How'd it go today?

Another day, another 50¢. Was watching an osprey on my big job. It was flying over a field ~200' away, and took a dive. It flew away clutching a snake. Pretty cool.

At home, I finally got to try my cordless tools I found in the trash, plus the Chinese batteries I got for them. The circular saw didn't put a dent in the locust. Dunno if it's the tool, the battery, the blade, the thick wood, or multiples of the above. Never used a circular saw before, so I have no frame of reference. I ended up ripping them with my 2511t. I got a little carried away with the rakers not long ago, so it was pretty chattery. I might spin up a ripping chain for that saw just to do this kind of thing. Dunno. It's kind of a dumb way to use a chainsaw, but it seems to be the way I end up doing it :^D
 
That sucks. I guess there's no way to fix it; maybe even something sketchy to try to keep going?
 
Build a jig and either braze or weld it. Hit either side with a sanding disk, and you are good to go. Some old school bandsaws actually used to come with a blade welder, if i had any bandsaw other than my woodworking one i would likely hunt one down.

I've come to the conclusion that the fact that the lead acid battery is still standard means that mankind is doomed. Since i got sick and didn't keep up on battery maintenance (honestly i never did, but i at least usually charged and occasionally used them over winter), I'm going to have to go and buy a handful tomorrow. It's been a few years so i get it, it's just very very annoying. In other news home advisor has called a bunch trying to get me to do trees, i said not now but might in the future. Anyone mess with them or a similar service? It would be nice as a part timer to just have leads texted to me once a week, but i don't know if it's worth it. Thoughts?
 
I'm not going to fix the band. I won't fix them, sharpen them, or even look at them twice if they are not working right. These .055" bands have limited flex life anyway. There are bands all over in the woods just behind the mill. (Which is also the farm scrap metal pile, I'm not a total slob) The reason is that they must be perfect to produce the quality product I need. People put way too much emphasis on the cost of bands, when fuel and band cost is less than four cents a board foot.
 
I would tend to agree, based on my limited W M'ing experience. It's all good and fun milling until you hit a nail. Then it sucks.
 
HA sends you low-bid-lookers and problematic types is what I have heard from those who went that route.
YMMV, but they get their fee from whomever they send the lead to, and if you don't jump fast someone else gets the business and you still get a bill.

From

Is HomeAdvisor Worth It For Contractors?

A lot of contractors list their business on HomeAdvisor, but is it worth the investment? Let's explore the pros and cons of HomeAdvisor.
www.webfx.com www.webfx.com


"One of the main issues contractors have voiced having with HomeAdvisor is giving up some rights to their business. In HomeAdvisor’s terms of service, it states they can use any information in your profile to direct links back to their own site. Some contractors have said they don’t agree with HomeAdvisor using their name to promote HomeAdvisor’s business and that it borders on being unethical.

Contractors have also noted that the leads they earn from HomeAdvisor aren’t worth their time.

Each time you receive a new lead on HomeAdvisor, you’re charged a fee. So, if the lead doesn’t convert, you’re still paying HomeAdvisor for it. And since the lead is directed to contractors other than just you, you have to constantly monitor your phone, otherwise you end up paying for a lead another contractor obtains.

This leads to a final fallback of using HomeAdvisor — it can get awfully expensive. If you’re constantly receiving leads that don’t lead to any actual business, you can spend a lot of money."
 
K thx guys. I definitely don't need them right now, but i was thinking it would be kinda like low investment advertising. They made it sound like you only paid for jobs that you actually got, not every tire kicker they send you. Since i do trees part time, the on again off again nature of it (since i often travel for my day job) bites me on occasion. When I'm gone I'll get calls all the time, but sometimes when I'm home it takes a bit to get going again. Ideally I would get a buddy company that when I'm in town kicked me extra business, and when I'm fine i kick them work. Thanks guys as always!
 
With what I said, I’m booking the end of June right now for any job over four hours. My better competitors are in the same boat as we are. One of the bigger locals is calling us half price Harry but won’t give any reference to the jobs we’ve taken from him. I just told him that maybe the guys that he fired work better for us because we don’t treat them like pack animals
 
Not at all, I'm part time so no employees. After I'm cutting for a bit i have more than i could ever do, just sometimes i have an occasional lull if I'm gone for awhile because people don't know I'm back in town. Thx again
 

Mick, sorry if I failed in my attempt to make clear I was speaking to personal use vehicles...though I think it really might be you who failed to see that :).

Sure, no doubt. Borrowing money to make purchase of a piece of iron that makes you more money that the loan costs is an obviously proper choice to make for many businesses.
 
pigwot said:
HA sends you low-bid-lookers and problematic types is what I have heard from those who went that route.
YMMV, but they get their fee from whomever they send the lead to, and if you don't jump fast someone else gets the business and you still get a bill.

From

Is HomeAdvisor Worth It For Contractors?

A lot of contractors list their business on HomeAdvisor, but is it worth the investment? Let's explore the pros and cons of HomeAdvisor.
www.webfx.com www.webfx.com


"One of the main issues contractors have voiced having with HomeAdvisor is giving up some rights to their business. In HomeAdvisor’s terms of service, it states they can use any information in your profile to direct links back to their own site. Some contractors have said they don’t agree with HomeAdvisor using their name to promote HomeAdvisor’s business and that it borders on being unethical.

Contractors have also noted that the leads they earn from HomeAdvisor aren’t worth their time.

Each time you receive a new lead on HomeAdvisor, you’re charged a fee. So, if the lead doesn’t convert, you’re still paying HomeAdvisor for it. And since the lead is directed to contractors other than just you, you have to constantly monitor your phone, otherwise you end up paying for a lead another contractor obtains.

This leads to a final fallback of using HomeAdvisor — it can get awfully expensive. If you’re constantly receiving leads that don’t lead to any actual business, you can spend a lot of money."
Click to expand...
I used them for a few months almost 2 years ago. The bad leads were incredibly frustrating. Many times -but not always- I could get credit for bad leads. It took me a while to burn up my prepaid credit balance (no refunds) before I could cancel. Then when I tried to cancel they would bribe me with more free credits to retain me a while longer. Took me 3 tries before I could finally cancel for good. I still get emails and phone calls every 2-3 months trying to get me to come back. No matter how many times I tell them I am out of business they still keep calling me.
 
Dave Shepard said:
Now, why won't the winch free spool?

View attachment 110067
Click to expand...
That's about what the wheel on my stump grinder looked like after I hit a rope left by the company that cut the tree. It was already a really good paying and overall smooth. I was only 1.5 miles from a stump grinding job scheduled for Thursday, so I drove over to take a look just before dark. Saw a large uprooted stump and told the client we could get it done and we were both better off doing it now so the tree crew that was coming in on Thursday could clean up the mess. Thing was big but pretty rotted and the teeth were sharp. It looked like a quick 400 for maybe 10 minutes of grinding and ten minutes of set up time. But it was not meant to be.
 
Tree09 said:
Build a jig and either braze or weld it. Hit either side with a sanding disk, and you are good to go. Some old school bandsaws actually used to come with a blade welder, if i had any bandsaw other than my woodworking one i would likely hunt one down.

I've come to the conclusion that the fact that the lead acid battery is still standard means that mankind is doomed. Since i got sick and didn't keep up on battery maintenance (honestly i never did, but i at least usually charged and occasionally used them over winter), I'm going to have to go and buy a handful tomorrow. It's been a few years so i get it, it's just very very annoying. In other news home advisor has called a bunch trying to get me to do trees, i said not now but might in the future. Anyone mess with them or a similar service? It would be nice as a part timer to just have leads texted to me once a week, but i don't know if it's worth it. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
get your own adwords account and turn it on when you need work. Be careful though if it isn't set up correctly, you'll be getting calls from Ohio. I can let you talk to the guy who set mine up. I don't pay him to manage it anymore as we got so busy I don't need the extra work right now. He might be able to help you set up the account so you can urn it on and off at will. I think he wanted 500 back for a one-time service in the day, but expect his prices have gone up considerably.

HomeAdvisor sucks.. a waste of TIME more than money, but plenty of wasted $ too.

 
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