Slad

I have one. It's lighter than most 4x4 so will travel in places others can't. Narrow too. I put 100mm spacers on the wheels because it felt tippy on hard slopes (but that's me being soppy). There's a 1.6 engine which is a straight swap for the factory 1.4 and it's that a bit more powerful. Not found much rust issue but I inherited a brake mod which loses brake fluid slowly so watch for DIY on anything you buy. Mine was <£2k but raised, nobblies etc so I was really happy with that. I would say if you can find a reasonable one you will be very happy with it for a general workhorse on private land.

So, the Mrs wrestled the remote off me two weeks ago at the opening ceremony and I thought while the break dancing's* on I'd do some "science". There's a lot on this forum and others about Husqvarna chargers (QC330 especially) failing so here's where we find out for the first time if indeed Husky battery chargers are made of cheese. [Serious voice] If there's a design problem, then Husqvarna should be fixing it**. If you sink the better part of a grand into a chainsaw system, all the parts need to last. If a battery charger turns out to be a "consumable" after a year or two, then 2 stroke's looking like a cheaper option. And it's not fair for UK retailers if they've got to suck up losses from bad (Swedish) Husqvarna designs***. *Seriously, WTF?! **I think there is, I'll post after the poll ***Trustpilot rating of 1.6!!!

Shouldn't they be getting them all back/making a better one? Given the price. ONline, one of the youtubes shows a straight replacement for one of the diodes. I might try that. worth a go for a fiver. I wonder many people have had this happen. Maybe worth a poll? They shouldn't still be selling them if they keep breaking.

If I'm going to need a new charger every couple of years, I'm going back to 2 stroke! There's a few youtube videos showing the bit t replace. Might try a fix. Was hoping others on here have tried. It's just a charger.

Coming up 2 years. Should last longer? How long did yours last before it went bang?

QC330 just stopped working. Never leaves the house, sits in the corner, hardly used. Now an orange paperweight. Anyone know how to fix these? Quite a few posts about Husqvarna chargers failing. I wouldn't mind but they're stupid money.

Hi Commando, it's Youngs normal (wine) yeast - my local shop has sold out of their cider yeast. I used an EC-1118 sparkling wine yeast on the 4% stuff but it didn't start so I've tipped in more of the Youngs. I have read the same as what you say in that wine yeast is best. I'll take a look at the Andrew Lea book. I've got "The new cider maker's handbook" by Jolicoeur and "The History and virtues of cyder" by RK French. Both a good read in their own way; the former seems to be a bit of a go to "bible" - a book I would like to write.

Making perry this year for the first time since we moved in. Great year for top fruit here - trees groaning. Made a scratter out of wood we milled earlier in the year, a fence post and a handful of screws but bought a simple screw press. Life's too short. Going to make something more like the kit in the photo above next year though, which looks great. Probably going to keep the screw, but use it with an 8T bottle jack instead of adding wood blocks every 5 minutes. We're keeping the trees' jucice in separate demijohns so we can see what each pear is like and done some with high alcohol yeast and some with normal Youngs. Too impatient to wait like all the books say so brewing it fast like a beer in the boiler room. The air locks look like steam trains! A neighbour advised adding back water to the same volume of water taken off and repressing. Worked well although the ABV will probably be 3.5 - 4%, which will be OK for "session" drinking I guess? Top tip for bottles; we have a discount shop near us which sells stuff near its sell by date. I bought 2 x 40 bottles of Grolsch (454ml) for £21 each. This is a bit cheaper than the bottles I was looking at on Amazon plus I get to give the Boy 40 bottles of lager to drink with his mates into the bargain. Any top tips for cider? I've made lots of wine and beer before but cider is new to me. We have a couple of apple trees and a crab apple so might give it a go. (Went for perry first because we have too many pears to ignore)

Very good video showing slipping loads for the knots being talked about. Which knot should you use for joining ropes? - YouTube

Thanks, that's useful; googling European Death Knot now! Great idea using the throwing line, wish I'd thought of that. 🙄 Now, does anyone know how to get pine sap out of ropes?

No, I agree. There's a bit of history to this re - nesting birds - Page 8 - Trees and the Law - Arbtalk | The Social Network For Arborists . It's already been spiked. The tree will come down in due course, just not yet. It looks like a dartboard from the last climber and my ropes/prussiks are covered in pine-smelling snot. The reason for climbing this time was to put a camera on the nest so we could check if it is occupied and see what happens; the ringers have been told not to come back and we wanted to make sure that was the case (and see the birds; if they're going to stop play in the woods, I want to see what they're up to). I climbed using just ropes, pruning the pine as I went so the nest could be seen from part of the ground. It took me hours (lots of small branches, hard to throw because of other trees, no experience of climbing pine trees etc etc). Because of the high winds, for the second climb I didn't want to hang about so I spiked up. Damage has been done and the nest isn't on this tree.

All sorted; Suzuki Jimny uprated by an off-roading mechanic. Uprated engine, 2 inch lifts, nobblies, chopped "pickup" format and extra roll-bars. Petrol, unfortunately, but only going round the farm so mileage not an issue. Handles all but the steepest slopes. Thanks for all the help.

I was climbing a large pine (double rope, MRS, fresh from my climbing course) and I got to the point where my shiny new 35m ropes weren't long enough, the ends were of the ground. I had a two ring cambium saver, so left a single rope fixed and went back down (winds picking up anyway). A couple of storms later I spiked up the tree using the fixed line attached using my locker (fall arrest). This time I took up a 50m line as well. As it happened, there was no point in going higher (the storms had destroyed the nest I was going to put a camera on). And here's my first question: How would you deal with a climb where the rope is too short? Coming down, I wanted to get all the kit down and wanted to abseil down rather than spike. Second question: How would you arrange the ropes so you could get down on them but be able to get all the kit down afterwards? I know how to join two ropes with stopper knots and could have used the knot to jam the cambium saver and abseil down, but I didn't fancy trusting to that when I had other kit. What I did was put a carabiner through the eye on the first rope and connected the second rope to the carabiner. The carabiner was the jam and I used my ID to abseil down. Metal on metal wasn't nice and I was pretty much spiking down anyway in case the crab broke the cambium saver (not likely, but...). So, what would you do?

Guessing prussik loops go in with the ropes too? Climbed a previously-spiked pine a while back and the loops were so caked in the sticky stuff I could hardly get down.

Completely on-site use. Anything with "Rover" in it seems expensive. Any other makes? Toyota has a good reputation ( tool of choice for ISIS ) Jimny gets a mention on some of the farming Facebook groups? Even the Fiat Panda 4x4 gets a mention; might be a bit stumped by the hills though. What do you think about ATV/quad bikes? Can they tow small trailers? We just need to move a small amount of wood every now and then, tools, not much else. I'd prefer something with a roof/roll-bar but if they will do the job, maybe worth looking at?