Stainless dog cable imbedded, how bad can it be?

[jagchaser]

I downed a 30" walnut yesterday and I see I have some problems. About 6 feet high is a stainless steel plastic encased dog cable. It grew around it and it is deeper than just the bark. I tried to pull it out with the pickup but the cable snapped. At about 5 feet high is a soft wire that was wrapped and grown around.

I was going to start milling this piece today, but now Im undecided. I am running my stihl 880 on an Alaskan mill. I could cut out that section, but will be left with a 4ft piece and probably an 8 foot log above it. Or I muscle thru it, sharpen each cut and end up with some 14ft slabs with lots of character? What would you do?

Hopefully this is all the trash in the log. I will probably be wrong. The last one I cut I found about 20 nails in the first slab. Surprisingly I was able to finish the slab before sharpening.

 

[john taliaferro]

Think i would cut on each side of the cable with brother in laws saw . Cable takes the teeth off , makes chain slowww .

 

[jagchaser]

Not just dull huh, but actually breaks teeth off? Im glad I asked first!

 

[SDB777]

Might be time to ask Santa for a metal detector?

I love me some 'city trees', just hate the junk people put in them. Let us know how this turns out, preferably with photos!





Scott (cold and wet...winters here!) B

 

[redoakneck]

Sounds like you have at least one piece of firewood. I would not try to mill thru that!!!!

 

[jagchaser]

Yes "city trees"....... She asked if it was worth anything, I told her I would be the only one stupid enough to do it and not charge her thousands. I don't ever get them this big here so I couldn't pass it up.

Ok, I cut out the 2ft chunk with the wire and cable. I missed them both, but by the green I see it wasn't by much!

Here is another question. If you see green, does that mean the metal is below the green or can the stain move any direction? I saw green all the way around the sapwood above the cable. I also see some green all the way around the sapwood way up near a crotch that was 30 ft up. I was going to mill the piece directly below it, but it has a little green on the top end and Im afraid there is still some metal in there. Will a nail cause green in only one part of the sapwood or will it stain all the way around like the cable did?

I will upload pics after I get it done. Barring problems I should get it milled and loaded tomorrow. It took me 2 days solid work to buck all the firewood logs and haul off the extra limbs.

 

[betterbuilt]

The stain goes up and down. More stain will usually go up. I've had galvanized hardware not stain at all. It really sucks hitting a 1/2 inch eye bolt with a new chain. My advice is to save that log for last and mill everything your sure is free of metal. Then do that log from the side away from the stain.

 

[Blanc]

I grab all neighbourhood old chains for those cases, when I know for sure there is any piece of metal (or glass or rock) I use one of those instead of my classic milling chains. On those old chains I keep pretty high rakers to prevent teeth breaking and use a motorised small crank and let the saw working threw it being far away...
I started milling in north east France, so am maybe a bit too cautious, but back then I remind the wall of fame of some commercial mills with blades that found some piece of ammo ...

 

[steve easy]

Rather hit steel than glass, found an old milk bottle that had been left in a crutch. Tree had totally encased it, instantly toasted my chain.

 

[Mike Van]

On my bandmill I sawed into one of those porcelain knobs electric wires go to - Never seen that color flame come off a blade before...........

 

[BigOakAdot]

Has anyone ever had problems breaking chains on junk in logs? Seems super dangerous since I'm operating my CSM up close and personal...

 

[ZachAK]

Has anyone ever had problems breaking chains on junk in logs? Seems super dangerous since I'm operating my CSM up close and personal...

Great question on an interesting thread.

In my limiting CSMing experience, I've never hit anything more than small rocks, but with firewood I've cut through (or partly through) all sorts of stuff, mostly rocks and steel, and never had a chain break (knock on wood.)

That said, I'm keen to avoid breaking a chain, and I'll be watching this thread if anyone has any advice for not breaking chains. I heard from someone a while back that extra-cheap chains are prone to breaking. I've used Stihl and Carlton's (via Bailey's) almost exclusively, and never had a problem worse than shearing a few teeth.

 

[Blanc]

I did, and it's not as impressive as it looks.
Chain lost alltension and got stuck in the guard , I didn't realised it was broken until I try to understand why my mill was stopping.
I guess things could be a little more dangerous now that I have no chain guard on my heads...

 

[olyman]

Yes "city trees"....... She asked if it was worth anything, I told her I would be the only one stupid enough to do it and not charge her thousands. I don't ever get them this big here so I couldn't pass it up.

Ok, I cut out the 2ft chunk with the wire and cable. I missed them both, but by the green I see it wasn't by much!

Here is another question. If you see green, does that mean the metal is below the green or can the stain move any direction? I saw green all the way around the sapwood above the cable. I also see some green all the way around the sapwood way up near a crotch that was 30 ft up. I was going to mill the piece directly below it, but it has a little green on the top end and Im afraid there is still some metal in there. Will a nail cause green in only one part of the sapwood or will it stain all the way around like the cable did?

I will upload pics after I get it done. Barring problems I should get it milled and loaded tomorrow. It took me 2 days solid work to buck all the firewood logs and haul off the extra limbs.

if that cable,,was AROUND the tree,,not up and down, I to, would have cut into the side, just enough to cut the cable,,then went around the truck,, stripping the bark,, and cutting down to get the cable out. may not have been in far,,and wouldn't have sacrificed the rest of the trunk...........

 

[BigOakAdot]

Great question on an interesting thread.

In my limiting CSMing experience, I've never hit anything more than small rocks, but with firewood I've cut through (or partly through) all sorts of stuff, mostly rocks and steel, and never had a chain break (knock on wood.)

That said, I'm keen to avoid breaking a chain, and I'll be watching this thread if anyone has any advice for not breaking chains. I heard from someone a while back that extra-cheap chains are prone to breaking. I've used Stihl and Carlton's (via Bailey's) almost exclusively, and never had a problem worse than shearing a few teeth.

Yeah I've never had a problem with any stihl chains I've purchased from baileys. A friend of mine works for a tree care company and said he cheaped out and bought some no name chains and they had issues with them breaking.

Not worth risking your health for a few bucks IMO.

 

[BobL]

The times I've broken chains were all due to long chains being too loose and falling off the bar and getting caught up in the sprocket area. Like Blanc says it a bit of an anticlimax. The broken chain has not whipped out of the kerf but just falls of the bar and sits there. If the bar is fully buried in the wood the sawdust left behind in the kerf seems to be enough to stop it. going anywhere. My breaks have all happened towards the end of a long cuts in a hard wide logs and in one case I suspect I had run out of Aux oil because when I eventually got to the end of the cut there was no oil in the aux oil tank

Another time this may occur is when starting a really hard, large dry log with a chain that is too loose and not sharp enough. Initially the bar and chain are at the same temperature but the chain gets hot and expands very quickly compared to the bar so a couple of inches of cut may see the chain loosen significantly and is then more likely to fall off the bar. I've had the chain fall off a couple of times at this point but fortunately it did not break). It's tempting to stop and re-tension the chain but some care is needed because when the bar eventually heats up and expands, the chain may be too tight.

A couple of tips to deal with this are
- start with a properly tensioned sharp chain
- buck a couple of inches off the ends off these logs - that also gets rid of most of the grit/sand etc that may have penetrated any cracks in the end of the log
- If you start cutting and the chain does start to look too loose and needs retensioning let it cool down (pour some water on it) before tensioning.
- make sure your aux oiler is working.

 

[jagchaser]

I used an axe to hack down to the cable, but it was almost in the heartwood. I thought I would try the same thing if it was just under the bark.

Got about 10 seconds into warm up starting to mill on Saturday and my 880 locked up. That is another thread. Im not too happy right now.

Sorry about that, I tried to quote olyman, but it didn't quote

 

[jagchaser]

 

[jagchaser]

 

[jagchaser]

Here is the other thread I started in the chainsaw subforum. Service tech says 880 is not meant to mill? Says I ran it with the chainbrake on, then says milling overloaded it?
http://www.arboristsite.com/communi...urned-up-oiler-piston-ect-anyone-else.267172/