APF 2014

Managed to get across to Ragley Hall yesterday to check out the APF forestry exhibition. Its always a good opportunity to check out the latest gear and machinery, as well as do some shopping!

Picked up a few bits for myself -

Another Petzl bucket bag! 25m of 8mm Sirius accessory cord (my hitch cord of choice, this should last me a while!) and some 8mm Liros armor hitch cord I decided to try.

Also got myself a pair of Arborwear canopy trousers that I've wanted to try for ages 

As well as an Arborwear polo shirt. I'm currently looking to get some work shirts printed, but want to start off with a decent shirt, rather than the standard fruit of the loom ones. So thought I'd give one of these a go. 

Also picked up some bits for the company I do some work for in London - 

A tree runner p500, to replace the portawrap in our lightweight rigging kit (fixed bollards are so much easier for people to get to grips with)

Some weaver spikes for the aerial rescue kit and a new husky T540xp for the other team. 

Husqvarna T540xp - ongoing review

I've been using this saw now since the end of January, I had one little blip that turned out to be a missing breather, and other than that it has been faultless

 

I am continually impressed with the power and torque of this little saw, I'm running it on a 12" bar and it really flies through the wood, the stump its sat on was a douglas fir I dismantled last week and I was happily chogging with the husky down to about 16 - 17" diameter stuff until I switched for a bigger saw.

 

The power is there straight away with none of the lag you get from a 201T, as soon as you start squeezing the trigger the revs are there. Its well balanced and with a choice of 3 handle sizes it can be tailored to suit most climbers.

 

The main metal strop attachment point on the left seems a little flimsy but is holding up perfectly well and the rigid plastic one on the left is an absolute stroke of genius and allows the saw to be readily clipped to a caritool. I've always been able to clip a saw up short and one handed, by having a large HMS style crab at the saw end of the strop I could clip it onto a caritool relatively easily but this additional clip makes it so much easier and keeps the saw nice and close into the body, which is exactly how I like to carry it.  

My only real negative comments are that firstly the bumber spikes could maybe be a little bit larger (this I think is a common husky flaw) and I'm not a massive fan of the chain brake action, but that is me being quite picky.

Only time will tell to see if this saw will last like the old 200T's used to but for now I think they are the only real option for a dismantling saw for the professional arborist. And the real test; would I buy one with my own money? - Well I've just spent a Saturday smacking down poplars for a friend with my own new husky after both my old 200's decided they'd had enough! And I'm very happy with my purchase.




Lots of rigging

Couple of videos here of the Stein Block and Husky top handle  in action, whilst taking down a couple of big poplars.

Nicely overhanging some fences and industrial units, pretty much everything had to be rigged.

                                          

Ended up having a tag line on most of the pieces in order to pull them clear, even had to use the Mini MA system I've been harping on about so much. Came in very handy for a lot of the lower growth that actually dipped down lower than the fences, allowed us to pretension the line much more than usual and in a couple of case lift the pieces up completely with the felling cut on top of the branch. 

You can just see the fence in this photo, with that razor wire type top it was definitely something we didn't want branches getting caught up in. 

Husqvarna T540XP - First impressions

We got this yesterday and I got to give it a spin today

We mostly run with 200t's where I currently work. Some of them are getting pretty tired now and spend more time being fixed than being used. We have one 201T that hasn't really impressed us, so when the time came for a new saw we opted for Husqvarna's new offering to the market. 

Now this has been out for a few months, long enough for people to give it a good battering and I read a lot of reviews before deciding to commit. Most of which were pretty positive. 

First impressions are good, its well balanced and lightish, it does feel a little bit plasticy, but most saws do nowadays. I have only used it on a couple of smallish reductions so far so can't comment on the power too much, but it does seem to be there and no delay when squeezing the throttle, which is the 201's main flaw. 

Although I think I'm going to have to give it a good couple of months of hard work before I make any kind of judgement on it, watch this space…