PNW wood question

[little possum]

I know Ive heard about the wood bein a little softer, but sometimes havin ash embedded in the bark/inner layers.

But I was just wondering. With all the moss, isnt thier dirt in there to dull the chains as well?

Our trees dont have moss, well not like yall do.

 

[Gologit]

If the tree is near a haul road there might be a little road dust in the moss. I usually just shave the cut-point with my axe.

The PNW folks in Oregon and Washington are the real experts on moss. There's one I know personally that even has moss on her car.

 

[slowp]

That would be me. Yes there is lots of thick moss on the maple and cottonwood trees. In fact, I cut what looked like an 8 inch diameter limb off and it turned out to be about an inch thick. The rest was moss.

Yes. There is volcanic ash and dirt in or under the moss. Yes it dulls chains. So, that's why I file by hand, and have skip chain. If I scraped the moss off each time, it would take me longer to cut the &#@ blowdowns out of the road and I'm already slow enough. It takes me about the same time to change to a different chain. So I just file.

The real genuine timber fallers don't have to worry much about moss. It likes hardwoods. They cut conifers, and have nicer, cleaner wood to cut. There might be just a little bit of moss on the hemlocks, but not much.

For a while, after the volcano blew, they chopped off the bark where they would cut to fall the tree. They don't do that anymore.

 

[madhatte]

Also -- the "soil" between moss and bark and live trees isn't the same kind of "dirt" you don't want to put your bar into; rather, it's brand-new soil being made by microorganisms and such and is actually pretty important to forest nutrient cycles.

 

[little possum]

Thanks

 

[RandyMac]

Alluvial flat timber will often have flood silt embedded in the bark. Redwoods are particularly bad for that, the porous bark soaks it in.
The few times I dealt with river flat trees, old Ray had me cut the bark off to save his sawchain, while my crap saw ate dirt. It made sense, sharpening a 30" bar with .404 vs a 72" with 9/16" square bit.

 

[ChrisF]

, old Ray had me cut the bark off to save his sawchain, while my crap saw ate dirt. It made sense, sharpening a 30" bar with .404 vs a 72" with 9/16" square bit.

I bet you loved that. :hmm3grin2orange:

 

[RandyMac]

It was part of the job, when the Master spoke, I jumped, I would have sawn rocks for him. Eating Redwood bark is not among my favorite things, it didn't do my 250 much good, constant air filter changes and still the dust got through. I learned the trick of coating the entire airbox with oil, to help trap some of the dust.

 

[ChrisF]

It was part of the job, when the Master spoke, I jumped, I would have sawn rocks for him.

I can dig that.

Would've given my right pinky finger to work with someone like that, learning the ropes.

 

[nw axe man]

Hey, Lil Possum.
I live within 21 air miles NE of Mt St Helens. We do have a lot of ash in the bark and on top of the base of the limbs on the boles of the trees. If you fall a nice tree today that went through the eruption you can still get a great ash cloud when it falls. When falling any nicer size trees I usually take and slab off the bark. Especially when the bark has deep fissures in it. They have a tendency to collect the ash when it rains and washes it down the bole of the tree.
We also have to watch out for dirt/rocks that grow up on the stumps of the trees if we have to make lower stumps.

 

[little possum]

Thanks.
I had just started wondering about that last night while watching a movie. "Without a Paddle" 2 crazies fired up the 090... and well anyways.

I know our moss, what bit of it is around, has fine dirt in the roots.. But I know it would be a little different growing on the side of a tree. Seems like it would be kind of like a mold..

 

[Cedarkerf]

Moss what moss.

 

[little possum]

Haha, more like what wood. In a firewood situation and a tree like that or smaller, do you just bust it and try burning the inside first? Looks like it would be tedious work messing with all that dang moss :taped:

 

[Big_Al]

Don't have much moss over here, I don't know about the ash in the wood. I know a few inches of it fell here.

 

[nw axe man]

Most of the time the moss comes off pretty easily. Especially on the maples and alders like the pic of the maple shown by Cedarkerf. Here in SW Washington the moss really picked up the ash. If you're falling this type of tree your far better off scraping off the moss if it's a larger tree and has been around since the blast. Old growth doug fir bark that also has the moss has to have it cleaned off as the ash that feel here is very heavy and has the consistancy of sand and gravel. When the mountain blew we had limbs and rocks coming down at our home.
I remember the year before the mountain blew I was cutting a job up in the Wakepish area just about 12 miles NE of the mountain. We had some doug fir up there that ran about 5-6 foot on the stump and had three to four 32' logs in it. You can imagine by the diameter of the stump compared to the height of the tree what these looked like. Basically a carrot type tree. They had large sucker limbs that had to be cut off. Whenever we would cut those limbs our chains were toast. Finally, I bent over on one of the limbs to see what the deal was. On the top of the limbs was ash and rocks that were still there from whenever the last blast happened during the middle 1800s. Still there after all those years. I tried to send you a pic of a hazard tree I fell in the late 90s that shows incredible ash coming out of the tree when it fell. Maybe I'll figure it out so I can send it to you.

 

[Dayto]

Same with Blasted Roads in a ROW , Timber can have all sorts of goodies blowen into the tree lol .. On the Big Old Doug fir , you normaly shave the Bark anyway (Some times up to 8" thick on OG) Allows you to have more bar into the tree , and easier to watch your cuts, as well as wedging.

 

[nw axe man]

I'm with you on that. Nothing more irritating than having your dogs slip off the bark when it's so thick. Yes, when falling larger doug fir you need to see where you are in the bark. Give yourself that guide so you can stay in it all around the tree.
That's another thing I always dreaded was falling below ROWs. Especially in steep, rocky ground where the road had to be blasted out of the hillside. Lots of grinding on chains.
Yeah, bark doesn't hold up too well when wedging. That's one of the biggest mistakes when I'm training is people thinking that they have the wedges set in far enough. They find out the hard way that bark won't hold up a tree when wedging.

 

[RandyMac]

Didn't ever have much spike slippage, used Ahab grade spikes.

 

[nw axe man]

Hey, I'm loving that! Is that a 125? I notice when I have too long of dogs it tends to make the chain grabbier. The further away from the tree you get it seems to make the chain grab.
Are you still running that saw? There can't be too many of them running anymore. I would imagine parts are a bit hard to find.
I see you're up in the northern part of CA. Are you close to Hoopa? Every year I go down there to put on training for the BIA folks. They've designated a 70 acre parcel of fine second growth fir just for their training purposes. I never realized there was so much remote country down there.

 

[nw axe man]

Hey, RandyMac.
What's the secret to putting pics on the site? I tried to put one on for LilPossum but couldn't figure it out.