question on felling a tree

[s219]

My logging rope (3/4" thick) has a 16,000 pound working load. I don't even have equipment that can exceed that -- my stuff will break before the rope! Regardless, all cable/rope/chain has risks of some sort. They will all take your head off if they break, some worse than others in a given scenario. You always need to be careful and think about what will happen when something breaks, and what direction it will go in.

 

[Jstpssng]

Glad to hear you got the tree down. :thumbsup: A plethora of good ideas here and here's kne more; the working load of your rope/cable/chain is based on new values... Those will decrease over time as you stress and work them.

 

[Midniteoyl]

My logging rope (3/4" thick) has a 16,000 pound working load. I don't even have equipment that can exceed that -- my stuff will break before the rope! Regardless, all cable/rope/chain has risks of some sort. They will all take your head off if they break, some worse than others in a given scenario. You always need to be careful and think about what will happen when something breaks, and what direction it will go in.

Ya, I have some 1/2" that used to bring down a chimney.. over 8000lbs I believe it was rated at.

Who wants to climb a tree with a chain?

 

[Sigarms]

One good investment I made after I had some professionals come out years ago to take down some 40'-50' footers leaning directly over the house was that rope. Forget the tensile strength of that rope I bought at the "tree store", but it was up there.

I can still remember the way those guys climbed to the top of those trees and used rope and pulleys to lower limbs down piece by piece. When they first came out to quote the job I asked them how they intended to get the bucket truck down by the house (I was worried due to the lawn / other surrounding trees and slope the house was on from some previous quotes I had gotten using a bucket truck) and they laughed. Watching those guys use rope, pulleys and some pretty small chain saws for the "high work" was really kind of like watching a work of art.

 

[Egon]

Talking about the strength of the rop, cable or chain don't forget the limit of the fastening device and the type of connection made!:thumbsup:

Royal Oak anchour chain anyone?

 

[dmccarty]

One good investment I made after I had some professionals come out years ago to take down some 40'-50' footers leaning directly over the house was that rope. Forget the tensile strength of that rope I bought at the "tree store", but it was up there.

I can still remember the way those guys climbed to the top of those trees and used rope and pulleys to lower limbs down piece by piece. When they first came out to quote the job I asked them how they intended to get the bucket truck down by the house (I was worried due to the lawn / other surrounding trees and slope the house was on from some previous quotes I had gotten using a bucket truck) and they laughed. Watching those guys use rope, pulleys and some pretty small chain saws for the "high work" was really kind of like watching a work of art.

When we lived in the city many of the lots, ours included, had large numbers of big pine trees. After the hurricanes, one of the neighbors had all of the pine trees on his lot take out. If any of these pines had fallen on a house, the tree would have gone to the slab destroying everything on the way down. He removed some of the risk since his neighbors did not cut down their trees...

Anyhow, the tree company took 3-4 days to cut down the trees and dig up stumps. Those tree monkeys climbed up those pines and set up ropes to control the direction that the logs fell. The only thing that hit his house MIGHT have been some pine needles. They did an amazing job with just a chainsaw, rope and climbing gear. Very impressive.

Later,
Dan

 

[Pilot]

Years ago at work we went to check out a skyline logging job being done by an innovative logger. He used over a mile of skyline, 1 12" cable (Gee, it's bee a very long time since I worked with skyline systems, I'm not sure what size they used back then. His was larger than standard.) A skyline system uses a tower at the top of the hill, a skyline (cable) running to an anchor tree at the bottom of the hill. A trolley rides on the cable and another cable pulls the trolley up and down the hill, carrying the logs with it, sometimes clear of the ground. Imagine just the weight of 1 1/2 inch cable a mile long, then put it under tension to carry a 10,000 pound load. Anyway, we walked off the side of the corridor, down to the bottom of the hill, then back up. Half way up, the splice on the anchor tree broke, the cable whipped around and cut a 16" hemlock in half. Where we were, 75 ft. off to the side and way up the hill, the cable just whipped up and down. A few minutes earlier, we would have been cut with that hemlock.

 

[jerrybob]

Congrats on getting the tree down.....now that you're an experienced tree feller.....don't be surprised when the neighbors ask for help!:laughing:

 

[LD1]

Besides using the rope or a cable you can cut the hinge to help guide tree fall in a given direction. I have done this just to see if it works and it does. If I remember right, right you have the hinge thinner in the direction you want the tree to fall.

Thats backwards. You leave a thicker hinge on the side you want it to fall/pull to. The hinge is what guides it on the way down.

Conservative estimate, but only about 20' from the house (7 o'clock position) LOL

Tree came down no problem with rope and the truck.

I really shouldn't say no problem, as I wasn't thinking and my v notch wasn't as low as I would of liked. Ended up using a wedge and giving the truck (w/100' rope lol) some gas and it came down right where I wanted it.

Glad everything went well.

 

[Danno1]

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Now that it's done...

What I do is use 2 ropes/cables and 2 vehicles. One at 1 o'clock and one at 5 o'clock pulling diagonally will drop the tree right in the middle at 3 o'clock with less chance of spinning/twisting on the way down.



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