Expensive Fire Wood

[1project2many]

In regards to trees I've been some lucky and mostly careful. I caught the front fender of my wife's Blazer with a falling branch several years ago but it didn't do anything serious and I didn't bother fixing it so no expense there. I almost took myself out many years ago when a tree twisted unexpectedly as it fell, caught another, and as the top went down the trunk slid back then lifted, catching me and tossing me a few feet. No hurt but that created a whole lot of realization that I wasn't giving enough respect to the work I was doing.

The most expensive screw-up I can remember was trying to pull a 16p ring-shank nail with my favorite hickory-handled hammer...

lol... Sometimes the only way to find out is to ask the guys you've been drinkin' with.

 

[rwoods]

Locust stump jumped me in the rain:


Should stick to wood smaller than tractor:



Ron

 

[Wood Doctor]

Physical injuries are actually the most expensive of them all. Seventeen years ago I overdid it while helping my neighbor in his yard and wound up flat on my back, carried to the hospital in an ambulance, and suffered permanent back injuries for the rest of my life. Total medical bill was $12,000 in cash and a month of lost work, and the back injuries cannot be repaired.

 

[rwoods]

Physical injuries are actually the most expensive of them all. Seventeen years ago I overdid it while helping my neighbor in his yard and wound up flat on my back, carried to the hospital in an ambulance, and suffered permanent back injuries for the rest of my life. Total medical bill was $12,000 in cash and a month of lost work, and the back injuries cannot be repaired.

Too true. Showing off to my cutting buddies when a kickback from a bow saw send me to ER 35 years ago. Fortunately, just my hand. If I hadn't been standing to the side as taught, it would have likely decapitated me, the saw was thrown over my head. But for the hand guard, I would have lost all four fingers on my left hand. Fast forward to Thanksgiving 2010, shredded the lining of my carotid artery manhandling a 52" round. Inoperable. Spend a year on stroke watch and no firewooding. May 2014, another trip to the ER when the tip of my saw grabbed a short stub at WOT and drove it into my knee - lost a month of cutting.

Ron

 

[JeffHK454]

Locust stump jumped me in the rain:
View attachment 371056



Ron

I'd still take that Cruiser off your hands..

 

[rwoods]

I'd still take that Cruiser off your hands..

Wish I still had it, but I gave it to a young fella. Ron

 

[zogger]

Too true. Showing off to my cutting buddies when a kickback from a bow saw send me to ER 35 years ago. Fortunately, just my hand. If I hadn't been standing to the side as taught, it would have likely decapitated me, the saw was thrown over my head. But for the hand guard, I would have lost all four fingers on my left hand. Fast forward to Thanksgiving 2010, shredded the lining of my carotid artery manhandling a 52" round. Inoperable. Spend a year on stroke watch and no firewooding. May 2014, another trip to the ER when the tip of my saw grabbed a short stub at WOT and drove it into my knee - lost a month of cutting.

Ron

err...take it careful man...

 

[Wood Doctor]

Too true. Showing off to my cutting buddies when a kickback from a bow saw send me to ER 35 years ago. Fortunately, just my hand. If I hadn't been standing to the side as taught, it would have likely decapitated me, the saw was thrown over my head. But for the hand guard, I would have lost all four fingers on my left hand. Fast forward to Thanksgiving 2010, shredded the lining of my carotid artery manhandling a 52" round. Inoperable. Spend a year on stroke watch and no firewooding. May 2014, another trip to the ER when the tip of my saw grabbed a short stub at WOT and drove it into my knee - lost a month of cutting.

Ron

Let's see. Logging is usually listed in the top four of the most dangerous professions in the world. Sometimes we forget about that. Firewood collecting is likely not far away from it. Many loggers have told me that handling the tops of a fallen tree with branches going everywhere is more dangerous than logging tree trunks.

 

[Sam.coots]

Accidentally used my 036Pro as a chock. Rescued by the LO and his John Deere. A generous member here fixed me up with replacement plastics. Ron


View attachment 371052 View attachment 371053 View attachment 371054

This is my favorite storie so far.

 

[Wood Doctor]

This is my favorite one...so far

I have an 036 Pro sitting on my bench next to my 361 and it's a coin toss to determine which one gets the call. They run about the same --> outstanding!

 

[Gologit]

The most expensive firewood I ever saw was a 42" Doug fir round. I was cutting out of a cull deck for my father-in-law's fireplace. He has a fireplace big enough to roast an ox. He parked his pickup...a brand new F250 diesel 4x4 with the paper plates still on it...downhill from the deck with the back of the pickup facing the logs. There was probably 300 feet between the deck and his pickup with maybe a 15% grade. There was snow and ice on the ground, compacted and slick from running logging equipment on it.
I told him that he might want to move his pickup. He said that it would probably be alright. I should have insisted. He's a rice farmer, a darn good guy too, but he spends all his time on the flat and doesn't really savvy hills. He's not used to being argued with either.
He planned to roll the rounds down the hill until we had a load and then use the 966 loader to put them in the pickup. Fine by me.
You guys can guess the rest. The first and second rounds I cut went well and he rolled them down the hill, keeping them in check, and staging them in back of the pickup. The third round got away from him. He slipped in the snow and the round started down the hill without him. He was running along behind it, cussing and trying to kick it sideways but it out-ran him. It out-ran him by quite a bit. I shut the saw off and lighted a cigarette...this was going to be interesting. A 42" fir, green, cut into a twenty-four inch round, is heavy and it picked up a really impressive amount of speed. I was sure impressed anyway. Father-in-law was still cussing.
The first two rounds were on the ground by the tailgate. The runaway round hit them, went airborne, and crashed through the back window of that shiny new pickup. It tore a bunch of metal out of the back of the cab, hit the dashboard, and went out through the windshield, mashed the hood, rolled off onto the ground, went on down the hill a ways and wound up in a creek.
Father-in-law had quit cussing by then and just kind of stood there surveying the damage.
The worst part of the whole thing was having to ride the 966 out of the woods for ten miles until we got to the nearest phone. It was snowing. All Father-in-law had to say during the whole trip out was "you ought to fix the heater in this damn thing".
He had a new pickup the next day. When we went back to the same spot to finish cutting he parked it uphill from the landing and we moved all the rounds with the loader.

 

[STLfirewood]

When I was 16 I ran over a Homelite withmy truck. Wal-mart will return anything. Also 20 years later I used a 346xp as a wheel chalk. Ran over a 2k watts generator a few years back. Straight gassed a Dolmar 5100s about 4 years ago. Man it ran good those final few minutes. But like others have said
injuries are the worst. I lost my father
and best friend (same person) about a year and a half ago to an accident in the woods while we were cutting. Stay safe I'm proof it can happen to anyone.

 

[rwoods]

When I was 16 I ran over a Homelite withmy truck. Wal-mart will return anything. Also 20 years later I used a 346xp as a wheel chalk. Ran over a 2k watts generator a few years back. Straight gassed a Dolmar 5100s about 4 years ago. Man it ran good those final few minutes. But like others have said
injuries are the worst. I lost my father
and best friend (same person) about a year and a half ago to an accident in the woods while we were cutting. Stay safe I'm proof it can happen to anyone.

I'll register my "Like" here so you will know I like the reminder but hate the family tragedy. Sincere condolences, Ron

 

[CWME]

My BIL thought he was going to help me while I was cutting trees at his house. He took a pair of loppers and cut some small shoots around a stump I had left. I had to back over the stump to get closer to the wood... Yeah he must have watched a Vietnam movie on booby traps or something the night before. Perfect punji spikes all over the stump. Lost a good tire there...

 

[TRL WGN 1]

Like some of the others, I chose not to document the event with pictures. However, last year at this time, there was a nice, large dead shag bark in my old yard (family owned farm house that I lived in for a while and when I moved out, renters moved in and destroyed it. It was then left to sit, unoccupied), right along the road and within 10' of the new 3 phase power line to the west (the line had just been upgraded to phase 3 in order to run an irrigator a 1/2 mile down the road).
Having taken many trees out in tight areas, I have come accustomed to using the 8K# winch on my Jeep to pull the trees the direction I need. Well, I should have gotten a ladder and put the chain higher in the tree instead of just standing on the fenders.
Didn't cut a deep enough wedge and the tree fell back on the cut. Didn't pinch my saw but the winch couldn't pull the tree over as it was just sliding my jeep towards it.
Made the wife watch from a safe distance as I wedged and sledged the tree. Got her started in the right direction when the tree popped loose on the south side and the tree spun to the north and fell 90 degrees from where I had wanted. My MS361 somehow survived as the trunk missed it by inches. The same could not be said for the power line, as one of the branches grabbed it on the way down.
Was quite a light show as the tree caught fire for a while and the grass sparked everyplace my winch cable touched the ground, until the power line burnt through.

Took 45 minutes for the power company to show up and all my wife and I could do was sit and wait, since it wasn't safe to go near the tree or Jeep until power was shut down.

Expense wise, only my pride took a beating, as I never got a bill for the line. I knew the lineman and he gave me quite a ribbing, as he explained that had I called them first, they would have dropped the tree for free.

Last time there was an outage in my neighborhood, he stopped by my place first to make sure I hadn't been cutting any trees smart a55

 

[Zale]

You guys scare me.

 

[Wood Doctor]

You guys scare me.

Yes, and we only gather firewood. Loggers can tell you stories that will make your hair stand on end. The ones that get to me are the big trees that flip backwards or bounce off another tree and wind up landing on their skidders or the flat bed. Imagine what an eastern cottonwood tree this size would do to a tractor:


That's my buddy standing on the stump with his 660. The saw has a 36" bar mounted. He's actually dropped a couple even larger than this one. All in a day's work.

 

[Zale]

Good size tree. Looks like he cut through most of his hinge. Just an observation.

 

[unclemoustache]

I started a whole thread regarding my work experiences. Over in the off topic page. http://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/uncle-moustache-work-pics.164786/page-10

But here's a recent sample of my work I'm sure you'll like.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Good size tree. Looks like he cut through most of his hinge. Just an observation.

Andy always minimizes the beaver tail waste when he drops a tree. He saves a bundle by doing this. The felling cut (third cut) aligns with the first cut. The second cut is below the first cut to create the wedge that must be removed. So, the beaver tail hinge is removed from the saved log and the end of the log that is sold to the sawmill is flat.

If you look behind him on this Pic, you can see a portion of the beaver tail that remains on the stump. The felled tree has virtually none of the waste hinge.