What's The Oldest Tree You Have Felled?
- Thread starter Gypo Logger
- Start date
Help Support Arborist Forum:
precaud
ArboristSite Operative
Piñon (pronounced "pinyon") is the best firewood we have around here. It is a very slow-growing tree, taking nearly 200 years to produce a 12-inch diameter trunk. Last year I felled a standing dead one that was 14 inches in diameter, making it about about 235 years old. So this tree was a seedling right about when the Declaration of Independence was signed.
You are worrying me.
you know the bastards Do eventually die & hit the deck on their own..
To answer the OPs ?. Id say that my oldest would be a red oak, maybe 300 years old? She measured 73'' across the butt. (Pics in falling pics thead) never counted the rings, but it was standing on a rock bluff in a bunch of young timber that I cut. My guess as to why it had never been harvested previously is that most timber fallers around Bedford VA are too drunk to ever get serious about their jobs. Trees that require more than a kirf, a chip, and an off level back cut to jump her off the stump are simply too much for many of the good ole boys to consider around here. Oh well, I can tip them without too much gruff. . .
Last edited by a moderator:
RandyMac
Stiff Member
Fear not, 95% of everything I felled, I would do again. I always have my eyes peeled for something to kill.
Because he's lost whatever hinge-wood he could have had....since severe rot like this tends to stay in the center. You know this the second your saw chips change color and you stop. Or....you continue unwisely into the rot and then finish your back cut, while hoping the tree will commit to its face....very risky and wedges will help you only marginally in bad rot...like in the pic.
I mean I don't care......you guys fall 'em anyway you like. I was just giving you Douglas Dent type procedural advice and the many yrs I was paid the 'big bucks' for directional falling of larger timber.
Kevin
Last edited:
Last edited by a moderator:
RandyMac
Stiff Member
There might not be any hinge in the center, it looks to be plenty around the edges. Gnawing a little chip outta the front promotes slabbing and stump pull, not so good. The one third "rule" should be used as a guideline, most trees are good with that. My expirience showed me to notch them deeper than that, hollow, rotten or sound.
This Tanbark was hollow and catfaced with another tree tangled and leaning against it. A weinie little face just wouldn't have done the job.
Actually, I think you are the one who is 'ignorant' to belittle what I know about falling large timber. You have no real falling equipment on and no hard hat, that to me tells the real story. Or maybe you'd like me to believe you took it all off for the picture...I think not.
Kevin
There might not be any hinge in the center, it looks to be plenty around the edges. Gnawing a little chip outta the front promotes slabbing and stump pull, not so good. The one third "rule" should be used as a guideline, most trees are good with that. My expirience showed me to notch them deeper than that, hollow, rotten or sound.
This Tanbark was hollow and catfaced with another tree tangled and leaning against it. A weinie little face just wouldn't have done the job.
Exactly, a 'third' is a guide, not a rule. If you're a good faller, you learn what tree species require more like Alder....if your saw is not running fast enough on your back cut with Alder, it will barber chair a lot of the time-a fatal mistake. And even with good information and experience, rotten timber and dead fall snags require all your skills to survive.
You not going to 'slab' the tree with the rot pictured (in the aforementioned pic, not this pic) and a healthy 'third' face cut. You're much more likely to preserve some hinge-wood and having a working stump shot. No stump shot is possible in that much rot, that far in...they had a rope tied to the tree and hooked to a pickup apparently-very classy.
Kevin
Last edited:
RandyMac
Stiff Member
Actually, I think you are the one who is 'ignorant' to belittle what I know about falling large timber. You have no real falling equipment on and no hard hat, that to me tells the real story. Or maybe you'd like me to believe you took it all off for the picture...I think not.
Kevin
So, tell us all your wide range of expirience in falling old growth or whatever passes for trees where you live.
wearing PPE does not automatically make you a great faller, lack of such impetimentia does not make you a dwebbie waanabe.
Post pics of your greatest stumps, we wanna see 'em.
wigglesworth
Booned
Geeze Randy....your such a wannabe. A non-hard hat wearing, no ppe ownin wannabe.....
This is how us east coast "PRO" fallers do it....
This is how us east coast "PRO" fallers do it....
RandyMac
Stiff Member
LOL!!!
I guess I'm fired.
I guess I'm fired.
Oh no, I will now bow to the obvious sarcastic implication that I know little. Sure, back in the 70's when I was working in OG DF in OR and second growth, we had mountains of time to wear cameras and take pictures on every break we had (what breaks?). So yeah, no pics sorry, must mean I never did them or all the OG Engelmann Spruce I did in CO on The Grand Mesa......or the Old Yellow Pine I did in the lower elevations (in the winter), that ran one-to-two logs to a load. I certainly defect to a wiser faller like you must be.
How many yrs did you walk the woods with a six foot bar because you really needed it?
Kevin
RandyMac
Stiff Member
Oh no, I will now bow to the obvious sarcastic implication that I know little. Sure, back in the 70's when I was working in OG DF in OR and second growth, we had mountains of time to wear cameras and take pictures on every break we had (what breaks?). So yeah, no pics sorry, must mean I never did them or all the OG Engelmann Spruce I did in CO on The Grand Mesa......or the Old Yellow Pine I did in the lower elevations (in the winter), that ran one-to-two logs to a load. I certainly defect to a wiser faller like you must be.
How many yrs did you walk the woods with a six foot bar because you really needed it?
Kevin
About three.
I am not telling you that you are wrong, just don't break in and tell someone you don't know that they are.
Last edited:
Three whole yrs....wow.......I only have that beat by about six. And if I hadn't moved to CO, probably a whole lot more. I was headed to Canada for a sweet set of timber sales and got side-tracked by OG timber run by cowboy gypos. That's why they called us 'timber tramps'.
Again...fall 'em whatever way you want, but I will continue to comment on falling pics and procedures the way I see it. You learn little if you assume you know the 'all' of it, that much I agree. And yessir boss, I know when I'm obviously bested.
Kevin
Last edited:
you might aught to cover your pistol up buddo.
Ole Randy might know alittle more of what he speaks than you pick up..
Ole Randy might know alittle more of what he speaks than you pick up..
spacemule
The Peanut Gallery
Question, is doing something wrong for 9 years more correct than doing it wrong for 3?
No doubt honcho and nobody could know as much or possibly more, right? I have no doubt that he knows of what he speaks, but I don't think he wrote the Bible on tree fallin'. Or the obvious understatement that there are differences in fallin' approaches.
Like I said, I've been bested....I'll just sit back now and listen to 'the word'.
Kevin
And you know I did fallin' with a six foot bar for nine yrs total "wrong", because.......?
Kevin
spacemule
The Peanut Gallery
I don't. I don't know anything about you for that matter. That wasn't my question.
Similar threads
