Crane Talk

[Riggs]

I do a lot of Crane work and I'm sure I'm not alone . Here's where the Crane people hang out ...Crane Talk

 

[Mark Chisholm]

What are you saying, Glen? Do you feel that we should start another forum specific to crane use, or do you just want to start some "crane talk"?

 

[Roger_Barnett]

Ever use a stick crane to take a tree out whole? I haven't. But there's a guy out here who has done a bunch for the residential logger types. I have never pushed that work, being more into preservation. Anyhow, he has ~180 feet of boom, and I think the crane is rated at 165 tons. Being as the boom is light, the capacity at extended angles drops off much less than a hydraulic unit. He has been known to take a good sized fir, say 110-130 feet tall, whole, from a back yard!!

Set up and take down alone make the minimum close to 2000 buckaroonies.

Here a paste from a post I just made on the rope pulling thread:

That's why the crane was so handy last week.
We got over 3000 board feet out of two firs, plus a couple lousy hemlock short logs. heavist stick was 11200#. The other site produced over 4000' from 9 fir, none huge, but not much taper for city trees. tallest one was 140 feet, no more than 32" at the ground. On another, the 35 ton crane picked the whole 91 foot stick!! Sweet!

Dan Kraus and Michael Oxman came by to kibbitz. Michael, the erstwhile cinematographer, had trouble with my directions, got lost, and missed the show. To bad the crane wouldn't wait for the camera, unlike Hollywood.

I shot some picks with my gear, but it ain't digital, and I'm slow at converting the images. Perhaps..........

 

[BigJon]

I have done many crane jobs myself. I worked for a company for a little over two years that had their own crane. Just about everyday I took trees down with crane. It was all new to me. I learned quickly to be ready for anything. The guy operating wasn't very good with eguipment. This is a man who chipped his leg up to his knee. Then 6 months later he chipped his new wooden leg. This man would pick large wood and swing a few feet so that it was directly over you and then go straight up with it. I truly thought he was hoping to kill me. He once swung a 14 foot piece of into my forehead while I was puting my saw away. I lucky to walk away with just a few stitches. I love doing crane removals. I just had to learn the hard way to trust no one and be ready for the worse.

 

[roachy]

I started doing cranework late in my career but learned to love it .I have never worked for a company who owns their own,but I am in many ways thankful for that as I have heard many scary storys.but none about chipping wooden legs!In my company we have an on going debate on what cut to make when removeing wood,mostly about the placement of the choker in relation to the cranes hook.I like to use two slings choked on oposite sides and get the hook right in the center and use a snap cut or sometimes a wedge.ofcourse it really depends on the situation but what do the rest of you prefer?

 

[Roger_Barnett]

Roachy,

I assume you are referring to craning vertical wood. From experience, this is what we've learned:
All you really need is one sling. Imagine a plumb bob dropped straight down from the shackle attachment. Start your cut there and cut straight through. The piece will automatically open up as the operator lifts. I have experimented with a very small mismatch cut at the end, but this requires two saw movements. Only needed if the piece is kinda big. Likely one side or the other will pinch a bit, but communication with the operator can easily take the pressure off the bar. Largest two logs we've done: 1500 board foot doug fir log-31" top inside bark,56" butt outside, 34 feet long, about 18000 lb. Crane did not have a scale, and he was near his limit, which was a bit scary. The other was a 24 foot giant sequoia, 4-5' at top, 9' at base, it weighed 25000 lb. I had trimmed the butt swell down to some 7.5 feet. No problems with bar pinch, but it was hard to make a straight cut with the 5 foot bar. We had to trim it a bit more to get it into a trash truck. we took it to a wood carver, as there is no market for young sequoia with 2" growth rings. It took over an hour to get it unstuck and dumped. Three years later, it still sits in his lot, in a place where he didn't want it. I think it is more than he expected.

Hardest tree was a declining old growth fir, 120 feet tall to a 10 inch breakout, 31 degree lean, 50 % butt rot. We had an 85 ton crane, with insufficient boom for the top, which I had to butt catch. There was only a 1.5 inch cylinder of sound wood where she was slung, still get shaky thinking about it. We had to speed line it and the brush, as the tree leaned out over a neighboring maple. The crane needed to move the logs to a vertical position, meaning they would come toward me. With the stubs, I was able to stand 45 degrees off to the side. Had to start the cuts from the underside. The tree had some 2500 board feet- of junk, I expected more, as the butt cut was pushing five feet.
The whole time, a 25-40 mile per hr cold wind was blowing off Lake Washington, brr. Job took four hours or so, we cleared $2500. Some of you might know Scott Baker, we had his able help on the job.

Felled a woods tree today, a bigleaf maple, only 20 inch at the butt or less, but pushing 110 feet tall! Not a typical bigleaf, fer sure!

 

[BigJon]

There are few cuts I have learned work best. Like everything it all depends on the situation at hand.Fist off strap placement and placement of the ball is important. You want to place the ball as close to the CG as you can. For most cuts I like to use a level cut coming in from the crane side of the wood and cut at least three quarters or more. Then I move around to the back cut. If there is any question in the but coming back I come down on it leaving a kicker in the back to help keep the but from coming back at me. Sometimes if you are takeing a limb with a bit of lean to it I found that if you make you cut level rather than square with the wood this also helps keep the but from flying off. When you don't have enough stick I find that notching the piece into the crane works well and having the operator pull it in to him. I have used the snap cut a few times. This I don't like. It seems to unpredictable and things happen to fast. I have used it however and bailed out for the snap. Live and learn I guess. Happy cutting.