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Hello ladies and gents! So firstly , I'm not an Arborist. I'm a designer on an illuminated trail in Scotland and am looking for some solid advice regarding a possible method of fixing some items to trees in a local authority managed forest/country park in Scotland. The forest in question is mostly made up of Douglas Fir, Sitka Spruce, Scots pine and Japanese larch. Although its a country park mainly for the enjoyment of the public, when trees are harvested they are done so mainly for commercial reasons and or due to weather damage/ unsafe ( scotland is not exactly known for its tropical climate....) We need to temporarily install some small loudpseakers to the trees, and this is done by way of a speaker bracket that has 4 fixing points. Speaker itself is not heavy at all ( 1kg ish ) Ideally we'd like to use screws to achieve this but a back up of attaching the bracket to a small pad of marine ply and then strapping this round the trunk with an endless ratchet strap has been formulated, however if possible we'd like to go down the screw route. Purely and simply down to time and cost. I've done a bit of research and read that the best screws to use would be of aluminium or stainless steel type and obviously I've gone for the smallest Stainless Steel screw there is which in turn with weight considerations would be 30mm screw length and 4mm width. Once the bracket is on the tree only about 20-22mm of screw would be penetrating the bark and into the tree "meat". The event itself runs only for 3 weeks and we would be installing the items 10 days prior to the show opening. At the end of the event run the brackets would be removed together with EVERY screw ( we wouldnt be able to get the brackets off the tree trunk otherwise ) The rangers are understandably worried as they kept reiterating that the trees will be eventually felled for harvest and they don't want the trees damaged as this would affect their price. After watching a few sawmill videos and reading some forestry literature would i be correct in thinking that the outer material is stripped back quite a bit so a 20mm screw path wouldnt be noticed or interfere much in the harvesting / processing ? Im obviously mindful of damaging the tree by means of giving a path for insects and funghi to harm the tree....Would spraying the screws with copper solution be enough to act as a defense against introducing an infection into the tree? Or would the use of copper solution effectively poison it? As mentioned, I'm not an Arborist however I'd rather be able to come to a mutually beneficial method with the rangers rather than just be told no. At the same time I love the outdoors and would hate to be the cause of a tree being infected by funghi etc. Am I flogging a dead horse here or do you think the above screw method and execution is viable? Thanks for your time Julian

Hi, I am trying to get hold of some sitka spruce cordwood samples, ideally 5 x 2m lengths up to 15cm diameter. If they turn out to be what I need I would need about 100 tonnes later in the year. Happy to pay for them and collect. I am near Gatwick so the closer the better. Anybody out there who can help? Cheers.