pantheraba
More biners!!!
We are getting a site ready for a metal building (1200 sq. ft) and some trees needed to be removed to make room. I had already removed 2 largish oaks, maybe 70 ft, not too many limbs...was able to bomb a lot of the trees. I left about a 30 foot spar, dug out the root ball with an excavator and pushed the spars over...worked very well. We got a roll-off dumpster brought in and used the T300 Bobcat to push them into the dumpster.
I then got to looking at a large oak that was leaning somewhat towards the new building site...it was probably 80 feet and too tall to fall whole due to "keeper trees" that would get damaged. Piecing it out would have been tedious...especially since some of the limbs were high up and towards power lines. There was room to dump a large top onto the building site....about a 40-50 foot top. I knew that would be probably the biggest top I have taken so I set up some cameras. I also had a few wonderings about this tree. It had a pretty good lean already. The other two smaller/younger oaks had some hollowness so I thought there may be some with this tree, too.
Long story short...I made a small face cut and encountered some hollow. We already had a good pull line to assist...if the top somehow went to the right (the center of mass of the limbs/leaves appeared to be towards the "right" which would have taken down two high voltage lines). We had the pull rope pretty high in the top and a very slight tensioning with the Bobcat. I started my back cut on the right high voltage side of the tree. I planned to set a thick hinge and then retreat to my tie-in tree (about 15 feet away) as we let the Bobcat pull the tree over the hinge. As I made my back cut and got almost 2/3 around the tree towards setting the left side of the hinge (at about 8-9 inches from where I would have stopped I noticed the back cut open just a little. I killed the saw, released the lanyard and swung over to my safety spot. Herb tightened up just a smidge with the Bobcat and the top started over.
The tree was hollow enough that there was not enough wood to set a good hinge. My face cut had been fairly shallow (much less than 1/3) but with the top already leaning it did not take much to get the felling process rolling. I got a pretty good show as I watched the top go over and then rip a barber chair as it tipped over...it would have been a gut squasher for anyone still in the tree and on their lanyard.
In retrospect, I wonder if chaining the spar just below the face cut could have been a way to deal with the barber chair possibility. I did not know for sure the tree was hollow that high up...did not bore cut it first. I have heard of doing a test bore cut at ground level but not at height.
I don't think kerf cuts below the face cut would have done any good at all...the barber chair was pretty substantial.
I would like to get input from y'all about this situation.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sZ02XShWlNM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I then got to looking at a large oak that was leaning somewhat towards the new building site...it was probably 80 feet and too tall to fall whole due to "keeper trees" that would get damaged. Piecing it out would have been tedious...especially since some of the limbs were high up and towards power lines. There was room to dump a large top onto the building site....about a 40-50 foot top. I knew that would be probably the biggest top I have taken so I set up some cameras. I also had a few wonderings about this tree. It had a pretty good lean already. The other two smaller/younger oaks had some hollowness so I thought there may be some with this tree, too.
Long story short...I made a small face cut and encountered some hollow. We already had a good pull line to assist...if the top somehow went to the right (the center of mass of the limbs/leaves appeared to be towards the "right" which would have taken down two high voltage lines). We had the pull rope pretty high in the top and a very slight tensioning with the Bobcat. I started my back cut on the right high voltage side of the tree. I planned to set a thick hinge and then retreat to my tie-in tree (about 15 feet away) as we let the Bobcat pull the tree over the hinge. As I made my back cut and got almost 2/3 around the tree towards setting the left side of the hinge (at about 8-9 inches from where I would have stopped I noticed the back cut open just a little. I killed the saw, released the lanyard and swung over to my safety spot. Herb tightened up just a smidge with the Bobcat and the top started over.
The tree was hollow enough that there was not enough wood to set a good hinge. My face cut had been fairly shallow (much less than 1/3) but with the top already leaning it did not take much to get the felling process rolling. I got a pretty good show as I watched the top go over and then rip a barber chair as it tipped over...it would have been a gut squasher for anyone still in the tree and on their lanyard.
In retrospect, I wonder if chaining the spar just below the face cut could have been a way to deal with the barber chair possibility. I did not know for sure the tree was hollow that high up...did not bore cut it first. I have heard of doing a test bore cut at ground level but not at height.
I don't think kerf cuts below the face cut would have done any good at all...the barber chair was pretty substantial.
I would like to get input from y'all about this situation.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sZ02XShWlNM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>