NickfromWI
Participating member
- Location
- Los Angeles, CA
Nick\'s Palm Thread
I did my first palm this week. Not a fun task by any means. But I thought I'd share it all with you. It was a Canary Island Date Palm, aka Pheonix Palm aka Pheonix canariensis The tree was about a whoppin' 40' to the very top. My job was to go up raise it up "2 times around" and remove the dead flowers and seed bunches.
There was another nearly identical right next to it that another guy was doing. He used the ladder to go up. I waited for the guys to bring the ladder over- but they were dilly-dallying, so I just spiked up. The supervisor volunteered to take a few shots for me in the hope that he could get one of me sliding back down the tree, but that never happened /forum/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
So I went up with the Silky Ibuki and a ms200t. I started with the Ibuki, then worked my way counter clockwise (to the right. I cut off about 8 fronds, then decided to see how the stihl cut through. The saw I was using was provided by the place we were working at (the International Headquarters of the Buddhist church). It was a BRAND new saw- never cut a thing before. They had us clean the bars and handsaws when we went from tree to tree. We dipped it in engine coolant. I don't know if this is normal, but that's what we did.
Well, it cut as smooth as butter, but I had one prob. I was working to my right, which meant I wasn't able to take advantage of the flat side of the saw. My cuts were at a slight angle. I made note to work to the left on future trees to keep that uniform look.
For rope, I brought up a flip line and the climbing line. I used the flip line to ascend, then when I got up there the flip line never was unclipped and I used the blaze climbing like over one frond just for positioning and to momentarily take the weight off my spikes occasionally.
So I started working my way around half the time with the ibuki, half with the chainsaw to see which I prefered (jury's still out on that one). As I went around, I reached up with the tip of the handsaw and pulled down the dead flowers I could see. When I got done, the ground guys told me there were several more overhead that I missed (thanks for telling me NOW, guys). So they sent up a pole and I looked closer, realized what I had missed, went around again, and made it look better. I was about done, when the head grounds guy for the church came said it would be nice if it was a little higher, and I asked him to verify with the crew leader- he quickly did while I waited, then I went around AGAIN!
Finally I was done. Only 2 injuries sustained- the fronds have deadly thorns/spikes near the base and I got punctured in the pinky and elbow. These were sore all day, and much worse the following day.
I came down on a rope guide that went around 2 fronds.
Here's a pic of me heading up.
love
nick
I did my first palm this week. Not a fun task by any means. But I thought I'd share it all with you. It was a Canary Island Date Palm, aka Pheonix Palm aka Pheonix canariensis The tree was about a whoppin' 40' to the very top. My job was to go up raise it up "2 times around" and remove the dead flowers and seed bunches.
There was another nearly identical right next to it that another guy was doing. He used the ladder to go up. I waited for the guys to bring the ladder over- but they were dilly-dallying, so I just spiked up. The supervisor volunteered to take a few shots for me in the hope that he could get one of me sliding back down the tree, but that never happened /forum/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
So I went up with the Silky Ibuki and a ms200t. I started with the Ibuki, then worked my way counter clockwise (to the right. I cut off about 8 fronds, then decided to see how the stihl cut through. The saw I was using was provided by the place we were working at (the International Headquarters of the Buddhist church). It was a BRAND new saw- never cut a thing before. They had us clean the bars and handsaws when we went from tree to tree. We dipped it in engine coolant. I don't know if this is normal, but that's what we did.
Well, it cut as smooth as butter, but I had one prob. I was working to my right, which meant I wasn't able to take advantage of the flat side of the saw. My cuts were at a slight angle. I made note to work to the left on future trees to keep that uniform look.
For rope, I brought up a flip line and the climbing line. I used the flip line to ascend, then when I got up there the flip line never was unclipped and I used the blaze climbing like over one frond just for positioning and to momentarily take the weight off my spikes occasionally.
So I started working my way around half the time with the ibuki, half with the chainsaw to see which I prefered (jury's still out on that one). As I went around, I reached up with the tip of the handsaw and pulled down the dead flowers I could see. When I got done, the ground guys told me there were several more overhead that I missed (thanks for telling me NOW, guys). So they sent up a pole and I looked closer, realized what I had missed, went around again, and made it look better. I was about done, when the head grounds guy for the church came said it would be nice if it was a little higher, and I asked him to verify with the crew leader- he quickly did while I waited, then I went around AGAIN!
Finally I was done. Only 2 injuries sustained- the fronds have deadly thorns/spikes near the base and I got punctured in the pinky and elbow. These were sore all day, and much worse the following day.
I came down on a rope guide that went around 2 fronds.
Here's a pic of me heading up.
love
nick
thankx!
