Beech TD

[Rupe]

Hello everyone. I've been busy, that time of year again!! Anyways, all done now for the year, and time to share a few pics of the last major job we did this year, and one of the biggest single TD's I've had the pleasure of doing.

As usual, no cranes, my only competitor for this job wanted to use a crane and block the neighbours driveway with it, but I could tell the client was not happy with this so was looking for an alternative method.

I sold him on our method of "slowly but surely" rigging and clearing as we go, and calculated a price to be as close as the other comapany as possible. So we got the job at a very good rate and with no time pressure, only the weather to worry about.

The tree is on high ground on the edge of the Cotswolds escarpment, so very exposed and at this time of year subject to high winds, etc.

The customer wanted the tree done before christmas if possible, I wanted to wait till march/april time but the forecast for 10 Dec onwards was cold but dry so we went ahead.

First pic (theres a few to go) is from what I'm going to call the back of the tree from now on...

 

[Rupe]

And from the opposite angle, nearly from the front side..

 

[Rupe]

Accessing the crown.. nice wallpaper pic!!

 

[Rupe]

My usual rigging set up for branch removal.

 

[Rupe]

And the GRCS tucked away to the rear of the tree, away from the lowering zone..

 

[Rupe]

To start with we just cleared a few small limbs, dropping them directly, in order to clear the rigging/lowering area...

 

[Rupe]

In this pic, I've marked out the rigging set up. Top yellow dot is a large ISC block, then theres two blue medium blocks, and the lower yellow blob is just a small pulley to fair lead the rope to the GRCS.

This sytem is then easily reversable. for the last pieces that need to be lowered down the backside of the tree later, also its distributing the load even throughout the tree on both stems.

From this angle its easy to explain the plan. Rig as much as possible off the right hand blue lowering point, then reverse the system, bring the GRCS round to the front of the tree, rig the last bits and top down the back of the tree (the tree leans slightly away from this angle, so the top will be clear of the stem when lowered this way).

Then keeping the top yellow ISC block in place on the right hand stem, rig the whole left hand, larger, stem from the right one, then just block down the right hand stem in to the safe DZ below.

 

[Rupe]

Part way through, still working nicely off the first rigging point, everything is swinging round that way.

 

[Rupe]

Done as much as possible from that rigging point so removed that whole upright section (blue cross) and reversed the rigging set up to get one large limb at the back and the top done.

 

[Rupe]

All done, and only the yellow ISC block left in place for the larger wood. You can see the slight lean, that will make lowering the big bits easier.

Notice the two steel cables that were inserted years ago. Whoever installed them was wearing spikes, lots of damage still visible.

 

[Rupe]

Just undoing the steel cables.. Should have squirted them earlier with WD40 or something cos they didn't want to come undone. That was the only bit when I got cold, it was about -1 C all day, slight breeze, nice and sunny.

 

[Rupe]

So, continue with rigging down one stem off the other.

Last one using slings then just use rope after that for the big bits.

 

[Rupe]

The stem is straight and smooth, so I cut notches for the rigging line.

Also I had problem cutting straight, and the GRCS was struggling to snap my cuts and lift the sections hence the big felling lever was used to help..once the GRCS had them no worries, we lowered in 4-5ft sections and they are up to nearly 1m diameter so nothing heavier than about 600kgs

 

[Rupe]

Carried on rigging that stem right down to the fork.

The following day my new BLOCK DRIVER arrived in the post direct to the work site.

Hear it is with slings added, ready to go. Its sitting on the sections that we lowered down the day before, in the background is the largest that I calculated at 600kgs. I could have done with the lever at least to help me break my bad cuts!!.

 

[Rupe]

The weather has turned a bit gloomy now and a lot colder!!

The top section of the final stem was bombed into the DZ. When I got to needing the 066 again, then it was time for BD>>>.

Took one go to get used to it, but it worked well..

 

[Kevin]

[ QUOTE ]
they didn't want to come undone

[/ QUOTE ]

Rupe;
You can always use a grip, tension the cable, cut it, release it slowly and carry on with the removal.

That's a big pig!
Nice pictures!

 

[Rupe]

After a couple of goes I was in the rythm,

cut,wedge,cut,lift,insert,click,click,click and repeat.

I'm now cutting rings at least twice the depth that I would normally do so half the cutting, and no effort to push them off.

In fact I'm cutting at up to about 30inches as the rings will then fit in my splitter so at .8m across thats just under 300kgs which is SWL for the BD.

I used to cut at an angle so that the rings would slide off easier but that would make them more awkward to split for firewood.

The BD just makes life simple...I like simple!

Heres the sequence....cut,wedge,cut, insert lever...

 

[Rupe]

lift block...

 

[Rupe]

Put little wedge back in pocket...insert block driver...

 

[Rupe]

Click,click,click and off it goes.

A really well made, solid, simple gadget that makes life that little bit easier. By this stage of a removal anything to help out has got to be good.

The block driver is an in-expensive and welcome addition to my collection of tools, I think it will get used a lot from now on.