Fun pine tmrw, floating anchor, lookin for input

JeffL

JeffL

Location
Orange, MA
So I've got a single white pine removal tomorrow. (Missing the Mayer arbor day! Gotta make hay while the sun shines ya know?) The pine is settled near the crest of an almost unwalkable hill. Its probably 8-10 horizontal feet away from the edge of the flat, and perhaps 6 vertical feet down. The homeowner is doing all the cleanup, so I can just bomb all the brush at the base of the tree. It will land on a hill side covered in a bunch of small brushy trees, nothing any bigger than say 3" dia. and 20' tall. The house and shed are directly dowhhill from the tree and perhaps 40 feet away. If a piece of wood were to get away, the barn or house will have a new door or window!

So the brush is easy, no chance of hitting anything. The wood I'd like to swing uphill and land it in a tiny drop zone maybe 15' square kitty cornered between 2 other large pines, an electric fence, and another patch of small brushy crap. I'm planning on rigging off the other big pine/s next to the LZ, and I've worked for the guy who got me the job before, they are cowboys. I know he'll tell me its ok to just rig off a block in the other uphill pine and smash the hell out of the trunk with wood, as a matter of pride and quality, I'd like to avoid this at all costs.

So I'd like to set a floating anchor just to the left of the uphill pine. I was thinking of hanging the block off a 5/8" double braid, run up and through the uphill pine, and just taking small pieces on 1/2" line to swing up towards the LZ. I cant recall what I might have for a ground anchor for the 5/8" line to the left of the remaining pines. Once I get a feel for the stretch and bounce of the system, assuming I keep pieces reasonable and keep forces in mind, this seem like a sound plan? The only real piece that will be dropping into the system is the top and first few small pieces of wood, everything else will be overhead rigging, and really only swinging 10'.

Thoughts from the night owls? Its friday night and its coming down tomorrow morning! Bringing a camera anyways, see what I come up with.
 

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If it's a short distance what I've often done is used a short tagline running through a F8 connected to a sling just below the cut, run it myself.
 
I'd say to choke the top of the rigging line with a running bowline around the trunk. You can attach a throwline/ other rope to the RB to be able to retrieve from the ground.

You will avoid sawing back and forth over the crotch with the rope. Pitchy, I imagine

Otherwise, try using a leather cambium saver at the re-direct crotch.
 
Can you get it down to a spar, then rig the log off of another tree nearby, take the cuts off the bottom of the log and move the wood around as needed?

Then you will be doen in time to come to the party instead of dicking around with technical rigging!
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Put a block in the big trees the guy said you can smash the logs in to, but also put a tag line on the log you are cutting off and just drift it over to the bigger tree you are rigging out off. This will eliminate the violent uncontrolled swing into a healthy tree. Plus the tag line can be used to haul the main rig line back to you. This will require two rig lines and a ground guy. Were you planning on going solo on this project?

I like Boston's idea as well, but a 24-28" pine is a lot of wood to hang. I would go with that idea if its possible. Reduces your time spent on spikes and moving a bunch of ropes after every cut.
 
The block tree had a slight lean over the LZ so i ran the anchor line for the block up through that pine and a few others and redirected the block further out through a big limb. Anchored the whole shebang on a small porty and had a good 6' of clearance. Bombed the tops, snap cut and threw down wood till i was into 14" wood and then started swinging 3-4 footers into the block till it was far enough down to lay uphill. Slick as goose poop! Kids ball game to attend, sorry Jim! In and out in 4 hours and change.
 
just dunk the blocks into an arbo block and use a drift line in the big pine to guide the into the drop zone. tip tie the drift line and butt tie the catch line. simple fast and easy.
 
Too much work. Took me 20 minutes to set up the anchor, and about 40 seconds to tear it down. Just mid-tied pieces and wheeee, swung them on over.
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me personally, I would have got a big ol brush bandit chipper, hooked a crane ball to the pintle, lifted the chipper over the tree and just slowly lowered it down. The resulting fountain of chips would have mulched the whole neighborhood and you would have received an honorary phd for artistic creativity.
 
Typically i find those posts are fueled by boredom and maybe a slow night with a 12 pack kicking around. So creative juices = booze. Right? Right!
 
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