A good day to stay alive

Daniel said:
In re-thinking the move today, it did occur to me that a wider face would have been better.. I'm thinking the reason it pushed back so far and so fast was in large part due to the narrow face.. (slightly less than 45 degrees) as soon as the face closed it put the brakes on the motion of the top. All that kinetic energy of the moving top got transferred into the pushback. So a wider face would have allowed the direction of the top movement to be going more down than forward when the face closed. That would have created a lot less pushback...

As far as using the truck to pull the tree back out of the entanglement with the adjacent tree, I couldn't care less what you think about it. It was a good move. You weren't there and don't have enough information to make a judgment on that one. So keep running your mouth and next time you fall out of a tree, maybe it won't just be your ankle that gets broken... The ugliness you put in the world is coming back to you sure as gravity.
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As I said, it was a combination of too much pull, too large of a top above your pull line (which is a really bad idea), and your poor choice of undercut. All of this led to an extremely quick and violent pushback with the top coming off the stump before, or at the apex of the pushback. Result. Top in lap. How do I know this? Because I have spent over 40 year taking tops from 125ft-200+ ft. Things happen in slow motion at these heights (unless you pull too hard or are in hard-leaner), so one has time to observe the pushback process, and hopefully learn how to manipulate it with our undercut. At these heights one also quickly learns that pulling too hard is a colossally bad idea because it does little more than recreate a hard leaner scenario where things explode very quickly and you have little to no control over the outcome.

Now I am not sure where you get your tree news, or what kind of story you have spun in your head, but "falling out of a tree" certainly wasn't the cause my broken leg and ankle.

And I am still happy that you were not hurt as a result of the poor choices you made in dealing with this tulip tree!
 
OK fair enough.. that's an intelligent discussion... I know you are a master at topping tall skinny forest trees.

If I had to do it over again, the only things I would do differently is cut a wider notch, and not hesitate for that split second after the top started moving. Everything else wasn't really up for debate. It was either make the cut or get a crane. NO climber was going to cut from that tree. SO lesson learned.

And I'm glad you made a good recovery. I started getting back into big tree jobs this year. Feeling confident enough after a hip surgery.
 
If I am understanding you correctly you used the truck pull to clear some limb lock from a nearby tree, and that you kept the tension on the tulip after the limb lock was cleared..It also appears that your pull was on the trunk below your topping cut, and not on the top itself?
 
that is correct... there wasn't much room after the limb lock cleared.. just a foot. It was just a slight breeze that broke the limbs free, so they weren't locked up too tightly. more like just touching each other. It was hard to tell exactly from my angle. Once the limb lock cleared there was plenty of lean to a good lay.

And to answer another question, there was no room to drop the entire tree after the lock cleared. Could have hung the entire tree up, or at least beat up the remaining trees which were all tulips. Tulips don't do well with bark damage... I cleared a storm damaged hang up in a tulip many years back. The impact left a missing chunk of bark about the size of a small side plate about half way up the tree. 6 months later the top of that tree blew out. I was amazed that the decay came on so quickly.

I'll post the video of the top going after I get it from Kevin.
 
There is one more thing I would have done differently.. I would have made the cut at a point well below the rim of the bucket. That way the bucket could get take an impact and get pushed sideways, but not get landed on.
 
islandarb said:
Daniel's hype is long gone. He is a gelding now, living his sillyness in some rotten grassless pasture. Not relevent at all. His words expose this truth.
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It's not over til it's over.. Took this back leaning half of big co-dom ash over against the lean today, to keep the mess contained. The final cut was 5'. Did that and 2) 50' pine/spruce with stumps. Had the A300 on the move. NO chipping. Cut a hole in the woods and took it all back there out of sight. Only thing left is a little raking on the ash... nothing bigger than your wrist. Only me and one coworker... 2 men... 8.5 hours on site... $3,400 and she jumped all over the price.

 
Daniel said:
It's not over til it's over.. Took this back leaning half of big co-dom ash over against the lean today, to keep the mess contained. The final cut was 5'. Did that and 2) 50' pine/spruce with stumps. Had the A300 on the move. NO chipping. Cut a hole in the woods and took it all back there out of sight. Only thing left is a little raking on the ash... nothing bigger than your wrist. Only me and one coworker... 2 men... 8.5 hours on site... $3,400 and she jumped all over the price.

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Whole football field to drop that. But great money earned...
 
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It as hanging out pretty heavy over a walnut. From the front it looked like it was all over the walnut. From the side it looked like it had more front lean to the field. I wasn't taking any chances so I used a right angle retainer line tied to the skid loader with a lot of pull.. Guessing over 2500 lbs on each leg.. Even with all that it took a single limb off the walnut. Could have gone badly without the retainer line, which held all the way down, so there was still tension on the line after the tree hit the ground. Thee took the codom against the lean to keep all the mess in one area.

Still not a big deal... but the amount of material that had to moved with just two people was massive. So you needed both falling skills and good bucking plan and operating skills... I took one 50' pine out of the backyard in three trips with the skid steer. Close to 1/2 mile round trip. So lots of little things throughout the day that make it as fast and effecient as possible... I just looked at the video of the falling cut on the first big stem of the ash. Made it at level so not flush cutting the stump. With a stock chain and 066 that'd as least 15 years old, in well under 3 minutes. 32" bar.. cut was closer to 40...
 
Daniel said:
that is correct... there wasn't much room after the limb lock cleared.. just a foot. It was just a slight breeze that broke the limbs free, so they weren't locked up too tightly. more like just touching each other. It was hard to tell exactly from my angle. Once the limb lock cleared there was plenty of lean to a good lay.

And to answer another question, there was no room to drop the entire tree after the lock cleared. Could have hung the entire tree up, or at least beat up the remaining trees which were all tulips. Tulips don't do well with bark damage... I cleared a storm damaged hang up in a tulip many years back. The impact left a missing chunk of bark about the size of a small side plate about half way up the tree. 6 months later the top of that tree blew out. I was amazed that the decay came on so quickly.

I'll post the video of the top going after I get it from Kevin.
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I’m curious how much tension was added from the truck. If the base was compromised, and a climber should not have been in the tree, how did it withstand the sheer and torque applied. A climber would have never added such forces, which may have allowed them to climb higher and cut smaller. Granted, I’m saying this without seeing the tree, but according to math and what the tree withstood, it seems a reasonable estimation.
 
Crimsonking said:
I’m curious how much tension was added from the truck. If the base was compromised, and a climber should not have been in the tree, how did it withstand the sheer and torque applied. A climber would have never added such forces, which may have allowed them to climb higher and cut smaller. Granted, I’m saying this without seeing the tree, but according to math and what the tree withstood, it seems a reasonable estimation.
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I never actually hand tested the line to feel how much tension was on it. I was 10' above the line trying to get a look at the touching limbs... The pull was directly against the lean of the tree. Even then I was concerned, but you have a valid point... If a climber had the balls to go up that tree and piece it out without roping anything that would have worked. I might have when I was younger
 
islandarb said:
Testosterone in a cream. WTF. You must be also using tons of viagra. Just grow old gracefully guy. I am 56 and still wake up at full attention every morning. I read some sad things sometimes....lordy.
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Remember that old sayin, as one door closes another one opens? When you get too old to climb you could change your name to Hunk Nugget and become a distinguished elderly pornstar.
 
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