Today's Job...

[wendell]

I'm the last resort

:taped::taped::taped:

 

[splitpost]

Guess what? I mentioned the same thing. Problem is that they have irrigation lines, control valves, electrical cabling etc etc plus the final mess to clean up. Last time they tried a dozer it basically caused more damage than it fixed as these things have a fair root mass to them even at this young age. Been there, tried it. They also had a massive mulcher go over a few lines of trees as a trial too. The mess created was massive. What they are going to do is have me fell them all on top of one another then burn them. This also takes care of reshooting stumps. This turned out to be the most efficient thing to do on the other properties although the size of the original trees also scalded a number of citrus trees.
I'm the last resort



As mentioned they've grown too fast. Many people had the same assumption about this gear for firewood but it burns like crap. Biggest problem is that most people have never seen what native species grow like on close to 400kg/ha of fertigated Nitrogen per year - the original aim of the property was to get these windbreaks growing as fast as they possible could to protect the young citrus trees from wind damage. The windbreaks alone on the original property were receiving 700 megalitres of irrigation a year (that's a sh*tload of water and a sh*tload of fast growth when combined with 400kg/ha of actual Nitrogen in 12 months). The end result isn't pretty and the timber didn't end up like any Casuarina you've seen - it was more like Pine and burnt like it too. The exact same species grown under low-moderate rainfall with no fertiliser inputs are very high value and sought after.
Some of the 40 year old trees weren't too bad but most of the trees in the original part of the thread were only 19 years old. I know what slow grown Casuarina burns like - it's excellent and I've been burning some tonight. It's even better than Redgum.
Sure you didn't make a typo with the 8' to 15' diameter comment? If not I want photos

oh right, yeah didn't think about all that infrastructure amongst them..................then your gonna be bloody busy mate

 

[MCW]

looks like slash pine i dont know but it sore looks like a conifer and they only sit on top of the grownd and are very easy to push over....an old Hilux would do a good job of taking them out lol...

Yeah they're not a conifer but a native hardwood as you probably know already.

oh right, yeah didn't think about all that infrastructure amongst them..................then your gonna be bloody busy mate

Well went out yesterday and dropped about 150 trees in an hour with the little Husky 353 and 18" .325" bar with Carlton full chisel. At this stage this is simply a trial so that they can budget etc. Looks like they'll crank up on the rest of them next April from what I was told today. Oh and they are only going to drop every second row for now as well so only about 11,000 trees

 

[gmax]

Yeah they're not a conifer but a native hardwood as you probably know already.



Well went out yesterday and dropped about 150 trees in an hour with the little Husky 353 and 18" .325" bar with Carlton full chisel. At this stage this is simply a trial so that they can budget etc. Looks like they'll crank up on the rest of them next April from what I was told today. Oh and they are only going to drop every second row for now as well so only about 11,000 trees

No problem, you will have those trees down in 73.333333 hours :hmm3grin2orange:

 

[Rudolf73]

No problem, you will have those trees down in 73.333333 hours :hmm3grin2orange:

That's only a few days Matt...

 

[Tazfreak]

Guess what? I mentioned the same thing. Problem is that they have irrigation lines, control valves, electrical cabling etc etc plus the final mess to clean up. Last time they tried a dozer it basically caused more damage than it fixed as these things have a fair root mass to them even at this young age. Been there, tried it. They also had a massive mulcher go over a few lines of trees as a trial too. The mess created was massive. What they are going to do is have me fell them all on top of one another then burn them. This also takes care of reshooting stumps. This turned out to be the most efficient thing to do on the other properties although the size of the original trees also scalded a number of citrus trees.
I'm the last resort



As mentioned they've grown too fast. Many people had the same assumption about this gear for firewood but it burns like crap. Biggest problem is that most people have never seen what native species grow like on close to 400kg/ha of fertigated Nitrogen per year - the original aim of the property was to get these windbreaks growing as fast as they possible could to protect the young citrus trees from wind damage. The windbreaks alone on the original property were receiving 700 megalitres of irrigation a year (that's a sh*tload of water and a sh*tload of fast growth when combined with 400kg/ha of actual Nitrogen in 12 months). The end result isn't pretty and the timber didn't end up like any Casuarina you've seen - it was more like Pine and burnt like it too. The exact same species grown under low-moderate rainfall with no fertiliser inputs are very high value and sought after.
Some of the 40 year old trees weren't too bad but most of the trees in the original part of the thread were only 19 years old. I know what slow grown Casuarina burns like - it's excellent and I've been burning some tonight. It's even better than Redgum.
Sure you didn't make a typo with the 8' to 15' diameter comment? If not I want photos

Reference Forest Trees Of Australia,nelson csiro.page 96,97,98 shows old growth river she oaks the size mentioned. when clearing these big oaks local contractors used cat 7s,8s with rippers some were so big.

 

[MCW]

Reference Forest Trees Of Australia,nelson csiro.page 96,97,98 shows old growth river she oaks the size mentioned. when clearing these big oaks local contractors used cat 7s,8s with rippers some were so big.

Are there still any there that size? Also are they talking individual trunk diameters in the book or the width of the entire trunk mass where it exits the ground?

A single trunked Casuarina with a 5m diameter would be a weapon for sure

 

[Graham99]

No problem, you will have those trees down in 73.333333 hours :hmm3grin2orange:

Maybe some primer cord would speed that process up somewhat. You'll need a few km's of it though, and probably shouldnt be recommended on a chainsaw forum.

 

[Tazfreak]

Are there still any there that size? Also are they talking individual trunk diameters in the book or the width of the entire trunk mass where it exits the ground?

A single trunked Casuarina with a 5m diameter would be a weapon for sure

YES,measured at waist height they are big trees,they are found along river flood plains,Are now protected species,some were trees when captain cook landed here.trunk dias as big as any tree i,ve seen in35 years in forestry.not height wise, but girth with huge buttress fluted trunks.If you were to be contracted to take them down you, and youd be using big saws,really long bars and have alot of work in front of you.

 

[MCW]

YES,measured at waist height they are big trees,they are found along river flood plains,Are now protected species,some were trees when captain cook landed here.trunk dias as big as any tree i,ve seen in35 years in forestry.not height wise, but girth with huge buttress fluted trunks.If you were to be contracted to take them down you, and youd be using big saws,really long bars and have alot of work in front of you.

Monsters
If you ever get the chance for some photos please post them here.

 

[lumberjackau]

Matt, are those stumps being sprayed after you cut them?

Will

 

[MCW]

Matt, are those stumps being sprayed after you cut them?

Will

No these ones aren't going to get sprayed mate. The most efficient way to kill them in this situation is to fell them all on top of one another as per previous property, then light them up once they've dried out a bit. Less garbage to clean up plus it kills the stumps off 99% of the time.
On the original property I had to respray a fair propertion of the stumps that reshot and this alone ended up costing the company basically the same amount of money as felling them to start with. The burning option that came in late on that property saved 1000's of dollars.

 

[MCW]

Short video from a while back. A mate took it on his iPhone hence the dodgey format. I was going to domino the whole row but the last dozen or so trees fell over prematurely
I'd forgotten about this one and he stuck it on a memory stick for me last week.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/doeUtwWW9B0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[MCW]

Back again peepholes. Haven't been doing too much exciting cutting lately but have finished the smaller Casuarinas for this year at least. The property intends to burn them where they fall but don't want anymore cut down until next year as the fireban starts soon in South Australia. They want all felled trees to be dry enough to burn prior to the ban kicking in next month.
Am uploading a video of the little Stihl MS241C at work in these smaller trees and it is a weapon for sure. I pulled the .325" 7 pin rim off and replaced it with an 8 pin and with the torque of the M-Tronic it hardly slowed down under load at all. It was probably "slightly" slower with the bar buried but noticably faster on any wood 8" or less.
Anyway here are a few photos of some of the damage

Miles and miles of trees...

Here's the little beast...

Have to miss irrigation valves again. There are also control lines and other goodies strewn amongst the tree rows...

 

[MCW]

I also had to cut up a few larger Redgum logs in a guy's backyard. He bought two Chinese saws off of eBay with 24" bars to tackle them but both saws stopped running after a few hours and he hardly made a dent. I was originally under the impression he wanted the whole lot blocked up but in the end he only wanted me to cut them as per the photo. It's actually right in the middle of town and he paid $22,000 to have 5 large Redgums removed with a tree crew and crane a fair few years ago. The 44" GB Ti .404" bar pulled up about a foot short on the 3120. Pretty big logs and even bigger considering where the trees were. The log in the background is a lot larger than the one I cut. I've fitted the 60" bar for that one. I had a few upset elderly neighbours giving me daggers as I hooked into it midday on a Sunday when they were out having a cup of tea in their backyard. An extra muffler port on the 3120 didn't help either...
I wanted to mill these logs but no cigar. The property owner had promised them as firewood to his elderly father and there was no way I could convince him otherwise. Quite disappointing as solid Redgum logs like these are very hard to find around here without major termite damage.

He'd done a bit of a butcher's job on the end...

3120's and .404" make piles of woodchips fast...

Getting off track I also bought a pressure washer off of a member here (Stihl dealer). Has a Subaru/Robin OHC motor. Way more grunt than I planned. I was washing the work ute and it stripped some of the logo off the side plus it chewed into the tyre and also ripped some of the concrete up in my carport when I tried to wash an old oil stain off. The pencil jet is nasty. I ended up swapping to a 15° fan jet to stop wrecking everything...

I also cleaned my BBQ with it and it blew grease off that a hammer and chisel wouldn't have shifted.

 

[gmax]

Matt, that's a fair size lump of wood, shame you couldn't mill it such a waste just to burn it :frown:

 

[MCW]

Matt, that's a fair size lump of wood, shame you couldn't mill it such a waste just to burn it :frown:

Yeah it's certainly a shame mate. The log in the background which I'll get stuck into later is about 7-8' at it's widest point. I tried to convince him and even offered to swap it for loads of pre split wood but no way was I going to change his mind.

 

[Stihlman441]

Nice Redgum bloke,take some splittin that lot.
I have a Redgum felling job coming up 22 of them and they are large (the 50'' bar will be required) were get this they have been dead before he took over the farm in 1967.He has asked me to fell them and cut the trunks into lenghts so he can move them to a fenced off animal reserve thing he is making not far away.Then the stumps will be bulldozed out,he wont sell me any of the wood or let me mill it.:msp_thumbdn:

 

[MCW]

Nice Redgum bloke,take some splittin that lot.
I have a Redgum felling job coming up 22 of them and they are large (the 50'' bar will be required) were get this they have been dead before he took over the farm in 1967.He has asked me to fell them and cut the trunks into lenghts so he can move them to a fenced off animal reserve thing he is making not far away.Then the stumps will be bulldozed out,he wont sell me any of the wood or let me mill it.:msp_thumbdn:

Has he got permits to drop them mate? Best to make sure before you start.

 

[Stihlman441]

Has he got permits to drop them mate? Best to make sure before you start.

I did ask that,he has some deal going with the local Land Care group,he has made 2 of these wild life reserve areas all ready.
Then he gets permits and i shoot his roos so work that out ?.