Falling pics 11/25/09

[bitzer]

Wish that wood like that could grow around here. Correction, it will grow but will be junky.

The red oaks were all 30" plus, hard maple 24-30", and the ash, cherry, and popple were all pretty tall. Most trees were 50' to the crotch with a few pushing 70'. Not unusual for me to be in wood like this. I cut little crap too of course from time to time but there's plenty of this to make it worthwhile. The biggest oak was 46" across the hinge. Lots of 1000+bf stuff on this one.

 

[Trx250r180]

The stem was fairly vertical but had some serious limb weight over the back that kept it sky bound. I couldn't get it to take wedges worth a damn and i had a black top driveway and the landowners front yard right behind me. The truck was parked a few tree lengths away so I grabbed the jack, cut a hole, and about 4 cranks later she was ready to tip. I wish I would have done it in the first place because it had crossed my mind before I started sawing.

That makes sense ,i am used to nothing really being around to get hurt ,if it don't wanna go one way ,i can just make it go the other way most of the time .I need to weld a plate to a big bottle jack some time ,that looks handy .

 

[Skeans]

That makes sense ,i am used to nothing really being around to get hurt ,if it don't wanna go one way ,i can just make it go the other way most of the time .I need to weld a plate to a big bottle jack some time ,that looks handy .

Get some 1" aluminum plates and drill the jack foot then thread it less chance of taking the jack seals out.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[Metals406]

Most guys weld a socket to the jack plate (chunk of black pipe), so it 'floats', & no biggy if the tree takes the plate on the way over.

 

[northmanlogging]

2-1/4 schedule 40 and a chunk of 3/8 plate, thought the 3/8 plate is a little thin. the pipe fits snug on my jack head but not so snug as to restrict angular movement, because I suck at using a cutting torch, I left the slag on the bottom, usually helps keep the plat in place.

 

[northmanlogging]

this goes here, I think? Not really falling but it works

 

[madhatte]

That's the kind of cutting I do the most of. That and burned-out pieces of crap. Good process.

 

[northmanlogging]

I'm getting kinda partial to this big orange wedge

 

[northmanlogging]

Cedar confuses me at times. mild landing on hard ground and it smashes all to hel

But hit a stump and a boulder and no problem

 

[bitzer]

Were you laying it uphill or down? Looks uphill?

 

[Trx250r180]

Cedar confuses me at times. mild landing on hard ground and it smashes all to hel

But hit a stump and a boulder and no problemView attachment 570755

Looks like a lot of sweat to me with all those limbs to hand cut .

 

[Metals406]

Cedar confuses me at times. mild landing on hard ground and it smashes all to hel

But hit a stump and a boulder and no problemView attachment 570755

Yeah, you probably had yer tongue in the left cheek side of yer mouf this time.

Tree saved out.

It's the little things.

 

[northmanlogging]

Were you laying it uphill or down? Looks uphill?

sorta uphill, had to go between those two old growth stumps, cause the road is off to the left of the picture, and leave trees all on the right, I'd already shoved one through the leave trees.

Beauty part is I slammed a second bigger one on top of it and only lost a few feet of top, still got 2 30's out of each tree, could have got another 16 out of the second maybe, but it would have been awfully scrawny.

started this job last thursday, so I'm into it 4 days total, first day dealing with blow down junk, and half a day dealing with snags, and I've got about 2 or more loads ready to go, 3 more trees and Its all done, but they all need safety lines, leanin hard and limb heavy over the road. if the rain lets up a little I might get em down today.

 

[flying pig]

I've been faithfully reading this thread since like January. I'm way back on page 230 but really enjoying everything that you guys are sharing here.

I'm no faller by any means, my logging consists of a bit of recreational milling and that's about it. My dad was a faller for P&G in the 80s. I've learned a lot from talking to him and from pointers he's given me, but I'm very very green and probably always will be. I've always loved being in the bush and running saw, but the ground here is pretty decent and our wood is small so everything is pretty well done mechanically now. I'm glad that forestry allows us to use our firewood permits for milling dead standing trees, it allows me to experience a bit of what might have been if I was born twenty years earlier.

Anyway, here are a few of me dropping a pine for milling last weekend. Dad has me using a humbolt and trying to get it as close to the ground as I can. He said he always tried for as low a stump as possible. For me I try to get 3 ten foot logs out of one tree as the crown tends to branch out beyond that and I may only get two tens and an eight out of a trunk this size. This one is a pretty big pine for here.

I'm running two 2100 Husqvarnas. The one in these pics was dad's last new saw of his pro career. I've rebuilt it to as close to as new as possible and set it up exactly how he ran it, half wrap, double dogs, 404 full comp on a 33" bar. Love these older huskies.

I'm not so good at lining up my cuts yet. I think a lot of it is still a bit of nerves mixed with excitement. Usually after I look at a stump after I've cut the tree I can see a mistake I've made and figure out something to try on the next one to correct it. I've definitely been trying to look up lots to develop that habit as second nature especially with always falling dead wood.

Thanks for the entertainment and great reading in here.

 

[bitzer]

Half wrap huh? I used to think there wasn't decent timber around here and everything was mechanized. Boy was I wrong. I bought my own skidder and went into buisness at 29. You might be surprised if you start digging into things. Private wood lots that haven't been touched in 100 years etc. It was this thread that pushed me over the edge to quit my day job.

 

[flying pig]

Ha ha ya half wrap. He said he'd lose 2" on his stump with a full wrap, and that he pulled the front lower bolts out of the cases a lot with the full wrap because the lower mounts were split up there, each end had one bolt going through a tie plate vs both bolts going through the bar. Sounds like he was pretty brutal for the most part, actually. Ha ha. But he fell for 11 years so he must have had a method that worked for him.

It'd be a tough go to quit my job to try and log here for sure. We're single income and my job is pretty healthy wage wise (I'm a heavy equipment tech) as well as it being fairly stable. I work for a rental company that caters to mining, construction, and oilfield and mining is just nuts right now. Now if I could get into a job with a shift I'd have way more time to pursue my hobbies, and maybe then a little side business could be doable. Sky is the limit. I'm only 31 so there is time yet.

 

[bitzer]

My wife doesn't work either and when I went into logging I had four kids to feed. A year into the biz I had five. The first two years were pretty lean. There was a huge learning curve. I was good at cutting timber but cutting/skidding for production is a whole nother ball game. It took me a long time to get a system down. I pushed and pushed and pushed and luckily my first full year there was a pretty serious drought. It didn't rain from April til it snowed in late December. I feel like if it weren't for that I would have been done. We also had two great winters in a row after that. The last year and a half has been mild and wet. Tough going but I know how to make it happen now. Turning your own wrenches is absolutely crucial too. If you can't fix your own equipment I don't know how a guy would ever make it.

 

[flying pig]

I'd definitely have an advantage there, I'm quite tooled up already. I have everything from hand tools to a lathe, machining and welding equipment. It would definitely be fun, being either in the shop or in an open pit mine gets old pretty quick.

I've also got a pile of operating experience. I ran dozer and scraper for 11 years before moving on to mechanicing. I also did a lot of pipeline labour work in that time too. That was fun also and man did ya get ripped in a hurry.

 

[Gologit]

It was this thread that pushed me over the edge to quit my day job.

Well, we tried to warn you but you made up your mind to go logging.

 

[1270d]

Well, we tried to warn you but you made up your mind to go logging.

I just noticed your now fully retired. What do you do to keep busy?