Practical Tree Repair

I like the part where you could opt to burn out the punk wood with a gas torch before filling the cavity with your choice of either tar, asphalt or concrete.
 
Very cool. Thanks for posting that.

One of my mentors (very successful treeguy who is in his eighties) swears by cavity fills. He claims that WW2 was the end of the practice. Up until then the fills were done carefully and correctly, after the war the price of labor went up and cavity fills became more aesthetic with sub standard material as the fill.

I considered doing a fill on an elm tree this past spring. His estimated cost was about $30k :O
 
Dunno, but I charge extra for trees filled with not-so-chainsaw friendly materials.
 
I saw one in town a few years back .I don't know what the tree was ,most likely a soft maple but the concrete after they peeled the tree away from it was about 6 feet high and as big around as a barrel . Looked rather odd standing there like some kind of a statue .
 
Very cool. Thanks for posting that.

One of my mentors (very successful treeguy who is in his eighties) swears by cavity fills. He claims that WW2 was the end of the practice. Up until then the fills were done carefully and correctly, after the war the price of labor went up and cavity fills became more aesthetic with sub standard material as the fill.

I considered doing a fill on an elm tree this past spring. His estimated cost was about $30k :O


What did he recommend using that would cost so much?
 
I guess its the labor that goes into taking out all the punky wood, then arranging steel rods within the cavity, then doing the fill. He told me they used to mix cement and asbestos for fill in the old days:O

too labor intensive to be cost effective.

He's got some great slides of fills he did a looooong time ago, when they are done right a trunk cavity can all but disappear.
 
That's great stuff.

I'm thinking of trading the orchard ladder for scaffolding.
 
Nah. I wouldn't buy that snake oil. :drink:


The guy is in his eighties, and the most successful tree guy I've ever met. He has homes in Maine, on the Waterfront of Downtown Boston, St. Croix in the virgin islands, and takes his sail boat all over the world....

He always talks a big game about cavity fills, and I thought it would be an interesting thing to witness, so I called his bluff. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I always say..
 
Oh I think that concrete worked ,at least for a while ,maybe decades by the looks of it .However ,in these parts those trees eventually get to the point they are nothing but a hollow shell .A big wind or ice storm comes along and they smash cars ,homes and make a mell of a hess . Then the trimmers have more work than they can shake a stick at for a while .

They planted soft maple by the millions after and even before the Dutch elm thing .The maples grow like a weed but are prone to cavity rot after maybe 50-60 years . Those ones planted in the turn of the last century by this time are enormously fat around the middle . Between 4 to 5 foot accross is not uncommon on those still standing .
 

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