Alan Smith

Stealing a man's tools is the absolute pits. Removing his means of earning his living. Thieving like this needs to be punished much more severely.

Ah. I was hoping you were going to say it had been standing dead wood for years!

how did you stop the cedar ring from cracking radially?

Another West Sussex resident here too and a Scot by birth but I'm sorry John I can't help with your query however I do suspect your thinking is good. I have a very similar set up to yourself. Carrera tractor with a Vaha Jussi trailer with winch and 4WD. If it's not too much trouble I'd love to see more photos of the rack over your tractor bonnet as I really need to build something similar. Good luck with your move to Scotland. Alan

Maybe it was because there was already a classic French pastry called "Pets de Nonne" ( Nun's farts )

Well it's pissing down in Sussex which hurts all the more as we've had quite a long run of dry weather for a change.

I've been thinking about upgrading my ear defenders on my Protos helmet too. Peltor X4 or X5 make sense but what's the deal with changing the brackets? Where do you get the different brackets from?

I was reading that a lot of the "science" regarding particulates in the smoke from woodturning which was driving these bans has now been disproved.

Elm has interlocking grain which makes it hard to split. That's the reason it was first choice for wagon wheel hubs and seat bottoms, very resistant to splitting.

Looks good. Would be interested to know how you get on with this machine thanks.

Lignum Vitae surely, not box.

I have had a fair bit of experience with both the old and new versions and have repaired and rebuilt both for customers. The older ones are more robust but not without their problems and I would be wary of buying second hand without a basic strip down and test before parting with cash. I had one guy bought three of the older Stihl cutter heads from different sources on Ebay because he thought this was the way to go, all three were wrecked and worthless. The parts for these are expensive. You are right, the Echo cutters are scary sharp and stay sharp but the gearboxes are delicate and won't stand a lot of punishment. Based on a sample of one, the long reach cutter I've been most impressed by in recent times was a Maruyama. Very robust.

is that cameras you have on the back of the digger cab? nice looking machine by the way.

I've recently added a radio controlled hydraulic winch to the crane on my 2 ton timber trailer. I'm finding it very handy to bring up timber to load onto the trailer. I want to take advantage of the radio control for working at the far end of the line by extending the line via snatch block(s) The winch cable is 25m of 1/4" steel rope which I don't want to run through blocks with ally sheaves so want to use my 10mm winch rope. At the moment I'm just tying a bowline on the bight at an appropriate point to hook onto the steel winch cable but I was wondering if a rope grab might be a more convenient way to achieve what I want. I know it's not what they are designed for. Or perhaps someone might know of a better solution.

Looks like a Catalpa (Indian Bean Tree). There is a variant that has these yellow/gold leaves. They are late to come into leaf in the UK. Looks healthy enough to me, also note it's been pollarded. They do seem to respond well to pollarding and in a smaller garden this would probably be a sensible way to manage this tree as they can grow to quite a size.