Muddy42

Yes my brother has an 80s Harrier. Phenomenally tough and easy to maintain. However its much easier to clean small mower when you can just tip it over (as long as its the right way) compared to a heavy ride on. Its too late for mine, but I do paint it whenever the deck is off for sharpening or repair (which is quite often at the moment - bearings and axle recently). I don't think those hose ports work that well. I guess you could drive the mower onto a ramp or a repair pit. I have a pit but the mess and faff would be horrendous.

I suspect the deck will rust before the engine! Even with cleaning/repainting the rust gets to them eventually. I have a few old ride ons and find I can repair or replace everything easily until the deck goes and they are no longer in production. I have one in this stage at the moment - i have welded the odd hole, but will have to decide what to do when the structural areas go. I could find a different replacement deck and weld it to fit, but its a fair bit of work!

I have a battery drill and screwdriver. Everything else is mains power (indoor workshop including mains power drill and pillar drill) or petrol (outdoors - strimmer, hedgecutter, chainsaws). i have tried various battery tools and feel I have been relatively open minded - yes they are easy to start and maintain but the power is just woeful. They might suit an occasional non-practical user but for serious users they just dont come close yet.

Im not a lawyer but: In a strict sense, all bonfires will cause a degree of damage and impact to a field - burnt grass, burnt soil leaving a heap of ash behind. All bonfiring activity comes with a degree of risk that the fire will spread or throw off sparks. You were given permission, you supervised the fire, you put the escaped fire out as soon as possible - you cant be seen as negligent or criminal. in terms of economic loss, the owner still has a live tree. I struggle to see where the owner has suffered financial loss? Indeed the damage sounds pretty similar to what could happen naturally from a lightening strike.

If you are just doing the odd one for yourself personally - wet and dry - take your time avoiding going in and out. Honing with power takes skill and you can easily over do it. Then if all else fails, ive been very impressed with meteor cylinders.

Yes, could well be phytophthora ramorum. It has devastated larch in the UK and especially Scotland. Isolated trees can survive longer that large blocks of commercial planted larch. I'm guessing its either something to do with genetic variation (commercial trees are cuttings) or better circulation of air and sunlight. But wait, whereabouts are you, southern hemisphere? Larch are deciduous so their leaves turn brown or fall off anyway in the winter. Generally the first you know of phytophthora is when the leaves fail to reappear the next spring.

At about £100 for a gallon, that stuff is not cheap, 3 or 4 times as much as Stihl/Husqvarna two stroke oil!

Thanks. what oil would you recommend?

Totally. This is JAS FC (I understand only fully synthetic oils are clean enough for the hgiher FD rating) and Stihl Ultra doesn't even warrant a rating at all, some chemists say it is 1980s era spec and technology.

Thanks but I don't really understand. Surely its up to the user to decide on the ratio they use and tune for, just like someone's preference for strong or weak Ribena?

I went for this oil from Wickes. On the plus side its rated JASO FC (2nd highest rating), bright red, semi-synthetic (I am a bit suspicious of full synthetic, probably irrationally) and only £9. I can report back on what it performs like and does to pistons in a few months. I'll still use premix for occasional use, i only mix fresh for strimming and longer firewood sessions. The Handy 2 Stroke Semi-Synthetic Engine Oil - 1L | Wickes.co.uk WWW.WICKES.CO.UK The Handy 2 Stroke Semi-Synthetic Engine Oil - 1L

For mixed hardwoods we do all the management (paperwork, felling licenses, dealing with windblow over fences and minimal restocking because it mostly reseeds itself). I have sold small quantities both roadside (windblown trees all over the place where I wanted to be in control) and standing timber (where we had to deal with subsequent damage to fields and walls). By volume maybe 50% poor mill timber and 50% firewood. I would say neither sales approach was particularly lucrative, maybe a few £k of profit after costs. The firewood market isn't as strong in Scotland as parts of England. Its more work that has to be done rather than a get-rich-quick scheme, given how long hardwoods take to mature.

I just cut the grass once a year in August and remove as much as possible. Ideally slice it off with a blade or scythe so the grass can be removed whole. Mulching or strimming can leave lots of little bits of grass behind. The idea is to stop the cut grass from re-fertilizing itself. I might have another cut in October and rake out moss in the winter to get some bare patches to sow seed onto. Its very hard work but it does work after a few years. There are flail collectors but these are pretty expensive.

I only sharpen mower blades at the end of the season or if I hit a something really badly. I agree often once I have sharpened I don't notice much difference for normal grass. However where I do notice a difference is where I am really pushing the limits of the mulching/non-collecting mower in long grass. Sharper blades seem to slice better and cause less strain on the belts and engine. I suppose the same must be true of shorter grass but I just don't notice it. I sharpen with a big angle grinder and then finish with the bench grinder. Be careful not to get the metal too hot. A flapper wheel also works well. I balance blades on a nail banged into the side of the workbench, but that is not perfect. You can also try and balance the blade on a few inches of dowel rod. I understand that balancing is quite important for the health of your bearings, axles and engine.

It looks like several houses might have been built on what was once woodland. So you could also look for the land registry documents attached to these and who sold the land. Walk round the perimeter of the wood. Is there access from farmland somewhere? This might give a clue as to the farm to knock on the door of. However just to play devil's advocate, I can see the other side of this. That looks like beautiful mature woodland where even apparently healthy trees can fall expectantly or drop branches. For example storm Arwen came from a northerly direction near me so caught a lot of trees by surprise. Cutting the odd tree or branch, hiring a climber or traffic lights is phenomenally expensive. In my experience there is no way that could be recovered from firewood quality timber sales. Traffic lights can be £1k a week alone, so the temptation is to fell trees into the wood away from the road to reduce the time lights are required. Volume makes timber sales more economical, so before you know it, the temptation is to fell the whole wood! This exact situation happened near me. A village badgered a landowner to manage some trees and complained that whenever the road was blocked he took too long to clear it. I helped the poor guy a few times, when I found him in his 70s trying to clear up with an electric chainsaw in the dark. Eventually he had enough and applied for and received a felling license and felled about 50 acres in a 30m strip bordering the road. The same neighbors went mental at the loss of their 'amenity woodland' and view etc. It has regrown and looks quite nice now.

If I was only to rely on one saw, I’d buy new or nearly new. But when buying a third saw, i think you can risk buying an older and cheaper second hand pro saw. The things are pretty much infinitely repearable and you can always stretch to use the other two saws if waiting for parts for the medium saw.

Sounds horrendous. I do keep a close eye on things but have never even suspected such foul play. I think you need to shop around a bit more.

Yes, you can completely disassemble it and replace whatever you need to. My crankcase seals were fine so I didn't get any further than replacing the piston. I don't think the numbers work like that. These are the current Pro stihl chainsaws: Petrol chainsaws for forestry work WWW.STIHL.CO.UK STIHL's Petrol Chainsaws for Forestry Work combine useful technology with minimum weight and are indispensable for many jobs on farms and in the forest. You'll see it includes some odd numbers. I simply work backwards from the current model. 462 replaced 461 which replaced 460 etc.

I have an old MS460 (76cc I think) with a 20 inch bar that I brought back to live with a meteor piston last year. So far its been great. Like you I was trying to fill a gap between small and massive saws.

Yes, there is normally a separate haulage company. The timber lorries go over a weighbridge and both the seller and the buyer should see the tickets showing the weight.

Yes, I think pulling a longer bar (on its own not cutting) absorbs more power from the saw, leaving less left over for the actual cutting. If you try turning two chains by hand on short and long bars, you'll see what I mean. In other words I wouldn't justify this approach by assuming you'll just cut thinner wood and take it easy. You might get away with for a while but it still won't be optimal for the engine and will stress the clutch etc. and potentially cause overheating and premature wear. You'll barely notice the difference in weight between 50 and 70 cc, especially if the bigger one has a light bar on. Or kneel and cut with a smaller saw, I often do this. Or get a grab to lift the lengths up to waist height, a real luxury.

Battery or 4 stroke won't have enough umph for clearing or mulching with a blade. For brambles and saplings, I'd want a fair amount of power, just seen you have bought the FS461 which is 45 cc, ideal.

Personally i’d step up to the 70 cc range. The saw will be slightly heavier, but no problem for a 6ft 4 person standing up. Use a light bar.

I bought a Husqvarna 555rxt last year and thoroughly recommend it. It has bags of power at 50 odd cc and low vibes. I had some teething problems getting the blades set up due to a really poor instruction book, but now I love it.

I regularly swap forks for bucket etc. on the Manitou. The bucket was second hand without Manitou brackets, but I got a set welded on.