Muddy42

As above, rent a petrol brush cutter >45 cc with a metal blade attached.

Sitka is great firewood. I've occasionally had a half lorry load from nearby forestry when they don't want to transport it across the country. Then its been all ive burned for months. You should be able to burn that wood in the winter of 2026, if its brought under cover with good airflow, during a dry spell next summer.

I guess as a camping stove there is always going to be the temptation to forage wild wood or driftwood, rather than carrying it yourself. Fur trappers in 19th century Canada could travel around in the snow indefinitely as long as they had a tent stove to dry out their boots and kit at night. You should be able to scrub out that flue pretty easily with one of those drill based chimney brushes. Id remove that cowl thing on top of the flue and try a straight pipe.

Thanks for letting everyone know and Im glad its been a success. I have a tow behind the quad flail made by chapman and i'm very pleased with it. I guess that at 25hp, the power at the flail will be pretty similar to your setup. Solidly built and easy to grease and work on.

All wood will burn if dry. Green wood left in an open sided shed will dry but not many people have the storage for that. A system where wood is left outside for a year then inside for a few months works well. I don't need a moisture meter to know that the logs shown in your last photo are not seasoned and probably still green. There should be deep cracks and the bark should be splitting off.

I saw am amazing video on youtube once of a guy using a pulley system with a 45:1 ratio driven by a ride on mower. He drove the mower across a large lawn a few times reseting the rope each time, but it did eventually pull out a tree stump.

I've done it before. It takes ages and you need to be patient. You need to have a few days worth of hot fires on the stump. It works well if you like having a dedicated burn site anyway and can keep dumping stuff to burn there day after day.

If you are self-installing you might already be offside. England is stricter than Scotland. In England the installer needs to be HETAS registered to comply with building regs. Plus your house insurance may have a view on this. If a pro is doing it, its up to them what test they do. Or you can self install and get someone to check it afterwards. Even if you clean your chimney yourself you should also employ a sweep occasionally to ensure a paper trail and cover yourself. But rules aside, personally I don't see the need. Make sure you comply with the stove's installation requirements and crack on. you get a good feel for whether the draft is adequate by using it. Or you can see if the stove will pull a candle flame towards it. The other tests are whether the flue carry smoke properly and it doesn't end up in the attic or coming out other chimneys. Then there is a spillage tests - does the stove leak smoke from fire cement, seams or door seals.

Why do you want one and whats your setup, if you don't mind me asking? Draft tests need to performed under very specific conditions, specified in the stove manual and the manufacturer may need it performed by a professional to believe you have an issue. But ultimately it just gives you a number for problems you can spot without a manometer. Low draft symptoms would be smoking when lighting or opening the door, hard to keep going, smell when not lit etc. You might have a problem with the liner or it needs to be insulated. Maybe the flue is too short (<4m). maybe a down draft is being created by overhanging hills or trees. Maybe its a modern house that is sealed or there are competing drafts (dryer, extractor fans). you can just live with a marginal draft by using firelighters, getting the chimney hot quickly with a burst of newspaper or opening a window and always burning hot with less fuel. If the draft is too high your fuel doesn't last, the fire is difficult to control, the stove gets too hot or even gets damaged. In my experience the low draft is much more common these days, especially in today's eco conscious world, where designers try to minimize the amount of heat going up the chimney, which is effectively what causes draft in the first place. Think of it like an engine, you sometimes help things by helping air to get in and out as exhaust. Modifications need to be done with caution to home insurance etc.

I think I can tell when fuel lines are getting brittle, with the carb disconnected. I clean the engine then give the lines a poke around under good light. Cracks will open up when moved but also the rubber feels hard not supple. I've always assumed the fuel line will perish first, because its constantly exposed to fuel. So if it shows cracks, I'll replace all the rubber - boots, carb kit etc. I've done this a few times on two strokes and less often on four strokes.

Stubby, is there a way to clean out these carbon deposits without removing the cylinder? Personally I use alkylate in the infrequently used tools and fresh pump fuel in two 'everyday' newer brushcutters and chainsaw. At the end of the grass season the strimmer gets run dry then run on a bit of alkalate before servicing and storage.

As above, I always just start by giving the carb a clean, remove and clean needle valve and just replacing the diaphragms and pump. I check that the fuel inlet pipe will hold light pressure and vacuum. Generally this is all they need and I don't go any deeper into welch plugs etc. I've had some that still leak and then its a case of finding the leak.

I've stopped bothering with breakdown cover. Often all they do is subcontract the work to local garages. You get to the same position by cutting out the middle man, going on google maps and finding a local garage or recovery service that will come and collect the car and take you to a garage. Then get a taxi home.

As above, flush it out and disassemble as much as possible. Then run the saw with diesel as bar oil for a while. When you know that diesel has been pulled onto the bar, leave the saw and restart it a few hours later. This has solved many oiling issues for me.

Chapman also make good cutters, uk company with good customer service and part availability.

On the flails versus toppers debate, I disagree with the above statements about flails hitting stuff. Personally I find flails are more robust if you hit something because the axle is hidden. The worst case scenario is replacing some hammer flails or maybe a belt, whereas if you hit something really bad with a topper, axles and metal parts shear and you can set everything off-centre. If cutting brush and rides, you will hit something eventually. Flails do require more horse power for a given cutting width and speed. I believe an Antonio Carraro Tigre 3800 only has a 26HP engine so it will be even less at the PTO. This is really very small, so your probably looking at a 1.2m cutting width if a flail but around 2m if a topper. the mowers will tell you what the spec is. 1.2m is fine for woodland paths but painfully slow for doing large areas. Even with a topper, you can never really have enough HP for chest high grass growing in full sun. Its all a trade off. Whatever tool you get, make sure it is robust and constructed with thick metal. Some of the cheap Chinese ones are utter garbage.

The big choice is whether you go for a PROFESSIONAL range of saws like Stihl MS241, MS261 etc. These cost about £800 are solidly built, easier to replace parts, but heavier than a CONSUMER/PRIVATE saw. Consumer saws are lighter, less robust, but are much cheaper. For example the MS212 about £400. You could even go as small as a MS161 which costs about £150. This would only take a 13 inch bar though. I have a few of these cheap saws and if you took after them you can get 5-10 years out of them depending on usage. Any saw will die if you strain it or overheat it.

When chainsaw milling, even with a full size loader for the lifting, I find turning logs through 90 degrees and restarting the cut direction a bit challenging. Its easy to go out of square. Generally I start off making thick slabs for lower quality work (posts, outdoor furniture or even a small bridge once). Then I make narrower boards towards the middle where, when they are dried I will remove the heart and call the outsides quarter sawn. Then I make some thick stuff again at the bottom of the log. I re-stack the boards in order so I know what is what. Of course it depends if you have a long enough bar and enough wood to do this.

not a chance, even I could hotwire it! thanks. I think the problem is that battery health is not linear and that even partially discharging it can cause damage. Its a new battery and I've replaced the rectifier regulator. The wider issue is my stator is weak - only about 15v to 33v AC (idle to mid rev), pre rectifier in each of the phases when it should be 18v - 60v ish. That said I am getting 14.3v - 14.6v DC whilst driving around which should charge the battery. I've put in a voltage meter and I'll keep it under review for a while and trickle charge.

will do, if I cant find a fault Yes it has these fuses. I think the left plug is for higher current up to 10A. I'll try measuring at the fuses, but theoretically the reading should be the same. so is 1 uA = 0.001 mA and 60uA = 0.06mA. the meter is cheap, sorry I cant remember what is was saying on those ranges, I was too baffled by the scale changing again. so I have 0.06mA which is over the threshold of 0.01mA ?

This is a 2009 Honda TRX420 quad. I have been having some battery issues. The battery was old so I've replaced it. Now I am checking for parasitic draw from the system. The quad had been turned off for ages and the electrics are pretty basic. The multimeter is connected in series to the negative side of the battery. I used the left 10A plug first. My manual says parasitic draw should be <0.01 mA This is pretty basic. See picture below of my multimeter. Is this 0.06 mA? I always struggle with the units and greek letters for amps! when I move the dial the decimel place and units move around in a confusing way. The multimeter goes to zero when I remove the main fuse. No other fuses have an impact, so it'll be difficult to locate the issue. Thanks

please post a photo. If you want everything as original spec that's fine, but if you are happy to go off piste, you can make Vermiculte panels fit anywhere. A lot of modern stoves have Vermiculte top baffles as well as the sides. I use trial and error and pieces of cardboard to make a template for the vermiculite.

Hedge thinnings? That sounds too thin in diameter and something for a chipper rather than a logger. Thin stems are ok for kindling, but not great to burn indoors in bulk. Its all sapwood and the bark holds in the moisture if green.

A chainsaw that starts and idles OK, but cuts out when revs are applied, normally has a problem with the fuel delivery or throughput of the air and exhaust. The engine is not getting enough fuel for the increased demand. You say you have checked the air filter, but make sure its not still clogged with fine stuff. If its plastic it can be washed in hot water. The cardboard ones need hoovering or blowing out with air. Or briefly try running the clean saw without it and see if it makes a difference. Check fuel filter. Again after cleaning the tank out, I will briefly run the saw without the filter to see if that helps. Look for cracked kinked or restricted fuel lines. Look for clogged spark arrestor. remove carb and clean everything with carb cleaner, remove any dust. See if the diaphrams are still flexible. I try to do this without replacing parts and setting the carb at default settings. If you find the issue, replace both filters and tune the carb and the lines if they look old.

Id also check for air leaks in the fuel and impulse lines. Blow everything clean and bend the lines to check for leaks. Clean the carb and see if it needs a carb kit.