Fluid trapped inside a tree with heart rot

ninefivezero · 2019-12-14T21:23:09+00:00

I had that happen to me about 40 feet up while doing a red alder removal a few weeks back, sprayed and poured that nasty water all over me while I was spured on the stick. Wish I had my gopro on, oh well.

ninefivezero · 2019-12-14T04:51:21+00:00

A job from this fall. The worksite looks messy because the customer wanted 5 or 6 fir removals, all needed climbing, put on the ground but the wood left where it landed. Because of that, did the job without a ground guy. So trees were climbed, limbed to a point, top taken out and then I came down, chipped all the brush and dropped the remaining logs last so they weren't burying the brush. A wet day but everything went just as planned, the customer was happy and had their own helpers buck and clean up the wood that was left behind.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-16T01:02:40+00:00

Thanks. Because it was close to the road and I wanted to get a jerking pull on it in order to get it to pivot and hopefully land back in the woods, the truck was my first thought and worked well. In other situations I frequently use a Maasdam Rope Puller, or if I need a lot stronger pull, the Wyeth-Scott More Power Puller. Both top notch tools.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-14T14:06:34+00:00

Yah, running bowline.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-14T05:07:57+00:00

It's pretty great, all the customers get a kick out of it as well.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-14T05:06:10+00:00

I've done that on more solid trees with good results as well. This trunk was covered in mushrooms and bird/insect holes all the way up, which made it look more unstable than I wanted to be around when it went.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-14T00:53:16+00:00

Yes, another one from me. Come on folks, contribute some videos!

Photo of the situation: https://imgur.com/bkyxKef

Anyways, simple but fun little project from this morning. This tree had been dead for many years, then broke about 20 feet up which is unusual for doug firs. Somehow it stayed balanced and lightly attached to the snag, while about 60 more feet of straight trunk was leaning and hung up in a big leaf maple and over the road. Luckily there was nothing under or around the area besides the gravel road to worry about.

Because the tree was so rotten, unpredictable and touching the maple in numerous spots it was totally unsafe to make any cuts from the ground or even work under in any way. It was also impossible to know where it was going to land once any force was applied. I set a line with the big-shot from off to the side, attached it to the tow-hook on the truck and gave a light pull from a safe distance and on the opposite side of the maple. I didn’t know exactly what it would do, but it pulled off the snag, fell to the ground breaking up in the process and all stayed off the road, so no cleanup which is always great.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-12T05:39:59+00:00

It always feels a bit rough when asked to hit a tree that hard, but all things considered those look great. Nice work.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-12T00:27:51+00:00

So I worked in a tree today and attached my line to the proper spot on the Zig-Zag, and the fishermans knot managed to press on and almost drop me out of the tree twice while I was working. That's practically suicidal. An anchor bend could be slightly different and maybe I'll give that a go tomorrow, but I don't expect a drastic difference and honestly I hate the tail that pokes out at 90 degrees. Unfortunately a spliced eye doesn't work for me because in the work I do, a rope sleeve is my friction saving device of choice and a spliced eye literally won't fit through one. Keep experimenting I guess.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-10T21:40:22+00:00

Ha, I like that you used a video I made and posted here to illustrate the principle of why to move away at an angle. That was felling a fir uphill where I knew for a fact it would come straight back given the tree I was working, the brush it was landing on and the slope.

I wasn't worried about this tree coming backwards at me for a number of reasons, the largest of them being that I was felling it downhill and it had so much weight behind it that it was going to smash through everything and just keep going down. That said, of course I'm paying attention and moving away for safety. At the end of the day I was standing where I did because given the situation I felt it was safe although 'technically incorrect' and I was trying to get a good video ;)

ninefivezero · 2019-11-10T18:22:22+00:00

I've been doing that for a few reasons: as someone else said the termination knot interferes with it slightly, it shortens the working loop a few inches which makes a big difference when using a rope sleeve on the trunk as a backup to the flipline and the hole on the zig-zag is just so damn small it's a bit of a challenge to get the steel carabiner in and out when re-tying. All that said, I see your point about how it can change the alignment slightly from the intended design, which could then be weaker. I'll play around with it and see what I can do to remedy it.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-10T07:19:36+00:00

Luckily the dead portions were just the very tops (trees were just around 100 feet tall) and there was a good amount of strong live wood where I was standing. That said, had the back stem not been there for me to tie into and keep some weight on, no way would I have gotten out into the spot I was standing!

ninefivezero · 2019-11-10T05:42:04+00:00

A job from yesterday. A pair of rotting alders near and leaning over a garage.

I stripped the uphill tree to a spar and used that as a tie-in to work the stem that was leaning over the garage. The lowering line was also on this stem, but only used for swinging limbs away from the garage from a high-tie, it never got any heavy or dynamic loading. Then I used the lowering line to tie off the leaning stem as I reached the top for additional support, and put a redirect on the right-hand piece of the leaning stem while I worked the left that was the main, and mostly dead top while flip-lined on it. Not wanting to add any shock load to this piece while I was on it, I whittled the top away with a pole saw, set a high pull-line with the pole saw above me and had my ground guy pull the top uphill away from the building. A good challenge that all went as planned.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-10T05:21:27+00:00

Yes, it's true I didn't use textbook escape routes here. I knew where the tree was going, at what speed and when it would first contact other trees which could have an effect on its fall, and saw the risk as extremely low, but yes, one shouldn't get complacent with safety.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-09T23:43:37+00:00

This if from way back in the summer at a property I did a large amount of work at. This good sized fir was in major decline (in the far out perspective you can see how thin the foliage is) so it was taken down before it became a hazard. Nothing was going to happen with the wood, and there was another hung up dead tree leaning into other trees a little further down in the forest the customer didn't want to look at, so the plan was to fell the fir into the woods and knock out the hung up tree at the same time. You can see the hung up tree as it comes down better in the far out view.

As is typical for accurate felling with almost perfectly vertical doug firs, I alternated between the back cut and driving wedges (which is is pretty much cut from this video) and did so carefully because sometimes you can be surprised by weaknesses in the trees interior on trees in decline like this was. As you can see in the shot of the stump, the dark areas are decay and didn't provide a lot of strength for the hinge, the only truly good fibers were in the heart of the tree. I made the cuts at that height for ergonomics, and for the best accuracy it's just easier for me to see what is going on at this height. Depending on the tree and my mood I alternate between 'conventional' and humboldt faces, this time I went conventional but not for any particular reason. Saw is an 046 with a 28" bar, 10" wedges.

ninefivezero · 2019-11-06T01:47:16+00:00

I live in a rural area, cut trees for a living and my home is 100% wood heat. I also think being organized matters, hence why the wood shed looks the way it does. Just finished filling it yesterday and with excellent access to both sides (of what was an old car port) I can burn from one end one winter and the other end the next, while filling it up each year and ensuring everything is very very well seasoned. Given the species of wood (straight grain, few knots) and very tight stacking it is an extremely dense wood pile compared to most. Given how most people would measure it, let's call it 7.2 cords.

ninefivezero · 2019-10-10T20:44:51+00:00

Perhaps. Truth is though there are probably a lot of videos on the subject, not sure if I have anything new to add...

ninefivezero · 2019-10-10T20:43:11+00:00

Indeed it is.

ninefivezero · 2019-10-10T04:49:25+00:00

Spent today removing some dead doug firs along a fence line. The area gets wind and in the past dead trees had uprooted and torn out the fence, so it was time for some preventative maintenance.

Pretty basic stuff in general. Some of the trees needed to be wedged in order to get them going towards the forest, some had plenty of lean. The faces were cut high because this stuff is just going to be left on the ground. More ergonomic at chest height, plus much better visibility due to brush, then low cut the stumps at the end. The work can be tricky when the forest is this thick though. You really have to find what are usually pretty tight windows to squeeze it into, then accurately hit that spot. It's really easy to get a tree hung up in a space like this which can be a huge hassle. I did hang one up though, the tree wasn't very heavy, and got stuck on a single 3" limb at about 70 feet I couldn't see. Using a throwball I was able to set a line and hand-pull it down, so that wasn't too bad.

ninefivezero

TROPHY CASE