Stihlmans Wood,Tree cutting ramblings...........

[Stihlman441]

Been working again felling and sorting out most of it for fiewood.

 

[Stihlman441]

Have been bench saw and splitting Sugargum as well.

Excavator digging out stumps with a ripper.

 

[MCW]

Good stuff mate. Nothing like heavy machinery Are you bringing the backcut in lower than the face on those pushovers?

 

[AUSSIE1]

Coarse sand down your way Andrew! Reminds me of Tom Hanks and his "chunky style potato salad"

 

[AUSSIE1]

Love the viewing platform for tourists! :msp_thumbup:

 

[MCW]

Coarse sand down your way Andrew! Reminds me of Tom Hanks and his "chunky style potato salad"

Not wrong Al. I'm pretty sure even .404" chipper would struggle if it hit that "dirt"

 

[Aussie Dave]

Holy crap! :msp_scared:

I'd prob drop the saw and cut my foot off.


.

Nah,you get used to them after a while
Snakes..now there a different story!!!

 

[Rudolf73]

Love the viewing platform for tourists! :msp_thumbup:

I was wondering what those were for!

 

[Stihlman441]

Good stuff mate. Nothing like heavy machinery Are you bringing the backcut in lower than the face on those pushovers?

Say what ? edgamakate me.

 

[deye223]

this'll be good haha

 

[splitpost]

opcorn:subbing in

 

[Stihlman441]

This property back in the late 60s early 70s was like a botanical gardens and open to the public on open days.In the last few years has been let go and turned into a jungle,it took three days of bobcat work to clean it all up before i could get anywhere near the trees.Most of the trees were in bad state i suppose the drought has taken its toll on these old trees.

There is heaps of them spiders and things under the coarse bark and the saw exhaust gets them moving.

I am having a week off brother is coming down from Darwin and we are going dear hunting for a few days.

I start back there Monday week i will take a pic of the wood pile i will be processing.

 

[Stihlman441]

Not wrong Al. I'm pretty sure even .404" chipper would struggle if it hit that "dirt"

Those stone looking thing under that big Cypress tree are petrified eagle dropping from years gone by.

 

[splitpost]

Plenty of spiders when felling,they are in the bark a lot of huntsman spiders,they are hamless but made ya take a deep breath when they crawl up ya arm.

:freaked-out: a few times myself,hate spiders

 

[deye223]

god luck with bamby

 

[David (saltas)]

I was waiting for matt to say some thing about the hinge on this one :confused2:

Then he surprises me and asks about lowering the back cut on push-overs, must be something he was edumackated on in that forestry course:msp_sneaky:

 

[Stihlman441]

I will be the first to tellyas I'm no pro or edgamakated faller,i just do what works for me and if others know better dont be shy give me your views.
In the pic about i just make the back cut about 1'' to 2'' higher than the bottom knotch cut.

 

[NORMZILLA44]

Down under brothers! No thanks on the spiders, good thread though!

 

[David (saltas)]

I'm not giving you any advice you have so much more experience

I picked that picture because It worked it and it is neat but nitpickers might think the hinge could have been more uniform.

Matt is the person most critical of his own cutting, but not of others
I know he looks at the stumps after he is done to see how it looks eg is the back-cut parallel to the face etc, or did he leave too little hinge.

I have no idea what he meant yet.

Matt is very adept at sidestepping my attempts to mildly troll him

 

[MCW]

Matt is very adept at sidestepping my attempts to mildly troll him

Heh heh I try David but you're bloody good!

OK Andrew I'll fill you in mate. This is actually documented in "some" forestry manuals and the forestry courses I've done didn't talk about this technique. A number of arborists I've dealt with know about it though. I've made references and shown photos of it before in my Today's Job thread.
Basically if you are pushing or towing a tree off it's stump, you can sometimes actually pull the butt of the trunk off the FRONT of the stump. This can end in disaster and is a real risk with heavy leaners and a low push/tow where the bulk of the weight is still above your pull/push point. I have had this happen to me twice. The first one was an over exuberant relative in a 120HP New Holland 4WD tractor who put his foot into it (after telling him to go GENTLY) and tore a heavy leaning 4' gum straight off the front of the stump - end result was a tree that pulled straight off the stump, dug in, then went sideways swinging around on the cable. It crushed an old grain silo/tank. No biggy.

Ahem...

The other one was when my brother and I were towing over a smaller dead gum and he stalled the ute mid pull and didn't get on the brakes quick enough. Result was a tree that pulled forward off the stump, dug in, then fell straight back, taking the Rodeo with it, but luckily fell straight down the middle of an orange row with no damage done.
By bringing the back cut in lower it is basically impossible to tear the trunk off the front of the stump and lose control of the tree. This was the reason why I cracked the sh*ts with the corporate farm I was working for as their dopey worker decided to get an excavator in and play Mr Forestry for a day (while borrowing my 390XP and 32" bar to just "cut some stumps"!). I came back and he'd had an excavator push all these heavy leaners I'd left while doing incorrect cuts with MY saw - interestingly the week after a fellow AS member and qualified arborist came over from Mildura to buy my 5100-S. Wayne (gmax) was up for a chainsaw trip so was with me. The first thing that this guy commented on when I said this peanut was pushing them over with an excavator was that "his cuts are wrong and he'll have a tree come back over on the excavator using that technique". Wayne will back this up.
Remember though the taller the tree, the heavier the lean, and how far the excavator/tow cable can go up the tree all have an influence but it's a good, safe technique to use. If you've got a heavy leaning 100 footer and you're pushing/towing it over from 20 foot up you might want to get your will sorted

In the photo below both went to the right...

I hope you can see what I mean mate and being an engineer I reckon you'll be able to see what I'm saying Good work too and I wasn't trying to be critical but somehow the above technique as useful as it is seems to be basically unheard of. Even the guys at the forestry course hadn't seen or heard of it before but I first saw it in an NSW Forestry Manual.