Making choices and masdam victory

[Phil]

The problem: large codom sugar maple. Previously topped, significant dieback, over house. Some signs of decay in lower root flair. Seems solid in trunk. Need to remove. I'm only one person, almost all my gear is on the other side of the state.

The solution: pull the tree over with masdam. Because of the codom, I wasn't sure how far down the trunk the seam went. Combined with the potential for internal decay, I decide to just remove the side leaning away from the house by cutting where it separated. Plenty of room to drop both pieces in the drive way, plus I had to climb it to set the pull lines anyways. I would have like to have kept the side leaning away from the house to help with having forward weight, but I wasn't sure where the seam, if any was and the service drop would have been destroyed if the front stem failed off. By removing the side away from the house, the entirety of the rest was leaning towards the house. The pictures don't do it justice, but it was fairly significant. I also only had so much gear. Doing this job for a friend of mine who has helped me out a bunch with home repairs and things like that. I used a 1/2” 12 strand (red rope) as a pull line. Used each end so I could essentially turn it in to two pull ropes. Tied triple bowlines in each leg and attached a pinto rig to get a 2:1 with the masdam. My anchor slings we're 11mm fly line. I used two anchors because of the force need to pull, the line being smooth and if you're really worried about your pants falling down, it's nice to have suspenders and a belt. At first I just had the red fly line and it was getting so tight it had a bit of slip in the cow hitch so added the orange one. I added a 5:1 MA setup made from blue moon as a backup to the masdam. My biggest worry was the masdam failing somehow. If that happened or the 3 strand slipped in the cam, the 5:1 would prevent setback and also allow a second means of pulling if needed. I cranked her tight, made my notch, started my back cut. Cranked some, went back to the back cut, back to the masdam, back to the back cut. Took about three trips just feathering her to make sure I wouldn't get over committed. Ended up working really well. Not going to say I wasn't nervous, there was a lot of movement I need to get it over and sugar maple is dense wood. After I got into the trunk I realized the wood was very sound and I could have just pulled the whole tree over, utilizing the weight of the forward lead. Calculated risk. The guy who owns the house wasn't quite sure it would work, but I had faith in the process and thought I took reasonable steps to ensure the gear could handle it.

 

[Phil]

Missed adding this pic

 

[Phil]

Nice work, write-up and photos.
Have you ever used the Masdam with a friction management device like a Port-A-Wrap to capture the pulling progress and back up the Masdam?

I would have liked to have had the porty but it was one of the things in the other side of the state

Are you putting the tail of the line coming out of the masdam right into the porty? Seems like it would make an odd angle if the porty is on the base of the anchor tree. I can see it being streamlined if the masdam was attached to a different pull line that went to the porty. Kinda like how I had the 5:1 attached.

 

[southsoundtree]

Good job!




From the armchair...

You may have shaved bark and plunge cut to investigate the inclusion and decay.



Possibly, clove-hitch / munter hitch the pull rope to the front stem, and tautly terminated to the back stem, if your going to climb to attach the rope anyway. Then rip between stems, and set two faces, and two back cuts. An accurate, angled back-cut on the forward leaner can prevent binding between stems.

 

[Phil]

I've used something like this for large trees when the fear of a Maasdam failure poses a serious risk to property.

Thanks for the video. That's what I was envisioning.

 

[Phil]

Possibly, clove-hitch / munter hitch the pull rope to the front stem, and tautly terminated to the back stem

I've done something similar before. I have cloved to front and running bowline to the back, just working the slack back through the front clove. When I did it that way I was worried about breaking a weak single lead. I hadn't thought about doing it like this for the tree in question though. Definitely an option.

The ripping between stems and taking it with two notches/back cuts is interesting. I would have to play around with that in a low risk scenario before risking it at a house. I understand the logic...would just need to toy with it.

 

[Vicente]

Was leaving the side that was away from the house but running the pull rope through it to attach to the side you did not an option? Seems like it would be the best of both worlds you would've been able to pull the stronger side while keeping the weight away from house there to help you out.