Day in the life. Madrone - Crane - Removal

R

Reg

Branched out member
Location
Victoria, BC
Following on from the ‘Day in the life’ video I did last year.


Then it was just blasting down a bunch of firs. This time we crane out a large Arbutus madrone from a back yard. 160T crane and a great tree company to work with . Had camera trouble part way through, so some stuff is missing....but I had another camera up and running within not too much time. 20 mins or so to watch....but some good footage here. Thanks

Edit: some corse language. Sorry.


 
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Wow, that's a monster! Nice work man in tight quarters. Bet you were waiting for a chunk of deadwood to drop off onto that greenhouse...
Basically three trees in one...
 
Great video Reg.

May I critique?

I do entertain my kids with tree guy vids. I have a wi-fi Blue Ray player for the upstairs and rec room flat screens. And many of the videos out there are pretty amazing on the 54".

However - Reg, your vid isn't PG and cannot be enjoyed by the kids. With the caveat, that due to your accent they wouldn't likely have a clue what "Fook" means.:D
 
Thanks all

Mangoes said:
Great video Reg.

May I critique?

I do entertain my kids with tree guy vids. I have a wi-fi Blue Ray player for the upstairs and rec room flat screens. And many of the videos out there are pretty amazing on the 54".

However - Reg, your vid isn't PG and cannot be enjoyed by the kids. With the caveat, that due to your accent they wouldn't likely have a clue what "Fook" means.:D
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Yep, I know Kevin, I need to think about what Im saying more, I dont talk like that in fromt of my kid....but to be fair I did apologize in the very first post, and I purposely try not to speak with a pre-rehearsed script in mind. Hope that makes sense.
 
Great work, Reg. I am curious as to the permissibility of tying off the butt section of the log on the porty--while using the crane. The reason I raise this is that we were removing a pretty large Redwood recently and close to a deck. When the crane operator learned we'd put it on the portawrap to tame the drift of the piece he threatened to stop the show. He did not like that plan at all. We had to hold the tag lines by hand. Your pick was probably nowhere near the weight limit of the crane, as ours were. Was the crane operator apprised of the porty arrangement and did he approve?
 
Thanks Ward. I took him around and showed him what I wanted to do first. We were but a few feet from the glass green house, and I didnt want to have done all that work and then smash something right at the end. He was totally cool with it. As it were the pick came off beautifully...the one that followed he pulled a little faster and it wasnt so good. All I can think is that your crane op was worried that he couldnt just drop the log straight down in the event of realizing he was overloaded, what with it locked to the porty. Overload was never an issue with our tree though, you're correct.
 
sounds like the crane op was a little unsure with what he was doing and did not understand the function of the porty. very common situation because ops are generally leery of doing trees especially when they are not familiar with the climbers before.
 
We were with a 90 ton crane and the load chart limited us to #6k, fully extended. Our picks were at the #5k mark. I think the guy was undergoing what he called a heightened 'pucker factor'. The thought of maybe have to set down the piece and not be able to move it quickly to do that spooked him. But I am curious if there is some restriction other than his 'pucker' which gives clear guidance on this. It seems that restricting the load in this way (using a rope with a porty-type device) could be a serious concern for a crane operation, given the desirability of setting down the piece. I had the chance to hear the story first hand of how a local crane company set down his crane with a too-big pick. Rather than set the crane on top of the house, he swung the piece as fast as he could over to the side and just set the whole bloody wreck down between the houses.
 
ward said:
I had the chance to hear the story first hand of how a local crane company set down his crane with a too-big pick. Rather than set the crane on top of the house, he swung the piece as fast as he could over to the side and just set the whole bloody wreck down between the houses.
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Whoever was telling you that was feeding you grade A bull plop, when a crane is going over there is next to no time to react the fact that he missed the house was just luck. Want proof there's plenty of YouTube videos that will show you just how fast things go bad.
 
classictruckman said:
Whoever was telling you that was feeding you grade A bull plop, when a crane is going over there is next to no time to react the fact that he missed the house was just luck. Want proof there's plenty of YouTube videos that will show you just how fast things go bad.
Click to expand...

Absolutely true. He was lucky he landed it. As a crane starts to tip, The tipping momentum increases, the radius increases and the capacity decreases. If someone was good enough to control all that they should have been good enough to pick a proper sized piece!
 
The guy that set the crane down remarked that he was able to swing the piece as it was tipping and he missed the house. Very reliable source and a lifetime crane operator. Different guy from the pucker factor chap. But my question is still unanswered. Is it okay to have a secured tagline on crane pics--not just an unsecured one to help guide the piece, but a tagline secured with multiple wraps and tied off to the porty. I always assumed it would be, but on account of the skittishness of Pucker, it got me thinking and I could really see the logic of restricting the use of taglines in the event that the operator needs to make a sideways move. Crane guys speak up!
 
we have used tag lines to restrict movement after the cut was made when a tree was near a house or other structure but in no way was the pick near capacity to cause any strain on the crane. if in doubt make a smaller cut. the crane is there anyway, why endanger people, property or equipment.
 
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