Cut & toss

Oxman

Oxman

Location
Seattle
Here's an attachment of a photo of today's job, which was removals mainly cut & tossed into a confined area. There were a few limbs that needed to be lowered.

The customer gave us a disk with pics of the removal of 5 conifers, consisting of 4 Douglas fir & 1 Western White Pine. The pine is on the far right, then 2 fir, then the fir I'm in, then a space to the left where a smaller fir has already been removed, before this pic was shot.

We were short on ground crew, so I was asked to cut the wood to fireplace lengths while up in the tree. This way, the pieces could be moved out of the drop zone immediately and piled off to the side. This made me stay up in the tree longer than if I had cut pieces to my preferred length of 6-8', which would have comfortably fit in the hole. The less time on the spurs, the better. I wonder how the others on the board feel about this.
 

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Here's a close up photo posted as an attachment. I ended putting in a snap cut so the pieces would break apart when they hit the ground. Ever do this?
 

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I ended putting in a snap cut so the pieces would break apart when they hit the ground. Ever do this?

I have heard of people doing stacks like this. One other guy saw it tried to do a big stack but when he tried to break it loose, the top one came down and compressed his spine when it hit him on the top of the head.

Dave
 
Ox: this looks like a typical day at work. I couldn't see any cuts in the close-up of the wood. I can't say I make a practice of removing wood with snap cuts in the middle of the piece. The thought of having the upper portion fall on me is enough to discourage me from trying it. I have removed sections and smaller trunks a firewood size piece at a time. It was nothing to the magnitude of what you're describing. That would make for a long day.

Joe
 
Nice work, Mike. Those long days on gaffs can be rough on the arches. I'd be grateful for the work right now, all my companies have packedc it in till after the new year. I had two calls last week, total of about 4 hours work.

And I'm not going to second guess your cutting style. From what I've seen you are as qualified as anyone to do the job right and I wouldn't insult you by second guessing you from my reclining chair.

Merry Christmas to you and also your son, since he's back with you now.
 
Today was another marvel. I was cutting a fifteen foot vertical section of 20" fir and pushing it over while making the back cut.

The antique 038 they sent up in exchange for my 020 had only enough gas to make the face and 90% of the back cut. I cussed and finished the cut with my handsaw.
 
:)

Ox: you seem irritated. Been there, had to deal with that. Do you notice when you're in a tree for awhile, and your ready to bail before the tree is finished, you know you're going to stay up there until the tree is removed. You ask for a bigger saw and the ground crew disappears. You look around below you and start griping "Hey, I need a bigger saw!". Suddenly, a ground guy yells up "so and so is putting gas in it". Then 30 sec later, so an so shows up with a different saw than you had in mind. You yell back down, "no, not that saw, get this other saw". So you're stuck up there another few minutes waiting on a guy to gas up that other saw. That's about as irritating as what you experienced today, though not as dangerous. I guess it pays to specify what equipment is needed and whether it needs servicing before you start cussing.

Joe
 
Greg,

16' is the shortest saleable length around here. But a lot of tree companies are clueless when it comes to log salvage. As well, fir prices are low, and the scalers are mighty tough on grade.

Yep, I've goofed around with that snap cut trick to break 'em apart on impact. Gotta have some fun and confuse the groundies now and then.

Ox, That truck looks suspiciously like one of Terry's of Cheap Tree Service....aarggh. well maybe if you stay there, there'll be less butchery happening.
 

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My favorite way to use that snap cut to break and dissipate force strategy, is to get it to break over a log on the ground as you throw it. This i think gives a surer break/force dissipation, and the more weight the log ya break them over has, the more inertia it has. So, it is less likely to transfer dissipated force to ground(wants to stay at rest more when struck with another weight/inertia), and what doesn't get dissipated in breaking, and then not handled by the inertia of the groundlog effect, is spread out to the ground by the footprint of contact with the ground by the catching log. Hitting wrong, the break might not happen, might get bounce! If bounces, with partially loose, less force maintained in snapcut piece, like gymnast with poor form, not tight and stretched out to maintain most whip, force IMLHO. Good strategy!


Comparatively, an undercut on the first branches of tree felling to hit ground (fold/snap to dissipate shock load), placing a log parallel on either side of the fall and a log with snap cut across the other logs to slam tree on; to 'blow' like a mechanical fuse/shear pin when so much load is reached in this simple 'system'.

Whatever force it takes to break the snapcut, fold hinge is removed from the force of the tree falling equation before passing force into ground.

Especially needed in the double loading of compression forces where the equal and opposite reactions meet head on, rather than spread apart. When they want to see what 1 Mercedes will look like running into it's matching double @40MPH; they run 1 Mercedes into a pillar/wall that has no give and save car$! For a wall matching the impact of the car exactly (as car runs into wall and wall doesn't give); is exactly equal to that car running into itself. For a soft landing you must neutralize that matching force too!

Things that pull place opposite and equal reactions at opposite positions from each other. Things that push, shove, smash, "Compress" ; place the opposite and equal reactions, butted up agianst each other in one place.

Orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr something like that!
-KC
 
Ouch, that is all? Heck, its got to be better than that for a clear pine butt log, wouldn't ya think?

Douglas fir ranges froma $375 to 700, depending on grade. Cedar 700 to 900, Western white pine is always $400, no deductions for knots or minor defect, maple and alder $450 to 700.
 
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