need slack in the line

T

thattreeguy

Location
humboldt county home of the giants
A buddy of mine was pulling an old fir down with his prentice loader last week. The tree was down in a hole and was hard to see. Well when it came down there wasn't enough slack in the winch line, when the tree hit the ground it tore the booms off at their point of attachment. The boom twisted as it came off and stabbed thru the operators cab and peeled the entire cab off over his head .The faller watched the booms come over the bank and the cab cartwheeled down the slope a good 60'. It took all the rest of the day to pick up all the pieces with the skidder and wheel loader and load them onto a low boy. ( hell of an expensive day)
In 1 second flat the booms and cab were gone. Leaving the operator on a seat hanging over the controlls .Fortunately the seat wasn't latched stationary, it tipped foreward as the cab left the super structure. The operator only suffered minor cuts to his ear. The prentice will cost $30,000. to repair ourselves. Fortunately we have lots of good old mechanicaly inclined boys around here to help out. It would a cost more for a shop to do...Just happy the operator didnt get killed.
 
That's about how I pictured it in my mind too.

Next time save the sketch as a PNG, Nick. It'll be even fewer bytes and will have no JPEG artifacts!
 
Talk about needing slack in the line! Man, I've seen a few episodes of that around here. Once I had a second growth redwood all cut up and hopelessly limblock in the clump. The Cat came over as close as he could and I pulled the winch line down to the tree, then climbed up the old growth stump and set a choker and married it all together. Came down to the ground and signaled for the operator to move the Cat away to pull the tree. Well, the operator didnn't release the winch when he put the Cat in gear to pull ahead and ended up pulling the tree right over on himself. He come out of it unscathed, but the Cat didn't fare quite as well.

Then another time, different job and operator, the winch line was fouled in a backlash on the drum. That time the operator did dienguage the winch when he put the Cat in gear to pull ahead, but the backlash wouldn't let the line run off the drum, and again the tree come out of its tangle and fell on the Cat. Pretty scary each time.

From those episodes I learned it most safe to first, position the Cat where you need it to pull the tree and then pull the winch line to the tree. But still, most Cat operators I know want to save me the time and effort to have to pull the winch line by hand and so they will back the machine as close to the tree as they can, hook up and then walk away and position the cat to pull the tree. Anymore, if they insist on doing it that way I get the hell out of there first.

Jerry B
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom