Muddy42

I use a cheap 200amp MIG made by Rohr. I'm an infrequent user so I stick to flux core. I've achieved much better results since I switched the polarity and had some time to practice. Any feedback welcomed

For clearfelling mixed woodland that has rhoddo in it, I find success depends on what you do with the brash and offcuts. If they get left, rhodo regrowth can be hard to spot and deal with. But if you can get everything forwarded away for biomass in bulk (and often the cost barely covers the revenue) its a much easier task. However this scorched earth policy looks horrible and no doubt takes away a lot of the soil goodness and natural fertilizer.

Another technique that might work is to roll it - the bracken gets crushed but the heather bounces back. A farmer near me does this and it seems to work. Rollers are tougher than mowers if you hit a stone.

How much bracken are you talking about? Could you pull it up? I've eradicated small areas br strimming them repeatedly in the early summer - you are effectively stopping it getting light and photosynthesising - it has to have an effect.

....until you thump something, which jars every aspect of the drive and can lead to off-centre-ness and vibrations.

Box is one of the best types of wood for woodworking - a fine grain and colour like ivory.

@Donnie I recon that bracken has got too high this year. Enjoy the summer and leave it until next spring when it'll be easier to cut the new shoots. If you keep cutting bracken it loses its strength and gives up eventually.

Just to clear the brash. Its a nice idea to have a bonfire on a green stump to kill it but it doesn't kill them off and is impractical for a whole wood. Rhodo doesn't have single roots, but a maddening series of stumps roots and creepers. On a woodland scale, I can't see how you are going to kill it without some form of glyphosate. If you go down the chipper route, make sure its a big one, you want it to be able to cope with the biggest/widest branch you can lift. Recutting sections takes up time and rhodo branches comes in all shapes and sizes

This doesn't make sense. You've dropped about £1,100 to buy one of the most powerful modern chainsaws available, yet you ask the most basic question about fuel ratios? If you have that kind of money, just buy premixed fuel (e.g. Stihl's motomix and preserve your warranty) and please do a chainsaw course and buy protective equipment. You have a saw with more power than some motorbikes, with 80 teeth traveling at 100kmh just inches from your hands and legs.

As long as its got groove, its got meaning, and maybe its the time, the place, the motion, and the way we are feeling (or something along those lines) - it'll be fine.

I use lithium grease from a grease gun for everything including strimmers and hedge cutters, with no issues. Id guess that more things fail from lack of lubrication than the wrong type of grease/oil.

We've had a few successful localised eradications of rhodo. The approach has been to cut and bonfire it by hand. The bigger the bonfire the more efficient it is. A combination of hand tools and electric chainsaws work well for this. Petrol saws are ok, but they just spend ages idling. Painting glyphosate, on freshly cut stems with a paint brush works well and is kinder to the environment than a spraying regrowth. Whatever you do you need to keep at it, shoots and seedlings will keep appearing for years to come. On small areas you can simply pull up smaller stems and nip out seedlings by hand. However on large areas of bare ground you will end up with a carpet of thousands of seedlings that would be impossible to pull up manually. I've heard of people using chippers, bulldozers and there is even a type of bailer available. I've used a digger once, we made piles of branches and set fire to them after a year - worked well.

If there is nothing wrong with the setup and the sweep is happy, don't change it. Regarding the liner, the sweep should be able to tell if it was failing pretty easily - you feel it with the rods or you can use a camera. Listen to your sweep not a stove installer - installers have a huge incentive to get us to replace stoves every few years. My personal opinion is that old stoves are tougher than modern ones and most draw better.

Ah even better if you have a longer bar and powerful saw to use when you occasionally need it. Sorry I was a bit brief with my suggestion of 20" bar. A lot of this is personal choice and it depends what you cut. I cut a lot of hardwood and dislike underpowered combinations (a long bar given the power of the saw) and try to get the cutting done with the shortest bar possible. Of your list I've only used husky and oregon bars - both fine.

Personally for a 70ish cc saw and UK harwood/oak, id go for a 20 inch bar as the ‘everyday’ bar.

I have used arc in the past but dont own one anymore. Currently its either MIG with argon mix or gassless. I am a rookie and only get marginally better welds with gas but I quite like the simplicity of gassless with the same setup.

Im away from home otherwise Id check and photograph it. Its a 2023 model. im sure mine has holes in the white plastic shell to allow your tuning screwdriver to reach an adjustable carb if one was fitted.

Yes the best have the same socket so its a case of switching them over externally. I have to take the cover off and swap wires over internally which is a pain. Or I plan to make new leads.

That may be true but I always understood the mtronic 261 was still backwards compatible? The plastics even have holes for carb adjustment. I thought you could just replace ignition, carb, wiring etc and your good to go.

Its the other end of the welding spectrum but a handy feature is the ability to switch the polarity, this is better for gasless welding which is ideal for quick/rough/dirtier/occasional welding or outside or if you run out if gas. I got stung with my cheap MIG, which is a fiddle to switch over.

The different parts will everything from the starter coil, ignition module, wiring, to the carb. Some of the run/off/choke mechanism will be different too. To do a proper comparison you’d need to compare part numbers. As suggested above I would suggest you dont worry too much. I have an mtronic 261 and I wouldnt take it back to non mtronic now. Firstly the above list of parts would be too expensive but secondly because the newer stihl mtronic systems are good even though I dont fully understand them yet.

I don't think they can force you to fell, so you are right to talk about compensation for agreeing. Sitka is a commercial timber so you should be able to value the volume of timber extracted pretty accurately. Yes to requesting a road - it will be a huge benefit to you in the future. I wouldn't mention stump removal. This will be a huge amount of work that is not normal when felling sitka plantations. I'd just ask for some extra cash instead. Yes you can mention amenity value, even though in my opinion Sitka plantations have very little. But it would be valid to try and bring up the future timber value you are forgoing by felling early.

Blades, fixed string heads and bump heads - Ive used them all to be honest their are arguments for each. I have that Husqvarna bump head and it works well. I agree with you that a bump head is probably fine for just medium height grass (under knee high) and say a 2.5mm - 3mm string. Any thicker string than this can cause feeding issues, plus at 3mm I'd stick to round string. But if the string is properly assembled and lubricated, the bump feature means that you can go for hours without needing to change string. When you need to tackle waist high grass, weeds or brambles, that's when you need blades or thicker string and a fixed head. Blades can help you push the capabilities of a medium sized machine, but your 545rxt will be fine with any of the above. Personally I've gone off blades, because they seem to cause extra vibration and/or engine wear. I was forever replacing parts in the head. I only use one setup at the moment - 53cc engine 555RXT, Oregon jet fit head and 4mm string. The majority of what I cut is thick grass and brambles, this mulches everything in its path and turns it to dust. I get through two fuel tanks before I have to replace the 4mm string (one tank if cutting near rocks or fences). It can even do some neater lawn height grass with reduced throttle (you need to pay attention and take your time to avoid scalping).

The air filter cover doesn't look right either. I'd go with 240. Edit: Hang on non flippy caps. 026? or I have no clue.

8 year thread revival, nice! The diamond edge square stuff is amazing, better than oregon flexiblade. I use 4mm string in a fixed oregon jet fit head rather than a bump head. You'll find that bump heads cant take as thick a string as fixed head ones. When using the bump head, I use the thickest diameter string the manual says it can handle.