Well, guys, I been in Dorset England the last month. I am doing some forestry work and some arborist/land scaping stuff in Southern England. It looks like I will be here through the winter.
Here are some of the major differences I have been noticing VS the US:
Saws are smaller. My general issue is an MS341 with a 16 or 18" bar. We use full comp full chisel. Today I was using a 441 on 24-30" Ash, Beech, and Sycamore with an 18" bar. Two of the Ash stumps were nearly 3' in width and the boss told me I could use the 880 if I wanted to, but I didn't feel like swapping out the 60" bar on it. I told him I can just stump the things one at a time
Mature leaning beech can be ridiculously hard. I have felled more hardwood in the last 2 weeks than in my previous life altogether. We are on a huge estate thinning the woods currently. It used to be an old manor, so we get to occasionally run our chains in to wires, etc. Most of the wood on the current project is 12-18". And I am dying to get my hands one a ported 346 or some such that can run an 18-20" 3/8 BC. The weeks before I was falling Cedar, Larch, Spruce, and Doug Fir in the 12-30" range on an estate further north. I'll add some vids at the end here. We mostly fall the trees and winch them or drag them out with a backtrack.
We are required to wear chainsaw trousers, steel toes, personal first aid pack(when falling in groups of 2 in the woods VS arborist work), and ear protection. I use a helmet Dave K gave me that has hearing on it. You have to have your first 2 NPTC chainsaw certs before they can even insure you.
We use land rovers and Toyota HiLux's to get around. We also have Valmet tractors and some back trax as well as a few bucket trucks. We basically do forestry, ecological, and arborist stuff. I have been working more of the forestry stuff, but occasionally they grab me and put me on a different crew just to keep me honest.
Here's the hardwood thinning project. We aren't burning the trees! Just the brambles I don't want it to look like our idea of forestry is to burn the mofo down
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TwdTPFbWNV0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Random vid of the wood we are clearing of softwoods:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_Tc_avnesAk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Here I am struggling with how tight the canopy is and how much young cedars act like velcro if they get near another tree. Even though the first cedar is weighted to the left for it's limbs, it still just sticks in to that oak and doesn't want to roll off. I sent it that way to avoid getting stuck on the huge limb sticking out of the oak on the left of the video. All in all, just a mess. We weren't allowed to bring down any Oaks. Only softwoods could be culled from that wood. So it made it interesting until we got some openings going:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6lAHV-v4LEU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
To make matters worse, no one ever seems to use a gauge to lower the rakers. You will see me often sawing back and forth so I can lightly work a cut because the stupid rakers are way too low in a couple vids. The chatter from that ms341 in the cedar vid was massive before I sharpened the hell out of the cutters. Now I don't bother. The first thing I do when I show up on site is reshape the chain. It takes forever sometimes, but it pays later in saved time and safety. Yet another drawback of using company EQ. So, uh...if anyone has a light saw that can handle a 20" 3/8 BC in hardwoods, let me know. I have been using the Echo on occasion as well. It keeps up with the MS341's OK, but the carb needs replacing(Walbro T model). Otherwise, the Echo has taken a LOT of abuse, including having a sycamore land on it. I am very impressed with it.
WYK
Here are some of the major differences I have been noticing VS the US:
Saws are smaller. My general issue is an MS341 with a 16 or 18" bar. We use full comp full chisel. Today I was using a 441 on 24-30" Ash, Beech, and Sycamore with an 18" bar. Two of the Ash stumps were nearly 3' in width and the boss told me I could use the 880 if I wanted to, but I didn't feel like swapping out the 60" bar on it. I told him I can just stump the things one at a time
Mature leaning beech can be ridiculously hard. I have felled more hardwood in the last 2 weeks than in my previous life altogether. We are on a huge estate thinning the woods currently. It used to be an old manor, so we get to occasionally run our chains in to wires, etc. Most of the wood on the current project is 12-18". And I am dying to get my hands one a ported 346 or some such that can run an 18-20" 3/8 BC. The weeks before I was falling Cedar, Larch, Spruce, and Doug Fir in the 12-30" range on an estate further north. I'll add some vids at the end here. We mostly fall the trees and winch them or drag them out with a backtrack.
We are required to wear chainsaw trousers, steel toes, personal first aid pack(when falling in groups of 2 in the woods VS arborist work), and ear protection. I use a helmet Dave K gave me that has hearing on it. You have to have your first 2 NPTC chainsaw certs before they can even insure you.
We use land rovers and Toyota HiLux's to get around. We also have Valmet tractors and some back trax as well as a few bucket trucks. We basically do forestry, ecological, and arborist stuff. I have been working more of the forestry stuff, but occasionally they grab me and put me on a different crew just to keep me honest.
Here's the hardwood thinning project. We aren't burning the trees! Just the brambles
I don't want it to look like our idea of forestry is to burn the mofo down <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TwdTPFbWNV0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Random vid of the wood we are clearing of softwoods:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_Tc_avnesAk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Here I am struggling with how tight the canopy is and how much young cedars act like velcro if they get near another tree. Even though the first cedar is weighted to the left for it's limbs, it still just sticks in to that oak and doesn't want to roll off. I sent it that way to avoid getting stuck on the huge limb sticking out of the oak on the left of the video. All in all, just a mess. We weren't allowed to bring down any Oaks. Only softwoods could be culled from that wood. So it made it interesting until we got some openings going:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6lAHV-v4LEU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
To make matters worse, no one ever seems to use a gauge to lower the rakers. You will see me often sawing back and forth so I can lightly work a cut because the stupid rakers are way too low in a couple vids. The chatter from that ms341 in the cedar vid was massive before I sharpened the hell out of the cutters. Now I don't bother. The first thing I do when I show up on site is reshape the chain. It takes forever sometimes, but it pays later in saved time and safety. Yet another drawback of using company EQ. So, uh...if anyone has a light saw that can handle a 20" 3/8 BC in hardwoods, let me know. I have been using the Echo on occasion as well. It keeps up with the MS341's OK, but the carb needs replacing(Walbro T model). Otherwise, the Echo has taken a LOT of abuse, including having a sycamore land on it. I am very impressed with it.
WYK
