol, 24 valve, auto box, rear wheel drive. Yes it was thirsty but it was comfortable, cavernous, towed like a tractor, went like the clappers, and held the road like a limpet. I bought it as a stop gap for a few months and it was so good I ended up keeping it for eight years. The Shogun had none of those virtues yet somehow managed to be even less economical, and by some margin.

You just know that dog would be taking it easy and trying not to hurts it's mate, and the cat would be trying to get a judas gouge in there to take it's eye out.

I longed for one for years and eventually got offered one through an acquaintance in the motor trade, 3.2 Warrior (the high spec one) auto, very clean, never on a farm. Kept it about 5mths, woke up one morning and realised I'd been in denial pretty much since I bought it and actually hated it. Had it sold by lunchtime the next day. Never imagined something could use so much fuel in ordinary driving, plus it was hopeless on dry roads and even worse on wet ones. Also gave me hassle with niggly things, bulbs fusing, low oil warning light flashing periodically, rear half shafts unseating themselves when towing and allow the diff to leak oil, which apparently wasn't cured properly until about 06. Also known to give injector and turbo trouble, which I didn't keep it long enough to experience.

Braver (or richer!) man than I.

So you're still well ahead. Surely there's a temptation to get out? *edit* - sorry misread that as you having had them for five years already, so maybe you're not!