New Technique for weight reduction of Hazard Tree

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A new technique that when strategically applied can accomplish both Weight reduction and a net gain in structural strength.

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You do not have a clue of what you are talking about. The neat little technique that works so well in your mind totally ignores other system components.

http://www.woodbin.com/ref/wood/strength_defs.htm

Dave
 
Different situation = different techniques. If it's whole tree rigging and not climbing removals for example. Some species become featherweights quickly when dead. Currently I have 1/2 the black poplar on my forested rural property girdled. Why? To reduce sprouting from the roots and stumps, compared to a clean cut and have lighter debris to move around and be ready to burn. A slow painful death where fungus spreads into the roots.

The continued growth is from stored energy as much as wicking up the heartwood, unless your in a rainforest.

I want to be as hard as I can on the undesirable species, and upgrade? my property with non-native species. Another unconventional technique I employ is during trail maintenance I will break the shrubs especially at their most vulnerable times (bud break and leaf drop). If I cleared the trail edge with a brush saw the shrubs just come back thicker. By breaking them I get dieback that goes right into the roots.
It could be the lazy man approach or an example of making nature work for you.


I can't see it working during commercial arboricultural work. People want instant results no matter the cost and after effects.

And X, all Canadians are retarded, the women ugly and the climate horrible. Don't come up here you wouldn't like it.
 
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A new technique that when strategically applied can accomplish both Weight reduction and a net gain in structural strength.

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You do not have a clue of what you are talking about. The neat little technique that works so well in your mind totally ignores other system components.

http://www.woodbin.com/ref/wood/strength_defs.htm

Dave

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Please help fella out.
What is it you are referring to specifically.
System components?
I have studied your link and need some guidance.
smile.gif
thank you
 
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Please do not dismiss what is being proposed solely based on what you know.

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Right back at ya.

Your "vision" is based on strength and weight. If the strongest and lightest were the best, we would all be climbing on 5/16" Amsteel, with twice the strength at half the weight of our regular climbing lines. Yet we do not. Why? The word strength is not relevant without an understanding of the components within the system that will be affected by the different attributes within the vague term of "strength".

Amsteel will fail at a much lower impact rate than our much "weaker" climbing lines. It was designed specifically for static loads.

Dimensional lumber, which by the way we should not be talking about here, is rated for specific properties within the strength spectrum. This helps determine proper orientation and use on assembled items. One of the greatest mistakes in our industry is trying to remove biology from the equation. Trees are made of wood, but they are not lumber.

Dave
 
Any one who hasn't studied this, should take the time.
Some of the info posted, is in this document.

"Evaluation of current rigging practices." http://www.treestuff.com/knowledge.asp?knowledge_id=14

New analogy and industry related is the wet rope strength loss factor.

How it relates to trees is the water will when compressed, cut through fibres. This is the basis for dryer wood be stronger. Flexing or resiliency of wood is based on fibre and is species specific. Knowing this, it is easy to see your tree/rigging mast will have cycles to failure and lowering of cycles to failure will relate to its deflection.

A Crane has or tries to have zero deflection for this reason.

Similar point, Why do certain limbs break?
Understanding compression and tension wood and the forces applied to them when wet or dry.

I like to monkey around as much as the next guy but it seems to me we need to practice or experiment more with bending, snapping etc limbs by hand to get the full appreciation for what we trust our lives in.

Shigo said it best "Touch wood", Its your most important learning curve.
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Stem trace or Girdle limbs, leaders or root flare to a few mm beyond the cambium. Removal of atleast a few rings for efficacy.
Depending on species up to 20 rings will translocate H20. The more effecient rings closest to the cambium and less so progressing further into the heart wood.
Girdling technique creates a gap for the movement of H2O thus reducing the water weight of the tree/limb.

Green log weight and dead wood weight differs enough to warrant the effort?
Less load on rigging gear, crane, ropes, rigging or tie in point etc.
Any unanticipated draw back to this practice?

Is this a viable option for future consideration?
Should this be researched?

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Well here it is. My first vid on this subject.

As predicted wood is lighter and stronger.

Did the exact same thing with another two Ash for comparison and allowed trees to dry 3 more days.

It was very helpful because the limbs were tangled in a hedge row of Spruce and needed to be tugged away and lowered aggressively and I am confident in saying that the weight loss was significant enough to make what would have been a wrestling match with Andre the Giant feel much more like a tumble with my kids.

Like the say "Proof is in the pudding"
Just wish I would have wipped this up years ago so my aching bones wood ache much less.

Thanks Andrew for all your help!

Here is the link
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P59L8lOxklY&feature=youtube_gdata
 
Re: New Technique for Hazard Tree Removal.

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Strong opinion.

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I don't mind thinking outside the box and don't let something I said keep you from posting an idea. An idea might end up not being good, but it might trigger discussion and turn into something positive.

But to answer you.

Negatives are this in order of most important:

1. If tree fails during that time, even though it wasn't from your girdle cut at it's base or limb, you would VERY likely be blamed. "Well, he's the one that came and cut the tree..." Even the customer that wasn't sue happy would surely blame you for the failure.

2. Green weight verses dead tree weight would not save much time in a removal in my opinion.

3. two trips to a location however, takes up too much time.

4. possibly if you take too long, your tree could become hazardous as it dries up.

5. customers or others that hear that you do such a thing, are going to think you are a numb skull, and it might ruin your reputation; if you have a good one.

I'm sure I could come up with a few more negatives if I thought about it a while.

Yes, I come across too strong often on this forum and Classic is quite right.

Oh, on a slightly related subject of precutting. Sometimes during an estimate, if they accept on the spot and there is poison ivy, i get my hand saw and cut the vines. Dried up vines seem to give us less of an outbreak.

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Extra trips is a big negative in my book.

And I would certainly not want to be the prototype, because word gets around. If other tree services don't do it in the future, then a reputation gets around real quick for the tree climber who girdles trees before removing them. It could even get twisted as the story is relayed to where the removal was on account of the girdling.
 
Re: New Technique for Hazard Tree Removal.

Thanks
I agree trees out of the way would add to the cost of the removal.
But my last two experiences with this technique would still warrant it. The lighter loads factor is a great benefit because I run 1 ton and 1/2 ton and 6" chipper with a small crew. Pretty sure if I owned 5ton dumps and skid steers and cranes it would not be a factor.
The increase in wood strength should not give anyone the confidence to push rig or tip points but is reassuring to know the forces you are applying will have less effect than if the tree is wet/r

To be honest it does feel weird to do the Xylem removal.
But now I feel comfortable applying this technique with a confidence that the results are as predicted.

The stem tracing/ringbarking I practice on pruning jobs is very similar and most arborists do not utilize this technique.
I think mostly because it is a lost Art and instructors are unaware of the science behind it.

I know what you are gettin at with the whole reputation thing. I know there will be people who will say this technique is foolish and others who will not be so quick to judge.

I am thankful to TB and all for their thoughts on our new technique.
Keep you all uptodate if I get the opportunity to do more.
I do my best to talk people out of removals so I hope to never use this technique again.
Knock on Wood
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Re: New Technique for Hazard Tree Removal.

I doubt this technique will ever become common practice in my lifetime.
What I hope this technique contributes to the greater good of arboriculture is what was said by Dr Alex Shigo.

"Have Doubts, Work to resolve your doubts. Touch Trees"

My thoughts thus far is in the extremes.

A tree in a drought will be more dangerous to work because of the brittle nature of dry wood. Due to the loss of flexibility during dynamic loading.

A tree that is saturated with water has a potential for failure. Due to the forced water shearing the wood fibre.

How this affects trees at defencies is a concern as well as in the application of stem tracing techniques.

Thanks again to all those who contributed to this thread.

Thomas
 
Re: New Technique for Hazard Tree Removal.

Bump.

I followed this thread when it was "alive," and unfortunately this concept has been stuck in the back of my mind since then. I have a removal for a buddy and I figured I would do a little testing.

It is a Sweetgum in his back yard, 12" DBH, around 50 or 60 feet tall. It has three tops that split about halfway up the tree. My plan is to remove one top, weigh it, calculate it's volume and basically find its density. Then I'll girdle the tree at the bottom, cutting about an inch into the trunk. I think I will let it sit for 3 or 4 weeks and then drop the whole tree from the ground and compare its density with the green wood. Currently no buds have opened, and I'm curious to see if they will after girdling. I understand the tree has lots of stored up energy and is capable, but how strongly will the water stress affect it?

Several of the negative impacts of this method are not a very big risk/hassle in this case; two trips to his house is not a big deal, there are no nearby targets, so if it does unintentionally fall down, so its not really a problem, and I will be felling it from the ground so wood strength and brittleness is not as big of a risk as if I were to climb it.

Feedback, suggestions, thoughts? I guess I could watch and record the weather, as we are having an unusually early and warm spring this year (70 degrees most of last week!) Maybe if I get really crazy I will measure flexural strength too.

I think this will be pretty interesting to get some real numbers instead of speculation and trying to compare apples to oranges and oaks to poplars and east coast to west coast. hopefully there will be more testing done in this area, it seems pretty exciting to me.

Jackson
 
Re: New Technique for Hazard Tree Removal.

When I was trying to find out how much wood chips weighed I ran a few density tests.

I did this in the spring so there were no leaves. I picked out a couple of removals. One was an oak of some species and the other was a less dense tree like cottonwood or maybe linden.

The chipper was setup with sharp knives and the anvil was dressed and set too.

The chips from bigger branches, without twigs and small limbs, were blown into the truck. then I scooped up 4-5 five gallon buckets of chips. This was done with each species. The volume and weight was calculated using simple math.

The weight worked out to be between 500-550#/cubic yard...just like I found out from chiptruck manufacturers later on.

Having read Understanding Wood and doing some milling/drying I am going to bet that you won't find much of a difference in this short a drying season.

As many firewood or lumber jockeys know, wood doesn't dry very fast in the log stage. But, get it split or milled and it will dry MUCH faster.

All of that said...I'm glad that you're taking up the experiment. Keep us posted.
 
Re: New Technique for Hazard Tree Removal.

Im sorry, but honestley, this is sorta silly.
I know wood, wet wood, I know dry wood, I am gonna prefer the control and strength of wet wood everytime, given a choice so theres noway I would ever want to do this, ESPECIALLY in a critical rigging situation.
Theres just not enough to gain, I got big ropes, blocks, saws, and I know how to deal with big wood. I do production tree work, trees have to hit the ground every day, the more the better, I could never be going back to the job three times to check the tree....lol... way too inefficient. You all know every trip to the jobsite costs gas, set up time, etc, etc...
But thats just me, if other people want to give it a shot, by all means, have fun with it, and be safe, I dont see the benifit in dollars and,or sense.
Peace.
M.
 
Re: New Technique for Hazard Tree Removal.

When I did that first Ash I cut small notches as well as girdled, so as to be sure I was removing atleast 3 rings of wood and to ensure more penetrating gaps. On a few I did later on I would girdle just aheadd of the root flare.

I predict on youngish tree/12" diameter tree that the majority of the rings will still be able to transport h20. MB?

If you can do it safely go for 5 or 6 rings or more.

Wishing you all the Best of Luck LumberJackson!

Drying is accelerated exponentially when it is in leaf. 3 weeks should do it. But if it constantly wet and raining, well who knows.

I had to take the dead top off a Norway Maple today and it was wet, dead wood still translocates in the outer rings but the inner rings looked to be fairly dry. The weight of the wood felt neglible difference but the branches where impossibel to break/snap where if they green and wet they snap easy peasy.

It will be very interesting to hear what you find.
Cheers

Cheers
 
Re: New Technique for Hazard Tree Removal.

My experience rigging down big conifers in the mountains taught me that certain conifers like red cedars and particularly firs, have far better hinge holding characteristics on their lateral branches when they're dead than when they're alive.

Combine that with no sap flow, lighter weight, and yeah, you bet there are certain tree species I prefer to rig down after being dead for a year or so.

jomoco
 
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