A Shrub's Revenge

[Gypo Logger]

I'm sure you guys have a few stories to tell like this one.
John

 

[Stumper]

6 important words: Hire someone with a stump grinder.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Is this somehow related to George W?

:angel:

 

[DDM]

I saw a guy a couple of weeks ago Destroy the rearend in a Brand new JD Riding mower trying to pull up 6" Pine stumps.

Idiot

 

[JJackson]

Mr. K should have put some heavy blankets or weight in the middle of the pull rope and probably should have used a strap or rope desinged for pulling. never hurts to turn the truck around and put the hood up for a little more protection. I figured his bumper would give first.

 

[Dan F]

Originally posted by Gypo Logger
I'm sure you guys have a few stories to tell like this one.
John

Sort of.

Being a landscaper, this didn't involve trees directly, but the ravine was wooded. Does that count?

We were putting in a stepping stone path through a ravine, needed to cross a creek about 3-4 times. Had some HUGE sandstone ledgestones to cross the creek with, each wieghed ~4000 pounds. The only way we could set them was with a telescopic boom 4wd forklift (Lull Skytrak). We winched the ledgestones down the ravine side, they were strapped to a skid, which was sitting on pipes acting as rollers. Got all of the stones down the hill, no problem. Had a Superwinch 9500 mounted on a cradle in the rear hitch of a 4wd F-450 crew cab, used that as the "brake".

Tried to take the Skytrak down to the bottom with a different route, but it was too muddy. So, got the bright idea to take it down the same hill as the stones, using the winch as a brake. Mind you, this hill was steep enough it was hard to get enough traction to stand upright in some places... Ran the winch cable through a tie-down hole on the rear of the machine, then *clipped the hook back onto the cable*.

Had the machine about 3/4 of the way down the hill when it happened. Fortunately, about 30 seconds before the cable broke, I had conciously made the decision to move to the side, to the full reach of the 12' remote lead of the winch control, JUST IN CASE something happened. Then it did!

That cable (probably about 60' of it it) came flying back up the hill in a HUGE coil, and slammed into the back doors of the truck bed. I was *really* glad the doors were there, or else we probably would have had a broken rear window! I would have been in a world of hurt had I not moved right before it happened.

Oh, and the guy driving the Skytrak...? He was able to get it to the bottom of the hill by that point, though I'm sure it was a VERY high pucker factor for him!

Sorry if the story was long, but I'm still amazed no one got hurt on that job, IIRC, we winched over 20 tons of stone over the hill.....


Dan