Bartlett Fail

  • Thread starter Thread starter TC
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Tony said:
This I do not.

What would more hinge do?

Why more pull? To overcompensate for a thick hinge?

Not being overtly argumentative, just think you hot the nail on the head with the wrong hammer
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Every tree has a breaking point. If the tree is leaning in the direction you want it to fall then the breaking point is sooner when making the hinge... if the tree was not leaning in the felling direction then you can apply that force with a pull line rather than the weight of the lean being on your side. So what RopeShield is implying, I think, is that instead of cutting more hinge they should have been putting more pull on the line...leaving more hinge tissue to lessen the likelihood of it breaking sideways and falling into the street.

Or are you just joking?
 
TC said:
A Bartlett crew in England drop a tree the wrong way onto parked cars - looks like a Lombardy Poplar, very brittle species, they should've known better. Luckily no one killed or injured.

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This is scary!

I primarily work on a utility crew, dealing with removals. The most important objectives during the day are firstly, our safety, and second pedestrian and traffic safety. We rarely fell tall trees. Being in proximity to power lines makes felling not an option most of the time. So, in the experience that I've had in production would tell me not to take risks. If we do fell a tree, we secure a drop zone in a radius as tall as the tree, and then some. We block roads, we jam driveways, and we even tape crosswalks. DOT has us with a road sign cone routine, and often times we use a police detail.

Where I'm from, if someone dies, that's a wrap for everybody, and a nightmare come true for the families.

That being said, when we are felling trunks in tight quarters, we utilise a winch. I've even pulled hung up limbs out from a distance. A portable winch would be the way to go. I've seen nice ones that are small, can strap to anything, and pull greater than the breaking strength of the rope.

In my experience with the company I work for, we have never pulled a tree over with a vehicle.

I lived in Fitchburg MA for a little while and had the opportunity of watching two homies try to pull a tree over with a Ford ranger. Large maple, hanging over this apartment complex Downhill. They tied a rope in it, and tied it to the truck, started pulling sporadically, (another thing I noticed in the video was uneven tension, rocking), and your man started cutting. Well I heard a chirp of tire and the thing started going back. The truck was uphill, perpendicular to the street and sidewalk, and started sliding backwards. It wound up with it's front tires on the street, back tires at the other side of the sidewalk, with a steep drop off toward the tree.

Bumpee bumpee comes after something happens.

Tighten up that ship Captain!

I wouldn't call that lucky, I'd still call that a f**** up.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 
Brian Latimer said:
This is scary!

I primarily work on a utility crew, dealing with removals. The most important objectives during the day are firstly, our safety, and second pedestrian and traffic safety. We rarely fell tall trees. Being in proximity to power lines makes felling not an option most of the time. So, in the experience that I've had in production would tell me not to take risks. If we do fell a tree, we secure a drop zone in a radius as tall as the tree, and then some. We block roads, we jam driveways, and we even tape crosswalks. DOT has us with a road sign cone routine, and often times we use a police detail.

Where I'm from, if someone dies, that's a wrap for everybody, and a nightmare come true for the families.

That being said, when we are felling trunks in tight quarters, we utilise a winch. I've even pulled hung up limbs out from a distance. A portable winch would be the way to go. I've seen nice ones that are small, can strap to anything, and pull greater than the breaking strength of the rope.

In my experience with the company I work for, we have never pulled a tree over with a vehicle.

I lived in Fitchburg MA for a little while and had the opportunity of watching two homies try to pull a tree over with a Ford ranger. Large maple, hanging over this apartment complex Downhill. They tied a rope in it, and tied it to the truck, started pulling sporadically, (another thing I noticed in the video was uneven tension, rocking), and your man started cutting. Well I heard a chirp of tire and the thing started going back. The truck was uphill, perpendicular to the street and sidewalk, and started sliding backwards. It wound up with it's front tires on the street, back tires at the other side of the sidewalk, with a steep drop off toward the tree.

Bumpee bumpee comes after something happens.

Tighten up that ship Captain!

I wouldn't call that lucky, I'd still call that a f**** up.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
http://www.accidentreportsnow.com/a...higan/state-road-highway-33-west-branch-tree/

Another point is the ground man/men, or women, has the responsibility of securing the site as the cuts are being made. The cutter needs to focus on the cut, the tree direction, and communicating with the "puller."

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 
I use a grcs winch to prevent backwards movement up to 3500lbs, but it winches too slow to attain directional control. I go for a 10:1 ratio of force I have to force I need.

The other day I had a dead 28" diameter laurel oak with a branch hanging just a bit over the house. Casually, it looked like a straight up-and-down tree. I did my dead oak log weight calculation to help estimate the center of the force, and it's extent. I came up with 1000lbs back lean, at about 50 ft. up. Then I added up the forces I knew:

3500lbs on the grcs, pulling
40,000lbs pushing up at the bottom (jack), that can't be maxed out because it will blow. I capture push progress immediately with wedges, which apply a bit of force as well, and have amazing capture force of course.
I center tied with 4x4 blazer, which gains force through having the line at 30 ft., but gets more directional control than if I placed it high.
I tip tied in 10" high wood , which let's face it might break, and tied that to my mini skid steer in case I needed a lot more power.

I jacked the tree on a 1.5-2 inch hinge. It didn't budge. Whacked the wedges. Nothing. Either too heavy or dead hinge too tough and brittle. I sawed the hinge to "1. Jacked and smacked. Nothing still. At this point I was extremely worried about the hinge giving out through torsional rotation, if I was going against back leaning tree weight. I signalled for a sustained pull from the 4x4. The tree tipped immediately and easily and the hinge snapped with a brittle pop at the same time. So, was I overly cautious, or lucky? @Daniel

I feel like tree pulling can be accomplished, but I want the odds *way* in my favor.
 
higher pull line and more reliance on the vehicle doing the pulling would be my guess what would have worked better..
I think cutting a back leaner with any kind of side weight down to a 1" hinge is a LOT risky..
if needed (as in if the hinge is fighting the pull too much) you;d be better off center plunging and leaving more meat on the tension side with just a little on the compression side.. leaving 2-3" on the tension side of the hinge then tripping with the pull line... if one pull line isn't enough, use 2 or three, spread them around on different parts of the tree, ground anchors and pieces of equipment... You need experience to get a good feel for all the varaibles... PM me and I'll send ou a link to an unlisted video on this subject..
 
Daniel said:
More hinge in this case is SOME hinge, which I think we can all agree is better than no hinge which is what happened to this tree... More hinge, more pull, more contol.. get out of the box bro!!!
Click to expand...

Sorry for the delay in my response. Been busy. If "more hinge" implies "any hinge" then I agree. It is easy to sit around and Monday morning quarterback. However, from all outward appeareances this was a easy fell. What the cutter need was hinge to guide and enough pull to topple. Since he had enough pull(the tree starting to move) then we can use professional judgement to ascertain what was missing was the hinge. Of course we are assuming a face cut as well I'll give 'em that one on faith.;)

As for being in a box Murph, not me. I cut and have cut a lot of trees though, in a lot of places. The key to keeping an open mind is not letting it get full of junk:)... O. K. I gues we all have our boxes.

Tony
 
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Tony said:
Since he had enough pull(the tree starting to move) then we can use professional judgement to ascertain what was missing was the hinge.
Tony
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If you watch carefully you can see the tree moving about in the wind at the very beginning of the video. If he had pre-tensioned the line properly the tree would have been bowed forward with enough force to keep it from swaying in the breeze.... And there was very little forward movement (if any) before the went sideways... And its' pretty clear that the rope either came untied or slipped off the hitch. If it had dome either and the rope was properly pre-tensioned there woudl have been a visible backwards jolt, which did not happen. ALL that points to not enough pull...
 
Video is gone for me, but a suitable anchor, high TIP, nice notch, continuous heavy pull with a maasdam or better device, slow back cut on an even hinge, stackable wedges to back up.
 
Brian Latimer said:
http://www.accidentreportsnow.com/a...higan/state-road-highway-33-west-branch-tree/

Another point is the ground man/men, or women, has the responsibility of securing the site as the cuts are being made. The cutter needs to focus on the cut, the tree direction, and communicating with the "puller."

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


YES>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BUT its the cutter's responsibilty to make sure the groung guys are doing their job before he drops the tree... Ultimately its the fallers job to ensure the a safe drop...
 
TC said:
There's still a longer version around, the drop is around 1.58

Click to expand...

Doomed from the start. Piece it out, or at least tension a line 90 degrees to lay, and cordon off 2 x height radius if practical. Defineitely 1.5x. I'm amazed to see such a significant name make what appears to be such a obvious mistake.

The wind was clearly side lay, and that is not a strong hinging species.

I realize I'm repeating some of you, but consider it confirming opinions.
 
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