Somebody else suggested using the 10mm pipe to do something similar. I managed to get the 10mm pipe all the way down from the top and tried fitting a penny washer to a bolt and screwing it into the end of the pipe - close, but no banana. Tomorrow I'll try fabricating or turning a piece of something to attach to the pipe to lift the wood - this seems the best strategy.
A coach screw on the end of the pipe?
Sorry, I was a bit bad-tempered yesterday! I hope you get this sorted out.
Solved! Pass a length of small bore plastic heating pipe down the downpipe and out of the shoe at the bottom, rigidly attach a 40mm (ish) plywood disk with an 8mm bolt into the plastic pipe, pull pipe gently from the top (jiggling at appropriate moments and supplicating appropriate deities to ensure the disk doesn't get irretrievably stuck) to lift the offending piece of wood within reach of the hopper. The offending piece of wood was a surprisingly heavy length of oak beading, about 2m long and 20mm across. Thanks for the various responses and suggestions.
Well done, that's a really ingenious result. I do like the idea of using relatively stiff pipe to maintain the collector disk roughly perpendicular to the axis.
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