Today....

[Dan Cobb]

A neighbor wanted his overgrown silverthorn hedge trimmed again. I've trimmed it once before by leaning an extension ladder into it and using a pole trimmer which worked marginally and was exhausting, as it's about 12 ft wide. It had some growth 18+ ft tall, but needed to come down to about 10 ft tall.

This time, I set a rope in the adjacent pine tree so I could "walk" around in the top of it while hanging on rope. I think that worked better. Was able to cut the bigger stems back a good bit with a hand saw, so next time, a hedge trimmer should cut everything easily.

First time I've ever put a lanyard on a hedge trimmer!

 

[treebilly]

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Todays tomfoolery.

Nice stuff Mick.

 

[Fivepoints]

We had a significant storm here last Friday. We are still pulling trees off houses. This is the one we dealt with yesterday.

 

[Mick Dempsey]

The amount of trees that I see on here and other US sites that fall on houses, it’s unreal.

Maybe your ‘trimming averse‘ mantra need revisiting.

 

[Fivepoints]

The amount of trees that I see on here and other US sites that fall on houses, it’s unreal.

Maybe your ‘trimming averse‘ mantra need revisiting.

A lot of these were in good shape. We had a very soaking 3 to 4 inches of rain last Wednesday. Then Friday we had a very strong line of storms. 80mph winds and a saturated soil makes lots of stuff come down.

 

[southsoundtree]

Here, it's hard to have a distance-to-house greater than the tree height.

You may be getting skewed data.

I ask customers a lot, "Remember that last big storm? The one where almost none of the trees had any noteworthy damage. The one where the damaged ones usual were the usual suspects?"

If trees routinely fell in houses, people wouldn't have them close enough to hit the houses.

 

[oldoakman]

Five points, I was in Birmingham last Friday but got on the road ahead of the weather. We were supposed to get the tail end of it in Phenix City but it petered out before it got here.

 

[oceans]

We had a significant storm here last Friday. We are still pulling trees off houses. This is the one we dealt with yesterday.

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Doesn’t look like your new Grove…

 

[Fivepoints]

The trees on houses continue. This is the 6th straight day.

 

[Fivepoints]

Doesn’t look like your new Grove…

Its still not fixed yet. Progress has been made at least.

 

[oceans]

Its still not fixed yet. Progress has been made at least.

I can sympathize. I bought an older excavator to bolster the smaller, newer one I have. The second one needs a swing drive motor rebuilt or replaced. $7,000. At least I can get by with the other one in the meantime. Glad to see you are still out working. Good luck with your other crane!

 

[Fivepoints]

I can sympathize. I bought an older excavator to bolster the smaller, newer one I have. The second one needs a swing drive motor rebuilt or replaced. $7,000. At least I can get by with the other one in the meantime. Glad to see you are still out working. Good luck with your other crane!

We have the control unit shipped off to grove at the moment for further diag on their test stand. Hopefully know something this week.

What kinda excavators do you have? We run a yanmar vio35. Been really pleased with it. Its got about 3300 hours on it by now. We have a grapple, eterra screw splitter and auger drive, stump grinder, stump planer, broom, and of course buckets for it.

 

[islandarb]

I am not an island. Big thanks to these guys who help crush it with me daily. Adrian, Troy and Leroy. Sam will one day make a fine climber. He has skills already.

 

[Shadowscape]

11 to 16 inches of snow predicted for here today. I will have some damage to clean up next week. Not a lot of fun climbing in a big down coat and mittens.

 

[oceans]

We have the control unit shipped off to grove at the moment for further diag on their test stand. Hopefully know something this week.

What kinda excavators do you have? We run a yanmar vio35. Been really pleased with it. Its got about 3300 hours on it by now. We have a grapple, eterra screw splitter and auger drive, stump grinder, stump planer, broom, and of course buckets for it.

View attachment 86949

I have had a Bobcat E26 for about 5 years now. Most of that time I just relied on the bucket and thumb. A couple years ago, I modified the thumb by extending it with a slight angle from each tip. That made a world of difference, but I still was longing for a rotating grapple.

So I found a nice Bobcat 435 with less hours than my E26. I bought that and a few implements which are:
- Intermercato WDR7 Rigid Rotator
- Farma 48” Sorting Grapple
- Intermercato T-Cut Tree Shear
- Rut Manufacturing Brush Mower
- Custom Pin Coupler
- Custom X-Change Coupler
All this equipment is a game changer for the work that I have taken on in my area, which is quite rural. There are many larger properties that need invasive vegetation management, selective thinning, and any other measure of good silviculture. It has also been unreal for several residential jobs. Imagine having a tiny, low impact, tracked feller buncher that can hold a good 12” Oak vertically and carry them around.

 

[Fivepoints]

I have had a Bobcat E26 for about 5 years now. Most of that time I just relied on the bucket and thumb. A couple years ago, I modified the thumb by extending it with a slight angle from each tip. That made a world of difference, but I still was longing for a rotating grapple.

So I found a nice Bobcat 435 with less hours than my E26. I bought that and a few implements which are:
- Intermercato WDR7 Rigid Rotator
- Farma 48” Sorting Grapple
- Intermercato T-Cut Tree Shear
- Rut Manufacturing Brush Mower
- Custom Pin Coupler
- Custom X-Change Coupler
All this equipment is a game changer for the work that I have taken on in my area, which is quite rural. There are many larger properties that need invasive vegetation management, selective thinning, and any other measure of good silviculture. It has also been unreal for several residential jobs. Imagine having a tiny, low impact, tracked feller buncher that can hold a good 12” Oak vertically and carry them around.

We have a 42 inch farma grapple on our 35. Its been very good. We use it for feeding the chipper quite a bit. We plan to buy a much larger mini ex at some point as we keep renting an 18k lb size machine. Ive spent $7500 on rental lately so we obviously use one a good bit.

 

[Fivepoints]

Heres another one we took care of last week. Sweat gum uprooted and leaned into several other trees. If it fell it would slam down onto this guys shed. It was a pretty good slope. Used all of our cribbing. Started pouring rain on us shortly after getting the crane setup.

 

[oceans]

Heres another one we took care of last week. Sweat gum uprooted and leaned into several other trees. If it fell it would slam down onto this guys shed. It was a pretty good slope. Used all of our cribbing. Started pouring rain on us shortly after getting the crane setup.

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Looking at the controls in the crane cab reminds me of the Prentice 180E I ran for several years. Full on long lever from the valve bank under the floor up to your hands. I was always a bit jelz of the orher crew’s equipment with more modern electronic over hydraulic controls. I must have looked like a crazy hibachi chef when operating that thing!

 

[Fivepoints]

Looking at the controls in the crane cab reminds me of the Prentice 180E I ran for several years. Full on long lever from the valve bank under the floor up to your hands. I was always a bit jelz of the orher crew’s equipment with more modern electronic over hydraulic controls. I must have looked like a crazy hibachi chef when operating that thing!

Yeah its an old crane but its solid. We were just starting to get used to the new gmk when it broke down. Maybe well get used to it again shortly.

 

[Fivepoints]

More trees on buildings. This hackberry fell on a small barn. Im ready to be back to regular tree work. All of this emergency stuff is wearing us down.