Biggest wood blocked down ?

[Rftreeman]

Sometimes the big bid will bite you in the butt, they see you know what you are talking about and are more comfortable with you then guy in the ripped t-shirt and camo pants...

Hey!!! :angry2: I wear camo pants sometimes............but all my shirts are button up uniform shirts or golf shirts.........just kidding around with you..

 

[oldirty]

as much as i love to "pound" the lawn and just let it fly rarely if ever does it happen. not on my 9to5 at least. some of the neighborhoods we roll through have far too much to lose for an all out wood assault. so its the rign game for that stuff.

i hear ya though clearance, having all that bizness going on while you too are on the wood is a bit hairy, but its gotta be done if you want to have success in the rez side of our work.



oldirty

 

[beastmaster]

In the mid 80's when I was working the lake arrowhead,crestline,bigbear area, we worked a lot of high risk jobs on huge pines over expensive properties that were inaccessible to a crane. I remember this young hot shot who was drop and catching a medium size top along the highway in lake arrow head. The tree was vary healthy looking, but it broke at the base. The tree fell through the 12000v wires. The climber rode it down, and lived long enough to be air lifted to a hospital, where he died. His last words were" Oh f%#k. I checked out the break on the 5ft stump that was left and the wood was pulpy and wet. I never had the same confidence again on catching big wood again.

 

[beowulf343]

Pounding stuff down is fun, but unfortunately i get paid the big bucks so usually get the jobs where everything needs to be roped down. Usually not a big enough drop zone to park a bicycle in much less drop chunks into. And hundreds of yards away from the nearest crane access.

We run into alot of huge cottonwoods along the lake shore-beautiful mansions, perfect lawns, in ground pools, and cottonwoods right in the middle of it all that have gotten too big. The 395 is a common companion in the trees. Usually a 48" will get the job done and have one with a 36" for the smaller stuff. Blocking down 50"+ happens weekly. To be honest, picked up a 441 this summer to give it a shot, but just too small-by the time the 357 is too small, it's time to bring out something bigger than a 441. No better feeling than setting a 395 into a stem while 30 feet up and watching the chips fly!

 

[clearance]

That is a really sad account Beast.
This topic comes up from time to time, lowering big wood.
I one hand, sometimes I free climb, but those choices are totally in my hands. The wood is not, I have climbed big, green and healthy looking hemlocks that were just pipes, like an inch of good wood all around the outside. I have climbed dead pines, when I fall the top it shatters into thousands of bits.
I only pound it, so i can put every piece in the same spot, if thats all you do you will get good at it as well. There is almost always somewhere good to put it.
So. if you want to lower, be safe, think twice about what you are doing and how much of a shock the spar will take.
Jomoco, I don't appreciate the slur "thats when experienced pros get called in" I could lower stuff too, why not when you have all the time in the world to do it?

 

[jomoco]

That is a really sad account Beast.
This topic comes up from time to time, lowering big wood.
I one hand, sometimes I free climb, but those choices are totally in my hands. The wood is not, I have climbed big, green and healthy looking hemlocks that were just pipes, like an inch of good wood all around the outside. I have climbed dead pines, when I fall the top it shatters into thousands of bits.
I only pound it, so i can put every piece in the same spot, if thats all you do you will get good at it as well. There is almost always somewhere good to put it.
So. if you want to lower, be safe, think twice about what you are doing and how much of a shock the spar will take.
Jomoco, I don't appreciate the slur "thats when experienced pros get called in" I could lower stuff too, why not when you have all the time in the world to do it?

If you choose to think I was referring to you in my statement Clearance, you're mistaken and need to lighten up a notch.

Dead and mangled climbers in the Arrowhead and Big Bear areas of California are a tragic but predictable and all too common aspect of combining big bucks and green climbers with limited experience and large conifer removals.

Dozens and dozens have lost their lives or been seriously crippled since the
80's in those areas alone. The climber in Beast's post must have been either a bit green or downright foolish to try and catch the complete head on a large live conifer that way, it's unnecessary, unsafe and he paid the price. I'm thoroughly shocked that number one, his rigging held together under that kind of overwhelming shockloading, and number two, that a live tree with a 5 ft base with no glaring base wood defect would actually fail prior to the rigging line snapping in that situation, there's something kinda peculiar about that scenario that don't calculate well.

I"ve chained and let fly some huge conifer heads from over 150 ft up many times, but would never ever be foolhardy enough to even think about trying to catch that much weight, it'd be suicide. I go for a plenty big enough ride when those big heads simply push off the chained spars I'm left on and plummet towards the ground below.

That poor climber was a fool, but I'd love to know what kind of bull line he used to catch that much weight without snapping, I'll buy a couple 600 ft spools of it!

jomoco

 

[Mitchell]

comprimise

one comprimise I use to catch bigger wood but not load the stem is to tie it up with just enough rope that it will hit the ground but go no further. Or I have let big chunks ride down a vertical speed line. Most energy is transfered to the ground. Obviously the scenario calls for at least some real estate to work with.
I messed it up once and snapped a 3/4 inch line but the rope angle on the stem meant I felt no shock load. fortunately the log rolled down the bank and stopped on another tree [the only one!]before it got some steam up.

 

[treejunkie13]

My fav bigger saw in the tree is nothin' other than the 3 7 deuce (372) full wrap handle, 22" bar. As far as big, big chunks, avg. 30 - 36" a handful over 40"+. I fashion the snap cut 95% of the time, make my cuts, park the saw, and shove off to the target zone.
My client's always get what they want to pay for. That being said 9 of 10 get dents in the yard, I can't say how many times I've heard "If you can fit that over there and not on my house I don't care what the yard looks like".
Then there is the "Don't bend a blade of grass!" jobs. Which in a odd way I do like. My down fall is a good groundie. When it's got to be good below I find myself on the ground doing it right and contracting another climber.
A job that stands out to me for some big rigging was last winter I had a LARGE Red Oak right at the corner of a house, the butt was huge and went for about 10' then forked into two leads going right over the house. My only leverage option was insane. And I wanted to make logs (a little bonus). 1-12', 2-10', 2-8', 1-6' out of those two forks smallest dia. was 18" largest was 28" lots of weight all done with rope and block. And some BIG eyes!

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

There are always going to be removals like these that you can't get a crane to, and blocking (catching) them down is the only viable practical method of getting them safely on the ground. That's what the Hobbs and GRCS devices are made for.

I think the catching part is what gets most people, using a good rigging device (sic) that will allow a person to lower will take most of the shock loading out of the system. Most of the time one has to catch the load, the spar is short and will not move much. There are allways exceptions, heavy leans will move more, over a roof needs a catch, though scaffold may come in to those jobs.

that a live tree with a 5 ft base with no glaring base wood defect would actually fail prior to the rigging line snapping in that situation, there's something kinda peculiar about that scenario that don't calculate well.

That is how I felt too, I knew wood grew to compensate for loss of strength before reading Mattheck, he helped me understand it better and lead me to other peoples writings.

Anecdotes like that and Dr. Pete's death lead me to believe that it is safe for an experienced person to rig trees down.

I've walked away from a number of trees that turned out to be OK, on the grounds that I did not like how the trunk growth was expressing inner problems. The few that turned out that I was right make me confidant that this is digression being valorous.

I've also walked up to trees that my client expected to rig, and told that I would only bomb.

I do not hold it against Jim for wanting to rig big wood, it is not what he does on a regular basis. If he thinks it is retarded, I think he has not seen it done properly.

I'm glad Jo did handled the retarded part diplomatically, I think it diffused some flaming bombs that may have been lobbed.

........just kidding around with you..

Good, I really get confused by people who dress like garbage pickers, then complain that they are not respected as a professional.

 

[beastmaster]

In the tree I was referring to, it wasn't a 5' base but 5' of stump (where it broke)from the ground. The dia was probably 36" at the breaking point. Still a good size tree. I didn't see the rigging or the bull line your interested in, or even the size of the top the kid took, but he was a hotshot but not a fool I think. The tree had a hidden defect, that was my point. I inspected it the next day with my crew. Every one was saying they should of took a core sample before ,but who does that on a normal healthy tree?

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I inspected it the next day with my crew. Every one was saying they should of took a core sample before ,but who does that on a normal healthy tree?

That is a bit over the top, I've never done that, but I thump every large tree I go up.