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Dalmatian90

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This reminded me of the threads we have from time to time of helping friends and family hell bent on cutting something above their skill level.

I did have a neighbor once I had to ask for help, and he took one look and determined he was too old and I was too inexperienced to unscrew the screw up and went and got another neighbor to make the cut to make the tree safe again.

Between what I've learned since by experience and places like this and Jepson's "To Fell a Tree" that stump spoke volumes to me, stuff I wouldn't have recognized years ago.

(Although they got the tree on the ground without killing anyone, the victim was killed when the tree rolled on him while bucking it up)
-ca991b86f7a2eb3a.JPG

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/03/man_dies_after_large_tree_he_c.html
 
And this is why I and other loggers get wound up when posters nonchalantly talk about they got it on the ground and no one was hurt despite some huge oversight or they purposely let the tree split or so my stump is ugly and i had to run like hell, but hey I'm alive. The trees are out to get us. Every day. Don't let your guard down. Don't forget it.
 
Agreed... cutting up a tree that large is no job for amateurs. People tend to get injured or killed when they're unaware of, or forget what they're dealing with.
 
Wonder where he got the saw? Take a little bigger than the average guys saw to cut that baby down. I've cut down 1000's of trees (gotta be close now) and I have permission to cut down about a dozen big maples 4 to 7' across in a bush where they could never damage anything no matter which direction they fall and they are still standing. I'm still not comfortable cutting they so they will stay standing for now. I have cut some big ones but I was comfortable doing them.
 
And this is why I and other loggers get wound up when posters nonchalantly talk about they got it on the ground and no one was hurt despite some huge oversight or they purposely let the tree split or so my stump is ugly and i had to run like hell, but hey I'm alive. The trees are out to get us. Every day. Don't let your guard down. Don't forget it.

Well said.
 
And some day shiet happens, this came down and hit my saw and my left hand as I walked towards another tree, 1 step sooner and I might not be here...

0321161850c.jpg
 
Poplar - they're bad for dropping dead limbs. I guess anything can be, if it's dead enough.

Also why PPE should be part of everyones kit, specially the hard hat part. I was shuddering watching those good ol' boys in the pic above. Doesn't take much of a branch coming down to damage the noggin. Never mind the other fire they were playing with.
 
the moment you lose the fearful respect due to the tree or the saw in your hand......you are in jeopardy of injury
 
Yet how many "seasoned" arborist post videos here without PPE? How many "saw tuners" post videos without PPE?

I'm sorry this man lost his life, I hope his family the best.
 
the moment you lose the fearful respect due to the tree or the saw in your hand......you are in jeopardy of injury

When cutting trees down I don't think having a healthy respect for standing timber is a bad thing.
 
The last time I was out cutting I had a black walnut roll over unexpectedly...really caught me by surprise and luckily I was not in a dangerous spot to risk getting pinned. You really have to be careful and keep a level head in this game...felling and cutting wood is serious business.
 
Two summers ago I was custom falling for a forestry outfit on a clear cut project for a new lake. About the third day in I had my 6 hours in cutting for the day, so I load up and go home. The next morning I show up and laying where I left of is a 28"-30" hackberry log nearly 20' long, split 2/3 of the way up from butt. I look at the forestry outfit owner, who works in town most of the time, and say, "who cut this, it was standing when I left". He says" I cut a few last evening". I look back at the log and say "looks like you're lucky to still be alive". Then the idiot tells me, "sometimes I 'chair them just to hear them crack".

We finished that job a day or two later and I left him, I don't want to be anywhere near that kind.
 
First you must outsmart the tree...
To say "Outsmart is to say you are superior.
The tree is my higher power.
I knock it down cut it up then I lose respect and find another one

You know, kind of like what woman do to us.

the moment you lose the fearful respect due to the tree or the saw in your hand......you are in jeopardy of injury

^^^
Sometimes I feel sick
 
**** happens, but we can control our environment. Was it windy or too windy? unnecessary brushing? not waiting long enough for your canopy to settle?
Doing a site overview will tell you a lot.
What is common from eack species in that erea and why? That looks like a freshly broken Aspen branch to me. Either way my experience says you made a mistake here?

*Edit* Quote posted below
...I made a mistake here but better here than there
 
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