Anyone ever damaged a tombstone?

[woodchux]

.
And yes I've got pics of it laying on the schools bank being lifted by the 120 ton hydro the crane company sent out with an experienced operator to stand that puny 30 ton back up on it's tires again.

jomoco- you know your gonna have to post those pics now...

 

[jomoco]

jomoco- you know your gonna have to post those pics now...

I've been looking for them and tripping down memory lane at some of the old photos I have from way back when.

 

[DK_stihl]

cranes pics

Is that an old Ford L8000?

 

[jomoco]

This thread interested me because I have of course worked lots of cemetaries over the decades as I'm sure many others have.

I was removing big nasty spindly eucs at glenn abbey here in southern SD county, and had started the day with a heavily leaning lemon euc I could drop and winch up with the crane butt first, it barber chaired on me and I had to abandon my 044 in the cut and run for my life. Luckily the 44 survived intact and unscathed.

Then a big 100 foot spindly secondary growth citriodora euc that had to be very carefully roped next.

I'm halfway through that when we break for lunch. I wolf lunch down so I can walk down and check out the mausoleum under a pine grove. I'm walking into the pine grove at the cemetary when I notice this huge old owl standing on the lowest branch of the biggest stone pine in the grove. I thought cool and walked up under the tree expecting the huge owl to fly so I could see how big it's wingspan was, but the old guy wouldn't fly, though he did keep a keen and fierce eye on me. When I got within 15 feet of the old guy I realised he was too old and beat to fly anymore, he could only hiss at me and implore me with his fierce eyes to leave him in peace to die in his favorite grove of trees.

It was a bit unusual and un-nerving at first, but I decided it was more cool than creepy as I left the old guy to die in peace and knocked the rest of that nasty euc out with a little more precision and vigor than usual.

I like working cemetaries now.

jomoco

 

[oldirty]

deep jomoco.



hey wll. i had to flip a crane back onto her feet one day with a polesaw and then pile the CO back in to finish the job. the tough old bastid finished the job with a spiral fracture to his leg he got from diving out the cab.


lol.


pdq, sorry to hear you got a knucklehead operating your equipment. sucks.

 

[jomoco]

Is that an old Ford L8000?

Yup, and we took down thousands of trees together. And the guy that operates it is one of the best in smaller cranes I've ever had the pleasure of working with. He now runs a new national 15 ton crane. He's a true pro.

jomoco

 

[Blakesmaster]

i had to flip a crane back onto her feet one day with a polesaw

All right, Mr. Bunyan, I'll bite. How does that work?

 

[pdqdl]

Dude! You have got to be kidding....You must tell us more! Got any pics?

No. I deliberately didn't take any pictures. I am ashamed that I even let those fools go there without me. It was incomprehensible how they did it. I guess I can admit to what they did:

They went to the cemetary ill-prepared for a large tree, and didn't have any of the "big" saws. We have an agreement to remove a number of trees "in our spare time", so we went there that day to keep the crew busy. The manager at the cemetary pointed at the largest tree there, and they stupidly went to work on a job that they were unqualified for. I was not consulted, despite the fact that the crew had communication.

My climber took off the bottom 1/2 of the tree, then chickened out, and decided to flop the tree. There were no phone calls to me until my truck was on it's side. They were using our 6 ton knuckleboom crane to pull over a 4' dbh dead oak tree. It was big, in every respect. Too bad they didn't have any big saws with them, because he was gnawing on this monster with a 24" bar.

After they decided the crane couldn't pull the tree over, they got some help. The idiots at the cemetary (their supervisor said he would never have approved) put their backhoe pushing against the back cut side. That wasn't enough, either. You would have thought that SOMEBODY would have figured out it was easier to cut the tree down than to break it off!. So they attached our one ton truck to the MIDDLE of the rope the crane was attached to and then continued to gnaw on the tree with the undersized saw. I guess the guy in the one ton figured he would step on the gas and pull the tree over. There was apparently no coordination of efforts.

Everything moved but the tree.

As you can imagine, the crane was pulled over by the idiot in the F-350. This left a 65' tall dead tree that could not be safely climbed: at least 1/2 of the trunk had been cut, and there was no way to assess how strong the remaining trunk was. In fact, when we roped down one of the upper branches, the whole trunk shook in a scary fashion. I figured that too much of that, and we might break off the last of the holding wood, and crush the bucket truck with the operator in it.

When I finished the tree yesterday, I tried to evaluate how much wood had NOT been cut on the original attempts to pull the tree over. There was a strip of wood only 4" from the bark that had not been cut. Most of the back cut was only 12" to 18" deep, which means that there was NO WAY that tree was coming over yet.

We brought the tree down to about 33' tall trunk section, and I polished it off about 5'-6' above the ground, about 18" above the previous cuts. Even with a notch to about 1/2 tree diameter, wedges pounded in hard on the back side, we still had to pull that behemoth over with the truck. I tested the tension on the line [TIGHT!], and went back to the tree to take out more of the hinge wood. When the tree finally flopped, there was only about 1/2" of hinge wood left.

My sincere thanks to AS member Garfield, who brought his bucket truck on short notice to help me finish the job. I could have rented an aerial unit, but it would not have been as well suited for the job.

 

[Blakesmaster]

No. I deliberately didn't take any pictures. I am ashamed that I even let those fools go there without me. It was incomprehensible how they did it. I guess I can admit to what they did:

They went to the cemetary ill-prepared for a large tree, and didn't have any of the "big" saws. We have an agreement to remove a number of trees "in our spare time", so we went there that day to keep the crew busy. The manager at the cemetary pointed at the largest tree there, and they stupidly went to work on a job that they were unqualified for. I was not consulted, despite the fact that the crew had communication.

My climber took off the bottom 1/2 of the tree, then chickened out, and decided to flop the tree. There were no phone calls to me until my truck was on it's side. They were using our 6 ton knuckleboom crane to pull over a 4' dbh dead oak tree. It was big, in every respect. Too bad they didn't have any big saws with them, because he was gnawing on this monster with a 24" bar.

After they decided the crane couldn't pull the tree over, they got some help. The idiots at the cemetary (their supervisor said he would never have approved) put their backhoe pushing against the back cut side. That wasn't enough, either. You would have thought that SOMEBODY would have figured out it was easier to cut the tree down than to break it off!. So they attached our one ton truck to the MIDDLE of the rope the crane was attached to and then continued to gnaw on the tree with the undersized saw. I guess the guy in the one ton figured he would step on the gas and pull the tree over. There was apparently no coordination of efforts.

Everything moved but the tree.

As you can imagine, the crane was pulled over by the idiot in the F-350. This left a 65' tall dead tree that could not be safely climbed: at least 1/2 of the trunk had been cut, and there was no way to assess how strong the remaining trunk was. In fact, when we roped down one of the upper branches, the whole trunk shook in a scary fashion. I figured that too much of that, and we might break off the last of the holding wood, and crush the bucket truck with the operator in it.

When I finished the tree yesterday, I tried to evaluate how much wood had NOT been cut on the original attempts to pull the tree over. There was a strip of wood only 4" from the bark that had not been cut. Most of the back cut was only 12" to 18" deep, which means that there was NO WAY that tree was coming over yet.

We brought the tree down to about 33' tall trunk section, and I polished it off about 5'-6' above the ground, about 18" above the previous cuts. Even with a notch to about 1/2 tree diameter, wedges pounded in hard on the back side, we still had to pull that behemoth over with the truck. I tested the tension on the line [TIGHT!], and went back to the tree to take out more of the hinge wood. When the tree finally flopped, there was only about 1/2" of hinge wood left.

My sincere thanks to AS member Garfield, who brought his bucket truck on short notice to help me finish the job. I could have rented an aerial unit, but it would not have been as well suited for the job.

That sucks, man. Sorry to hear that. I can't believe anyone would hook to the middle of a pull line with a truck. What did they THINK would happen?

 

[pdqdl]

Apparently his understanding of physics is pretty weak. He thought it would add force to the pull on the tree.

I haven't fired him yet, but there are a bunch of training and work issues to resolve. The biggest problem is his inability to see why the tree didn't FALL over, instead of having to be forced over.

 

[oldirty]

All right, Mr. Bunyan, I'll bite. How does that work?

no tall tales here man.


i forget the make of the crane but it was the type with a one man cab to drive in and a cab to operate from. slick crane really.

anyway big pick on a pine and was lowering it into the side yard, the HO wanted the wood as is to work on it himself.

the college help and i were down there behind a garden and tree waiting to limb it up when i noticed her coming down a bit too fast. i grabbed the kid and my my saw and took off.....boom crash later i come out from behind the garden ( which btw was set down on an incline off the cul-de-sac) waving my finger in the air to cable up when i see the crane doing a hand stand on its boom. front of the crane completely off the ground.

i come running up the hill to the CO and he yells "polesaw" and i continue on running to the chip truck to get a polesaw out the box and run back to him.

from there he tells me what lever to pull and which to push until the crane is back onto her outriggers with the load off the boom. i **** you not she was up on her boom and back outriggers alone.


after getting her stable again dude says to me "get me up", so i pull him up to his feet. this is a big dude mind you and help him hobble to the steps. "get me up" he says again. to which i support half his weight as he muscles himself into the cab.

the tough old bird finished the job with a completely busted up leg. like 2 more hours then someone took him to the hospital.

first time i got to operate a crane though. lol

 

[TreeTopKid]

Never had an accident in a church yard but worked in plenty. When I was younger I used to have a phobia about the saw dust because I used to imagine the tree had sucked up body juice.

Anyone else have this phobia?

 

[brushbandit]

Apparently his understanding of physics is pretty weak. He thought it would add force to the pull on the tree.

I haven't fired him yet, but there are a bunch of training and work issues to resolve. The biggest problem is his inability to see why the tree didn't FALL over, instead of having to be forced over.

He may have a better understanding of physics than you think. Pulling sideways on a line already tensioned increases the force of the pull quite a bit. I think by nearly a factor of three minus any stretch in the rope. He obviously doesn't have a good understanding of the holding power of wood.

 

[Blakesmaster]

no tall tales here man.


i forget the make of the crane but it was the type with a one man cab to drive in and a cab to operate from. slick crane really.

anyway big pick on a pine and was lowering it into the side yard, the HO wanted the wood as is to work on it himself.

the college help and i were down there behind a garden and tree waiting to limb it up when i noticed her coming down a bit too fast. i grabbed the kid and my my saw and took off.....boom crash later i come out from behind the garden ( which btw was set down on an incline off the cul-de-sac) waving my finger in the air to cable up when i see the crane doing a hand stand on its boom. front of the crane completely off the ground.

i come running up the hill to the CO and he yells "polesaw" and i continue on running to the chip truck to get a polesaw out the box and run back to him.

from there he tells me what lever to pull and which to push until the crane is back onto her outriggers with the load off the boom. i **** you not she was up on her boom and back outriggers alone.


after getting her stable again dude says to me "get me up", so i pull him up to his feet. this is a big dude mind you and help him hobble to the steps. "get me up" he says again. to which i support half his weight as he muscles himself into the cab.

the tough old bird finished the job with a completely busted up leg. like 2 more hours then someone took him to the hospital.

first time i got to operate a crane though. lol

I imagined something way more AWESOME in my head but that works.

 

[DK_stihl]

not body juice...

Never had an accident in a church yard but worked in plenty. When I was younger I used to have a phobia about the saw dust because I used to imagine the tree had sucked up body juice.

Anyone else have this phobia?

It would be more toxic than anything else, considering that the corpses are embalmed with formaldahyde.....

 

[TreeTopKid]

It would be more toxic than anything else, considering that the corpses are embalmed with formaldahyde.....

I hadn't even thought about that. I'm over it now! I would think anything is pretty well filtered by the time it gets into the stem. Not a nice thought!

 

[jomoco]

The Fort Rosecrans Natnl Cemetary in Point Loma has to be one of the most spectacularly beautiful military cemetaries in the US.

http://www.fodors.com/world/north-america/usa/california/san-diego/review-176747.html

I have a brother in law who saw action in WW2 in the navy buried there.

I have also done lots of dead and dying monterrey cypress removals there with and without a crane. These magnificent trees are also known as California Cypress or Cuppressus macrocarpa. These are landmark CA seaside conifers that used to dot the CA coast from Oregon to Imperial Beach in socal. But no longer in San diego or socal in general. These old magnificent trees have pretty much bit the dust here from cypress canker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monterey_Cypress

And yes, I have rattled many a veteran's venerated bones, dropping the huge bases of these trees between rows of graves, on trees the crane could not access.

It saddens me that these unique coastal CA conifers are dying out here in my area of CA.

May they rest in peace.

jomoco

 

[pdqdl]

I hadn't even thought about that. I'm over it now! I would think anything is pretty well filtered by the time it gets into the stem. Not a nice thought!

Nothing toxic at all about formaldehyde, unless you get too much at once. Our bodies make tiny amounts of formaldehyde (and other nasty chemicals) as a byproduct of our own biochemistry. Our liver is somewhat specialized to process those problems. Unless I am mistaken, the enzyme in our liver that disposes of alcohol (think Friday nights after payday) is the same or similar to the enzyme that takes care of formaldehyde.

We also have enzymes in every cell to take care of some of the nastier byproducts of our metabolism. That's why hydrogen peroxide bubbles up when you put it on a cut: the enzymes released by the damaged cells are just doing what they do best: catalyzing the reaction. Peroxides are another damaging byproduct toxic to us, yet made by us.



Also, I don't really know embalming, but I don't think they use formaldehyde anymore, if they ever did.

 

[DK_stihl]

Formaldehyde

Nothing toxic at all about formaldehyde, unless you get too much at once. Our bodies make tiny amounts of formaldehyde (and other nasty chemicals) as a byproduct of our own biochemistry. Our liver is somewhat specialized to process those problems. Unless I am mistaken, the enzyme in our liver that disposes of alcohol (think Friday nights after payday) is the same or similar to the enzyme that takes care of formaldehyde.

We also have enzymes in every cell to take care of some of the nastier byproducts of our metabolism. That's why hydrogen peroxide bubbles up when you put it on a cut: the enzymes released by the damaged cells are just doing what they do best: catalyzing the reaction. Peroxides are another damaging byproduct toxic to us, yet made by us.



Also, I don't really know embalming, but I don't think they use formaldehyde anymore, if they ever did.

I guess that they still use it sometimes, but I'm sure you're right about the small amounts. Anything is harmful if you get too much of it.

Check this out http://www.embalming.net/arterial.htm

 

[TreeTopKid]

Nothing toxic at all about formaldehyde, unless you get too much at once. Our bodies make tiny amounts of formaldehyde (and other nasty chemicals) as a byproduct of our own biochemistry. Our liver is somewhat specialized to process those problems. Unless I am mistaken, the enzyme in our liver that disposes of alcohol (think Friday nights after payday) is the same or similar to the enzyme that takes care of formaldehyde.

We also have enzymes in every cell to take care of some of the nastier byproducts of our metabolism. That's why hydrogen peroxide bubbles up when you put it on a cut: the enzymes released by the damaged cells are just doing what they do best: catalyzing the reaction. Peroxides are another damaging byproduct toxic to us, yet made by us.



Also, I don't really know embalming, but I don't think they use formaldehyde anymore, if they ever did.

Thanks! It was the biological stuff that used to worry me when I was a kid anyway. I'm sure embalming fluid is a chemical recipe, but back in the day I used to hold my breath and all kinds of stuff not breath in the dust!