Amateur Arborist -dropping a big white oak + pics

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timothykamp

ArboristSite Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2006
Messages
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Location
St. John, IN
On the weekends when I'm not studying engineering at Purdue, I'm home trimming and removing trees. I only carry insurance on myself, so I stick to low liability jobs, like trees that can't hit anything, whichever way they fall, and easy trimming that doesn't require me to climb outside my limits. I can't charge quite as much as a service, but it sure helps to pay for college.

When I get trees that are big enough, or enough together, I'll sometimes sell them to a local sawmill - but as you'll soon see, I have an iron stain in the round that basically ruins the value of it for anything except pallets.

Here's the oak, after 7 16" rounds have been cut off it and rolled away. I also have hauled away a considerable amount of branches out of the top.
felled.jpg

Here's the stump with my foot for reference. (It looks bigger than it actually is, it swelled out at the bottom, but the rounds still are pretty big, about 38" or so. (Let it be known that this tree was dropped properly, but because we didnt have a saw big enough (after my arborist friend left) I had to improvise and spend a little extra time dismantling the stump.)
stump.jpg


I had a professional arborist friend come and drop the tree for me, and proceeded to use my Stihl 290 to cut it up.The village picks up the branches, so we used my 4x8 utility trailer and my converted garden to logging tractor to pull all the small stuff to the street.

Usually I haul the firewood away on a 16' flatbad to my yard and split it to sell during the next year, but I was pressed for time and just wanted to get rid of it. I posted an ad on craigslist for free firewood rounds, you pick up, and ended up getting 13 calls and 2 emails. I had 5 pickup loads and 3 16' flatbed trailer loads end up leaving there, and all I had to do is haul away one load of junk that noone wanted. I posted the following two pictures on craigslist to emphasize the point that anyone coming would need a big truck, and at least 2 guys to load it.

Nevertheless, I had one guy swear that he could pick one up all by himself (on the phone) and I said to him "Sir, I can't see you right now, but I can see these logs, and I haven't seen anyone that could pick the biggest one up by himself. However, I have a log here that's 16-18" thick and pretty big around, and if you can pick it up, I'll be more than happy to take you out to lunch. "
He didn't show up.

rounds.jpg


rounds2.jpg

*Edit*I also dropped a small hickory tree, and those rounds are mixed in as well.
Lastly, the pic I wasn't going to post, but shows the stump best - but also that I'm a young whippersnapper of 19. We stopped back to take the picture between loads, after the cutting, which is why I don't have any safety gear on and I'm wearing shorts.
reference.JPG
 
Well, actually, I hit it cutting that last chunk of stump off. It was just a regular 16 or 20 penny nail - and it tore up my chain pretty bad.
 

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