Tips for trees with metal

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Brand / model reference?

Thanks!

Philbert

It's the "Teknetics Tek-Point Pinpointer", here's a link to the Amazon listing . It has 3 levels of sensitivity and it picks up single nails and screws from (by my guestimate) 2 or 3 inches away and groups of nails from even further. It does not pick up the kind of nails that are in my fence, I'm not sure why, but all the nails and screws in this tree it picks up great. The single button user interface is just bad when it comes to changing settings, but on/off is easy and it vibrates so you can use it while the saw is running and your ear muffs are on, and it's waterproof up to 6'. It definitely paid for itself quickly as it found several invisible nails that were grown over with bark.
 
100 percent guaranteed if i am doing it.

I’m a magnet to steel with a brand new chain. Cut one tree, on the splitter was a purple color. This was in the middle of the state forest. When I split it there was an eyebolt. Another time with a new saw and 404” chain I hit a pipe inside the tree. I won’t talk about barb wire. Most of the time free wood isn’t so free
 
I worked on widening our road (that I have been on for my entire life) and found several nails in trees that I had not seen anything nailed to in the past 35+ years. Same with trees in our yard, and my dad wasn't into nailing stuff to trees so it predates our family's 47 years of ownership. You have to wonder who went around pounding nails everwhere!!!

Also found a 1/4" walled steel culvert in the brush, luckily I was using some cheap 3/8LP chain!
 
It was more than 5' across at the trunk, I don't think modern teenagers are up for that challenge with an ax! But it would keep them occupied for a while..

I just purchased a selection of different 404” bar lengths for my saws up to 42” I have two giant ash trees to take down. There on the property line I hope there’s no steel in them, it’s an old farmers field.
 
Thats a biggin

Yes it was a very big bischofia tree, or big for me anyway as I work a desk job lol. "Before" picture below. The trunk is oval shaped, this is the view from the narrow side. A good 20% is out of view on the top. It's dead from a lightning strike. I rented a 40' lift to work from the top down and even with the lift all the way up right next to the trunk the branches were 10-20' higher than the lift. I got some climbing slings and carabiners from Amazon and used those with some very heavy 1" rope to slide the branches down so as not to destroy anything under the tree. That worked extremely well! When cutting branches higher than the lift I used a 12' pole saw so I was not directly under them. The scary part for me was when we got down to the last about 10-15'. That's where the metal started, and the trunk parts were so thick the saw was not long enough to cut through in one pass, and going around them was not really possible while standing in the lift. So I cut through most of the bottom then used some wedges and my truck to pull it over in the direction I wanted it to fall and that worked out. I'm still working on the last 10' of trunk, but at least it's on the ground. My saw is only 20" so I'm having to dice it into little cubes one chunk at a time. What you can't see are the nails that held the (now gone) steps up to the fort. It measured 5 1/2 feet across on the wide side at about waist level.


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Lightening damage, standing in the tree fort:
1592245354298.png
 
"No Trespassing" signs?

Philbert
Never on this road in my 35+ years of memory. And most of the older timers never posted property. Trespassing was never an issue back when people had morals.

When I fall yard or road trees I do the felling cut then process everything but the bottom 10' of trunk. Leave the trunk sitting there and move to the next tree. At the end of the day or when I have a chain getting near sharpening time I then do all of the bucking and stumping. Not worth risking a fresh chain.
 
A good fort tree can tell a lot of stories and share a lot of memories.

Yes, it was a bitter sweet revelation that the tree had to come down. We loved the shade and the tree fort, but the dead branches from the top were starting to fall at random making it unsafe to be around, and the roots were starting to be a problem with the pool area and house anyway. Believe it or not, the tree fort was also a problem for our homeowners insurance. One company dropped us when they saw it. You really can't have anything fun for the kids in FL anymore, unless you're willing to go without homeowners insurance. But that's a topic for another day.
 
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