bleeding fir

[056kid]

I cut a 5 foot dead fir yesterday. When i got to where the rings where about 7 inches in diameter, sap started gushing from the kerf! In about 10 minets it seemed that 3 or 4 gallons poured from the tree. After she fell i could see the sap coming out of the stump like a sponge! It had not slowed down one bit! I am going to go back with a camera soon. Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon!?

 

[jamie]

yep

maybe not in such vast quantities but it happens

jamie

 

[Old Monkey]

Have you ever put a straw in your drink, then put your thumb over the top. As long as you keep your thumb on it you can pull the straw out of the drink and suspend a column of fluid. When you remove your thumb all the fluid drops out the bottom. Trees are like this. When you remove their tops its like taking your thumb off of th straw, only difference is the fluid has no place to go. When you cut the bottom you give it a place to go and it can be quite a mess.

 

[treeseer]

yeah it must be water not sap.

 

[clearance]

056-I have seen pitch pouring out of Doug. firs too, not quite that much though. That is why they used spring boards and put in the undercut and backcut 6'-10' above the ground in the old days. The pitch would bind and slow thier saws. If you put a flame too it, it burns like a torch.

 

[Old Monkey]

If you put a flame too it, it burns like a torch.

COOL!

 

[geofore]

Oaks

Had a few large red oaks do that, cut the top out today and come back tomorrow to take the stump down. Plunge cut into the center and it takes about 15 minutes for the sap/water to drain out. More so with a nearly dead or dead tree.

 

[vharrison2]

Interesting

 

[P_woozel]

056-I have seen pitch pouring out of Doug. firs too, not quite that much though. That is why they used spring boards and put in the undercut and backcut 6'-10' above the ground in the old days. The pitch would bind and slow thier saws. If you put a flame too it, it burns like a torch.

I'm thinkin it was to get above the root flare, and not waste time cutting something thats outside the scale cylinder.

 

[Old Monkey]

Had a few large red oaks do that, cut the top out today and come back tomorrow to take the stump down. Plunge cut into the center and it takes about 15 minutes for the sap/water to drain out. More so with a nearly dead or dead tree.

I don't know if it would make enough difference, but try collaring the tree at the base at the end of day one. I think it would make the wood lighter to haul on day two. I'm going to try this the next time I have to TD a big walnut as the sap burns my skin.

 

[clearance]

P.woozel- They cut conifers that don't have much of a swell butt high off the ground with spring boards cause the pitch would realy slow them. You can see old stumps all around here. When we fall a tree with a powersaw it makes no difference to us, but those guys had it tough. I have read books about logging in the old days, those guys make us all look like children.

 

[P_woozel]

hey, I'll buy that I've only used a handsaw in wildereness areas on smaller trees up to 24". I always figured they were just going where it was easier and made more sense from a recovery point of veiw.

 

[geofore]

walnut

I don't know if it would make enough difference, but try collaring the tree at the base at the end of day one. I think it would make the wood lighter to haul on day two. I'm going to try this the next time I have to TD a big walnut as the sap burns my skin.

That will happen on walnuts but it is far more evident if the tree has been standing a year or so without leaves, bark on tight. It's like it holds the dark sap and when you cut to fall the tree, it sprays you with juice. You can usually see the tree has a weep mark where the bark has a crack in it, that one will be loaded. Walnut sap makes me itch too.