Bunya Bunya Pine

[CHOPPER]

cut down a bunya bunya pine(Araucaria bidwillii).was an awsome tree and a shame to cut down,but somebody had to do it.nice tree to look at but a complete mongrel to work in!spikey needles everywhere-leaves,branches and trunk.really tight limbs from the bottom till top meant i was wearing track pants under my work pants and 3 long sleave shirts and gloves to help alleaviate the prickles,still got caned on the climb up.

 

[CHOPPER]

the crane was good for heaps of weight but the drop zone was fairly narrow so had to rig each branch seperatley,each rig weighing about 40kg

 

[CHOPPER]

concentrated on cutting 2/3 around tree to make head fit in drop zone.took over 60 different lifts to get that far

 

[CHOPPER]

head was always going to move around cause of weight distribution but the crane could have taken 5 times as much as that so no dramas.boys on the deck still had to use a power pole saw to get the head onto drop zone

 

[CHOPPER]

close up of the prickly folliage

 

[CHOPPER]

groundies found it a bit awkward

 

[CHOPPER]

easy work there on...

 

[CHOPPER]

...except for the groundies

 

[CHOPPER]

few logs

 

[CHOPPER]

over 3 tonne in this log

 

[Mark Chisholm]

That does not look like fun.

 

[TiersonB]

That's Crazy! Is that the same as a Monkey puzzle tree, or am I just way off the mark?

So what you did was take all the branches off of one side so that the top and trunk wood would then fit better into the drop zone? Is that right?

When I first started I used to pile the limbs into the back of my truck and then hop into the truck repeatedly to cut the load and compact it as much as possible. That would really suck with one of those trees.....

You could have some fun with that load of chips, too. Imagine doing a "free chips delivery" with a load of splinters like that...

 

[dhuffnmu]

I agree with Mark that does not look like fun.

 

[JesseHuffman]

NARLEY!
Thanks for posting those. You sure stay busy with the removals. Keep em comming!

 

[JesseHuffman]

[ QUOTE ]
the crane was good for heaps of weight but the drop zone was fairly narrow so had to rig each branch seperatley,each rig weighing about 40kg

[/ QUOTE ]

how long did that take? looks like there could have been hundreds of picks at that size.

 

[Colin]

That is the wildest looking pine that I've ever seen!

 

[NickfromWI]

Tierson- The monkey puzzle and the bunya bunya are both araucaria. This one is A. bidwillii and the monkey puzzle is A. araucana.

I can't wait for an reason to have to climb one of these bad boys!

love
nick

 

[Leon]

Are you a masochist Nick? Those trees are real bloodsuckers.

Nice work Chopper. I'm sure the groundies hated it.

 

[MikePoor]

Good work again Chopper! I've only climbed one of those Bunyas that big (it was on the Loma Linda University- La Sierra campus in CA) I'll bet my boss was thinking to himself "Just have the new kid from the midwest climb it." And it definately wasn't fun!

 

[RyanCafferky]

I can't wait for an reason to have to climb one of these bad boys!

love
nick

[/ QUOTE ]

I have a relative who lives in Hemmit California who I will be doing some tree work for next winter. He has one of those big bastards on his property that needs to be gone through a bit. I'll send you a message and you can come and help me prune it next year!