SuperCobra
Silver Member
Thought I'd share how I remove stumps. I'd been wanting to do some thinning but didn't want to rent a stump grinder. I've pulled over trees before but not many this big. We had a lot of rain the last few days so I thought I'd give it a go. In two hours I pulled over four fairly big (12-16 inches diameter at the base) oaks - a red oak, two white oaks, and a post oak.
Two came out fairly easy but on two I had to cut a couple of roots. On the largest one, I had to cut one root on the backside but the root was kind of exposed from the initial pulls so I was able to make a plunge cut into the root without messing up my old chain more than it already was.
Now that the trees are down, I'll leave a 10-12 sections attached to the stumps end push the end around in a circle until all of the roots pop free.
I used a 24 foot extension ladder to get a 5/8 choker cable as high into the trees as possible. Then I used a combination of chain and tow straps to make sure my a had more length than the height of the tree. It would probably be safer to use a long cable of the appropriate size but I don't have one.
As you can see in the pictures, I left the landscape rake on the 3pt. The tow strap rides between the tines and I'm hoping the rake could provide some protection against a flying strap or chain. I did have one close call when a strap broke and the hook flew 50' and landed abeam the tractor. That was the first tree and I switched to larger straps after that. I'm thinking of welding expanded mesh to the bottom (non-folding half) of the ROPS for extra piece of mind but I'd welcome any other comments from the safety minded. I've seen people put an old blanket over the chain/cable/strap when pulling. Does that really provide anything other than piece of mind?
Two came out fairly easy but on two I had to cut a couple of roots. On the largest one, I had to cut one root on the backside but the root was kind of exposed from the initial pulls so I was able to make a plunge cut into the root without messing up my old chain more than it already was.
Now that the trees are down, I'll leave a 10-12 sections attached to the stumps end push the end around in a circle until all of the roots pop free.
I used a 24 foot extension ladder to get a 5/8 choker cable as high into the trees as possible. Then I used a combination of chain and tow straps to make sure my a had more length than the height of the tree. It would probably be safer to use a long cable of the appropriate size but I don't have one.
As you can see in the pictures, I left the landscape rake on the 3pt. The tow strap rides between the tines and I'm hoping the rake could provide some protection against a flying strap or chain. I did have one close call when a strap broke and the hook flew 50' and landed abeam the tractor. That was the first tree and I switched to larger straps after that. I'm thinking of welding expanded mesh to the bottom (non-folding half) of the ROPS for extra piece of mind but I'd welcome any other comments from the safety minded. I've seen people put an old blanket over the chain/cable/strap when pulling. Does that really provide anything other than piece of mind?