File, file and more file.

[Whitespider]

Cool day yesterday… good day to work on those two 30+” oaks I put on the ground last month.

About 10 minutes in I hit a chunk of steel laying under one of the large limbs… damn, brand new chain too, but savable, just a few cutters nicked. Decided to install the longer bar and work on the trunk; first cut I hit fencing embedded in the tree, tore off over half the cutters… damnit, twice in less tan 30 minutes and one chain is now trash. Swapped out the chain again and moved up to the main crotch… can someone explain to me how a stone the size of my fist gets imbedded in the crotch of a tree some 15 feet in the air? DAMNIT! Three chains in less than 30 minutes… ???

I almost quit right there… but swapped the chain again (good thing I keep around a dozen chains). Actually manage around 5-hours of cuttin’ before I rocked another chain… all my fault, getting’ tired and made a mistake. So last night, lucky me, I spent over two hours with the files… and a box-o-beer. Amazingly only lost one chain, but shortened the lifespan of three others.

A fist sized stone in a crotch some 15 feet in the air… C’mon!

 

[atvguns]

I feel your pain

For $30 the harbor freight sharpener saves a lot of labor getting a chain back in shape after you hit something. You still have to give it a couple of strokes with a file to get a good edge but better than the alternative.

 

[flyboy553]

I've had days like that too, Spidey. Not fun. Consecutive cuts on different parts of the tree cost me two new chains. Unlike you, I quit for that day.

Next time you cut will go better for sure. You may only rock TWO chains! hehheh

Ted

 

[blades]

For a minute there I thought it was going to be an IRS thread.

One log 4 chains, many years back this one was pluged in various places with cement which it then grew around. Lucky me I found them all in about 30 minutes.

 

[Fred Wright]

Man that bites. Too much hardware for one day. I can't figure how a rock ended up 15' high in a crotch. Unless someone threw it up there long ago and the tree grew around it.

We have several makeshift fenceposts here on the lot. The previous owners stapled barbwire to the trees to make a horse pen. I've been removing the wire and have cut down a few, above where the wire is sticking out.

I always worry that I'll come into a situation like you describe. Eventually my luck is gonna run out and I'll hit some hidden hardware.

 

[zogger]

Man that bites. Too much hardware for one day. I can't figure how a rock ended up 15' high in a crotch. Unless someone threw it up there long ago and the tree grew around it.

We have several makeshift fenceposts here on the lot. The previous owners stapled barbwire to the trees to make a horse pen. I've been removing the wire and have cut down a few, above where the wire is sticking out.

I always worry that I'll come into a situation like you describe. Eventually my luck is gonna run out and I'll hit some hidden hardware.

I hit a bullet once. Grabbed the chain, the engine kept pulling and broke the nose sprocket, then it threw it. So, bar and chain needed replacing.

I've hit barbed wire, too, but it cut it, luckily enough, it was rusty enough.

 

[turnkey4099]

Man that bites. Too much hardware for one day. I can't figure how a rock ended up 15' high in a crotch. Unless someone threw it up there long ago and the tree grew around it.

We have several makeshift fenceposts here on the lot. The previous owners stapled barbwire to the trees to make a horse pen. I've been removing the wire and have cut down a few, above where the wire is sticking out.

I always worry that I'll come into a situation like you describe. Eventually my luck is gonna run out and I'll hit some hidden hardware.

Just came in from my wooding site. Got 2 trees to remove on a fence line. 2 wire bob stapled then hogwire below that some genius decided to staple EACH line wire. Some grown in. Worse, farmer wants a low stump left (4-8"). I figure to cut above all the wires then go back and try to cut between two of the hogwire line wires. Betting it won't work. DBH 24" or better.

Harry K

 

[Angelos]

That sucks! I keep hitting hammer nails when cutting pine trees. Some folks are getting the resin this way.

 

[H 2 H]

Bummer

This is the weirdest thing I've hit in a tree. This was in a Ceder tree a real old Ceder I may add

It's about 10" and its square

 

[DSS]

I hate yard trees.:rolleyes2:

 

[Big L]

I hit a bullet once. Grabbed the chain, the engine kept pulling and broke the nose sprocket, then it threw it. So, bar and chain needed replacing.

That's really strange zogger ... I've hit several bullets, including full metal jacket, and the chain rips right through 'em ... just copper and lead :dunno:

 

[Fred Wright]

The bullets I remember. Our father was a city cop, he and his buddies would hang a paper target on a tree at fishing camp for pistol practice.

I worry about hardware in trees here where there's been fencing and bobwire. People drive nails, kids build treehouses. Over the years, the tree grows over that stuff and you don't know it's there.

 

[zogger]

That's really strange zogger ... I've hit several bullets, including full metal jacket, and the chain rips right through 'em ... just copper and lead :dunno:

Hit it with my little 137 husky, small chain. No match for that slug. I have no idea where it is now, I split it out of that piece, but it's lost in my junk or I'd post a pic. It sparked for a second, then the sprocket went, then the chain came off, like real fast like. Went and bought a used set at the local shop for..I forget now, six or eight bucks. Maybe it was a steel core surplus round. I don't recall exactly, it was a little deformed, looked 30 caliber-ish.

 

[KiwiBro]

Nine-wire boundary fence untouched for probably 20 years. More than enough time for birds to drop seeds that grow into decent sized trees swallowing at least two wires each tree. Like a tree cutters rubic cube trying to figure out what's stopping what from coming free. Never had a single day making it out of there without swapping out at least two chains. Essentially, cut above the fence then cut an inch or two above and below each wire so the resulting cookie can be hacked open with an axe (without breaking the wire) to reveal it's weapon of chain destruction, starting from the top wire down, one wire/cookie at a time. Kinda demoralising getting to the end of a hard day and looking back to see you've only cleared a max 150' of fence line and still have an hour or more chain restoration to do when you get home, only so you've got fresh chains to wreck the next day

Ahhh, I feel better already.

 

[Arbonaut]

I have an Overcup Oak Quercus lyrata to take out of a residential site. I did some surgery on it fifteen years ago. There is a tricycle growing in a crotch thirty five feet up; back wheels out the back, front wheel out the front-- Frame almost completely buried. I think the old oak grew up thru the trike.

Sometimes something like that rock can happen in a tornado.

 

[Steve NW WI]

Y'all have me shaking a bit...My job this week is to run the fencelines before the field work shows up. To paraphrase Ron White, "I don't know how many chains it's gonna take, but I know how many I've got to use." (My strain of CAD involves having lots of chains for each saw, at last count over 20 between my 3 saws and 4 bars that I use for firewood.)

I should probably get the grinder dusted off and ready to use!

 

[Arbonaut]

The only tree that could raise a bike like that is the trollingwood.

If it's not a trollingwood, then the bike was placed in the crotch 35ft. up.


If you drive a nail in a tree at five feet height, it always stays that height. Imagine what the grown over fence lines discussed in earlier postings in this thread would look like if trees 'grew up' as you are suggesting. Wondering about the surgery you did 15 years ago.

The man who lived there then was concerned because the tree seemed to leaf out later than other oaks and thought it was dying. The Oak had been topped with unsealed horizontal cuts. And those ends facing straight up were getting rotten. I cut them back and made the cuts vertical. And I balanced out the tree.

The trike was there before I was born. It's a relic. Someone probably did put it there. Tornadoes are nothing new.

There is a Ford Escort in a tree over by Morrisonville, Illinois from a tornado in 1999.

I took out an Ash tree Friday that had paving Bricks inside the healthy trunk. They weren't at sidewalk level, they were in line with the bore cut into the face I made with 25" bar on my MS441C.

When I was four, I laid into a soft maple with a handsaw on the neighbor's boulivard when my Mom was on the phone. She wasn't paying attention when I asked if I could. I was well into a 10" tree when she realized what was going on. The tree lived and the wound was far above my head as a grownup--what's the difference?

I've seen fencewire evenly spaced several feet higher in a tree than a fence is made. Why do my deer treestand screw in steps get farther apart each year? I thought they was Bur Oaks and Hickory. Maybe they was Trollingwoods.

 

[greendohn]

Last year i found an 8" roll of heavy wire coiled up in a hard Maple with lag bolt type swivels on each end.

Tree was pushing about 34" in dia. when I found it, probably 10'-12' up the trunk. Of course I didn't drop the tree. A tree company had taken it down, I was just making firewood out of it, in my back yard. I was thinking,"what a great deal !! firewood just across the yard from me wood pile !!"
That big trunk finally wore me out and I burnt the damn thing where it was laying. I put a squirrel cage fan on it and incinerated it in just a couple days. Call me a sissy if ya' want too for not making fire wood out of it, but, that big, twisted-knotty S.O.B. was breaking my balls,,,

 

[Whitespider]

I’ve never noticed that tree steps get further apart… and I’ve had several dozen tree stands in oaks, elms, maples, walnuts…
The fencing in this 30” oak was in the center of the trunk, been there for many, many years (long enough that there ain’t any evidence of a fence remaining in the area) and it was all below shoulder level.
In our yard we hang a hammock between an elm and a maple every year, and the eye screws have remained at the same distance from the ground (but I do have to back them out a half turn every year or two).
I have a #9 wire strung between two Douglas Firs that I hang my bow-hunting cloths on, been there for 19-years, the wires long buried under the bark, and it’s still the same height from the ground.
I’ve never seen the scars from deer rubs move up a tree.
The tire swing hanging from an old oak in the back yard has never moved further from the ground.
I transplanted over a dozen trees in our yard 19 years ago… Bur Oak, Sugar Maple, Silver Maple, American Elm, Red Elm, White Cedar, Red Cedar and Black Cherry… as they grew I kept them trimmed up and I stopped when I couldn’t reach any higher with my lopper; the lowest branches are still at that same height (i.e. as high as I can reach with my lopper).
About 10-12 years ago my oldest backed my pickup into an oak, tearing a huge chunk of bark off with the corner of the rear bumper… the scar sill matches perfectly with the height of the bumper.
In the SW corner of my woodlot there’s an oak that crotches low, every year I stand behind it on opening morning of the deer hunting gun season and shoot my deer… the crotch is the perfect height for a gun rest, and has been the perfect (unchanging) height for 20 years.
My dad has bird feeders hanging from all kinds of trees here Iowa and at the Minnesota lake home… he’s been an avid bird feeder for as long as I can remember. Some of those feeders/brackets/wires/hangers/hooks must be at least 35-years old and none of them have ever moved out of his reach.

 

[Whitespider]

What the heck is "trollingwood"?