Palm trees.

[boboak]

I have a little land clearing job coming up. Mostly I'll falling stuff too big for the timbco. It's forty acres of pine and fir with a half dozen big palm trees just to make it interesting.

Pushing them over with the Cat isn't an option...too many leave trees and not enough room for the Cat to manuever.

I've never cut a palm tree. Can you just drop them like a fir or is it better to chunk them down? I can still climb enough to get the job done but I'd rather just dump them.

Any special techinique for palms? Anything in particular to watch out for?

Before anybody asks, napalm and explosives aren't an option either...but I wish they were.

[MasterBlaster]

Just throw the suckers.

[Skwerl]

They don't hinge exceptionally well but good enough. The wood is stringy and can hold a lot of water, so make sure your chain is sharp and don't crowd the saw or it may bind. It's also a bit heavier than you think. But yeah, throw them for sure.

[Mr. Sir]

Yup, what they said! :thumbup:

[cory]

I have a little land clearing job coming up. Mostly I'll falling stuff too big for the timbco.

Timbco, that's a serious machine. What model? What kind of cutter is on it?

[stehansen]

Me too.

[boboak]

Thanks guys. I still have my climbing gear but my sixty-two year old knees and hips weren't looking forward to it.

I'll follow your advice and just drop them. I guess you never really quit learning and doing new stuff.


Cory, I don't know what size Timbco...I mostly just ignore those damn things.

[cory]

Cory, I don't know what size Timbco...I mostly just ignore those damn things.

You mean model #s and stuff?

I saw one recently doing the cutting for a road widening project. It was absolutely amazing to me, those machines are fearsome! Just basic felling and stuff is fascinating, but one cut this guy did was crazy: it was in a big sycamore (approx 24"x 60') which was growing by a train station/parking area near the tracks, and it was on a fairly steep hill. Lots of Big high tension wires "everywhere" around it. This tree was too big or heavy to cut from the base so he reached up to full height (prob 25-30') and after some carefull fine tuning manuvering, he cut the whole top out (if you havent seen these machines, the cut takes literally 1 second) and then let the top down real fast and into the area it would fit in, before the top-heavy load could tip the machine. To see it in live action, it was really hairy.

[boboak]

You mean model #s and stuff?

I saw one recently doing the cutting for a road widening project. It was absolutely amazing to me, those machines are fearsome! Just basic felling and stuff is fascinating, but one cut this guy did was crazy: it was in a big sycamore (approx 24"x 60') which was growing by a train station/parking area near the tracks, and it was on a fairly steep hill. Lots of Big high tension wires "everywhere" around it. This tree was too big or heavy to cut from the base so he reached up to full height (prob 25-30') and after some carefull fine tuning manuvering, he cut the whole top out (if you havent seen these machines, the cut takes literally 1 second) and then let the top down real fast and into the area it would fit in, before the top-heavy load could tip the machine. To see it in live action, it was really hairy.

LOL...No, Cory...mostly I just ignore Timbcos as a whole. I've been around them quite a bit and I recognize the fact that they're an efficient, cost-effective, high production machine. They do get a lot of wood on the ground in hurry. They're part of logging now and I have to accept that. I don't have to like it, though.

[cory]

What don't you like about it, too much mechanization compared to the old days??

[boboak]

What don't you like about it, too much mechanization compared to the old days??

They put a lot of guys out work. But...so did the steam engine, and the automobile, the Cat, and the chainsaw. It's part of progress and I don't argue with that. Logging, especially in my part of the woods, is all about production. Mechanized harvesting is the way to go and only a fool would deny that.

But, having said that, let me say this. I was lucky enough to get into logging when we were still falling old growth Redwood. I've seen changes in machinery and methodology that nobody would have thought possible in those days. I've stuck with logging most of my life and for most of that time I've been on the saw. One guy, one saw, one tree at a time....nobody special, just another faller. When the last chainsaw is silent, when the last faller goes home at the end of the last day, and machinery takes over the woods, an ancient and honorable tradition will be gone forever. There's very little humanity in machinery and they don't tell very good stories at lunch-time either.

Timbcos remind me of that fact.

[Dave Shepard]

Nice post!

[Bermy]

Just make sure you clean your saw at the end of the day...palms will strip all the oil off it and the sap is corrosive to the alloy.

Leave a dirty palm cutting saw for a couple of days and your bar and chain will rust and the alloy under the clutch cover will turn to mush in spots. I use a plastic saw 021 or 250 for palm cutting...

[boboak]

Just make sure you clean your saw at the end of the day...palms will strip all the oil off it and the sap is corrosive to the alloy.

Leave a dirty palm cutting saw for a couple of days and your bar and chain will rust and the alloy under the clutch cover will turn to mush in spots. I use a plastic saw 021 or 250 for palm cutting...

Thanks. I'm glad there aren't more than there are.

[Skwerl]

Bermy, I believe it's from the salt in the sap. Salt eats up magnesium. Around here the oak sawdust does the same thing to my saws. But yeah, take the saw home and blow off all the crud from around the sprocket at the end of the day.

[stehansen]

The insides of my clutch covers are all pitted.

[CurSedVoyce]

You might have a lot of salt down there Steve. I don't have it up here so much. Mostly Iron and Magnesium rich soils.

[stehansen]

West side of the valley much saltier than the east. I work on the west about 10% of the time. I do some palms once in a while.

[CurSedVoyce]

Next time I loan a saw to Rob's brother I am checking it... He took down a palm recent but really cleaned the saw real good.. But ....
I did not realize this was a problem till this post. We don't have palms up here that I know of. Never done one and I doubt I ever will.. Fact is the one his brother took down was offered to me and I said NO THANKS.. Basically because I am soooooo not familiar with them and such..... I will learn more before I do them period!

[Bermy]

Bermy, I believe it's from the salt in the sap. Salt eats up magnesium. Around here the oak sawdust does the same thing to my saws. But yeah, take the saw home and blow off all the crud from around the sprocket at the end of the day.

I'm not sure of exactly what it is in the sap...but its nasty to saws!

Also, when felling palms, be aware they are very heavy with all the water in them, and the fibrous 'construction' they tend to 'squash down' on any cut and can pinch in a nano second. Have a couple of wedges to hand if there isn't a natural lean to take it over, or if you are chogging the stem down in sections.

[stig]

They put a lot of guys out work. But...so did the steam engine, and the automobile, the Cat, and the chainsaw. It's part of progress and I don't argue with that. Logging, especially in my part of the woods, is all about production. Mechanized harvesting is the way to go and only a fool would deny that.

But, having said that, let me say this. I was lucky enough to get into logging when we were still falling old growth Redwood. I've seen changes in machinery and methodology that nobody would have thought possible in those days. I've stuck with logging most of my life and for most of that time I've been on the saw. One guy, one saw, one tree at a time....nobody special, just another faller. When the last chainsaw is silent, when the last faller goes home at the end of the last day, and machinery takes over the woods, an ancient and honorable tradition will be gone forever. There's very little humanity in machinery and they don't tell very good stories at lunch-time either.

Timbcos remind me of that fact.

Im totally with you on that one. When the mechanical harvesters were introduced here, they put about 3/4 of the fallers on unemployment within a decade. 95% of the conifers here are of a size, that machines can handle.
I really used to HATE the damned thing, fantazise about putting karo syrup in their diesel tanks and such.

Now I see that they have taken a lot of the really dull backbreaking work out of manual logging, so I don't mind them anymore, or bemourn the loss of the "good old days".

However, they have developed models that can handle hardwood trees too, so I may change my mind about them yet. Since I'm mostly a hardwoods faller.

[Burnham]

Hopefully the time you're ready to retire will coincide with the domination by the mech. harvesters, Stig.

[squisher]

I hate feller/bunchers. Hate them, end of story. Big business rip off of our forests. Instead of paying a handfaller a good wage now the logger pays a giant payment on a machine so that he can produce enough to work for cheaper rates for the mill? That makes alot of sense to me? I don't see it as a natural progression, I see it as big business greed screwing the little guys a little more. I'll agree in order to log nowadays you have to do it, because the greedy bastards that hold all the cards need to make a few more billion dollars.

Feller/bunchers can bite my ass.:X

[stehansen]

Isn't there still a place for hand falling? Like where it's too steep.

[squisher]

Ya oversize and the worst of the worst most dangerous steep ground. Great day and age to be a handfaller. Not to mention that at my cutting prime, it made it very hard to break into, as more and more experienced fallers were being displaced by giant overpriced hunks of forest destroying machinery.

[stehansen]

My Grandfather used to have crews of up to 200 guys falling and bucking oak trees for firewood with hand saws in Santa Barbara county in the 1930's. Imagine what they could have done with chainsaws.

[squisher]

Handfalling used to be the top bush job around here. Really good money, dangerous as all hell, but it payed. Now it's all forked up. I resent missing out on it. Does it show.

[Burnham]

Not so's anyone would really notice, Justin.
:D

[stehansen]

Not a bit Squish.:roll:

[squisher]

If I moved locales I could have a really good falling job, standing offer. All highlead and heli blocks so just like mentioned before steeper than sh-t. My wife would never leave though. Both of our families are pretty firmly rooted in the okanagan.

[stig]

Hopefully the time you're ready to retire will coincide with the domination by the mech. harvesters, Stig.

Well, that will be the time to retire, all right. Ready or not.

I got into arborist work as a sideline about 25 years ago, and that fills up the void, that the harvesters have created, pretty well.
Tell you what, taking down a big tree in a small yard is more exciting than cutting scale for the paper industry any day, so really I shouldn't complain.
But like Boboak, I miss the whole: "one faller, one saw, one tree" thing a little.
At least I can still fall my mature hardwoods without having to look over my shoulder to see if I'm being overrun by a harvester, they can't quite handle those yet.

[boboak]

Thanks to everbody that gave me advice on cutting palms. They're not like anything I've ever cut. The day went well...other than a yappy little forester that I wanted to wrap in duct tape and tie to a tree somewhere out of earshot.

[Skwerl]

"yappy" :lol:

[Dave Shepard]

I pictured a little Yorkie with a foresters vest on.:lol:

[CurSedVoyce]

I pictured a little Yorkie with a foresters vest on.:lol:

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: