By the Power of The Winch!!!

[John Paul Sanborn]

Nice neat pull of a leaning 85ft cottonwood. Takes some of the fun out, but we worked for only around 4 hours to get the little stuff out.

http://home.wi.rr.com/sanbornstrees/Poplar pull/DSC00240.JPG

Here we did the first stem, nice straight foward pull wish a fish pole to the bottom.

http://home.wi.rr.com/sanbornstrees/Poplar pull/DSC00241.JPG

Used the truck to redirct for a straight pull. Not much force on this one, it went over like a song with a big fat hinge.

http://home.wi.rr.com/sanbornstrees/Poplar pull/DSC00242.JPG

I've already cut up some of the limbs in this one, the bull went up to a crothc in the top 1/4 of the second stem, since it was over the house.

http://home.wi.rr.com/sanbornstrees/Poplar pull/DSC00243.JPG
We should have been able to steer it away from the house, but it wuld have gone into the spuce and birch, the latter you can see to the left. By this shot, i had already skidded a bunch of the top out using the pully on the dump and my pick-em-up truck.

The mulberry logs are from Friday when the solinoid pooped out on my buddies chipper.

http://home.wi.rr.com/sanbornstrees/Poplar pull/DSC00244.JPG

My brainbucket to give a little scale.

http://home.wi.rr.com/sanbornstrees/Poplar pull/DSC00245.JPG

There is the spruce I mentioned earlier. Nice how the 2 logs just feel together. And you can see a little of the lean in the stump.

Woulda been easy to rig it down too, but this was much faster and the cleanup is conscentrated into a vary narrow area. Most of the top landed near the chipper.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

Nice meaty hinge, did it draw down slowly?

i think i go with Stumper about wider across with hinge.

If you would center punch a fibre puller/hard lean to target, would you then center punch when creating similar pull artificially?

Nice pix!

 

[Stumper]

Working hard isn't necessarily bad but working smart is "mo' better"! Nice job!

 

[murphy4trees]

Anybody remember the thread on truck pull???? You had all the power you needed in the two trucks from the look of it... What's that you say???? Oh you don't trust the control of pulling with a truck... I agree it's unreliable... yet when used properly very effective...
Nice to have the option of breaking out the GRCS... yet those that don't have one, do have a truck... I also wonder about cambium damage on the anchor tree. I have yet to hear an answer to that concern.
JPS,
How did you set up the felling cuts... plunge cut with a back release??? Did you use wedges or just the rope??? How well does cottonwood hinge???
Pics of trees can give a very poor sense of scale... given the playset and lawn furniture... the tree sure doesn't look 85' tall... though i wouldn't doubt it if you say so.. 'cause I've shot pics of some monsters that look like any other tree on the small screen.. I remember seeing pictures of the Wye Oak and thinking... that doesn't look so big...
Did you tie the sling to the metal on that truck... I prefer to tie to the truck using a big shackle on a pindle hitch... Do you have the adapter to attach the GRCS directly to a class III hitch?? Might be nice to set something up on the chipper to attach the GRCS.

 

[Stumper]

Daniel, I get the impression that you didn't want the rope to slip on that Porty!

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I've pulled with a truck a few timesFor the big stem I needed to pull towards the hickory I was on.

Greg feels that the load is distributed evenly enough over the bark, so there is not usualy permanent damamge. Also there is the nature of the way the meristem can repair. IMO any damage would show up as fine shakes in the wood.

The first stem was a standard wide face with an even back cut. The second, my buddy did the back cut fat away from the lean to stear the pull a little as I cranked with my whole body in low gear. Then he evened out the cut for me to compleat the pull.

Cotton wood does not hinge well with big wood. Some smaller ones I did with a different company held all the way to the ground. But then those big ones were cut real high and had a lot of force coming down. Both stems landed right were we intended.

The sling was tied with a cow hitch to the plow rack for the first, easy pull. The second one we probably would have pulled the truck into the ditch.

I've used the truck mount, but do not own one yet. I don't have the class III hitch on my truck, I may if I get boxes vs. the current cap, so I have a place for the spare tire.

Oh and I rarely will bore cut on a leaner.

And we paced off 80 feet to the ditch and the tips just missed it, and the stump was cut high.

 

[pea]

Nice pictures

John,
Nice pictures and a nice job.

pea

 

[treeman82]

Daniel, what kind of place did you have to go to get a shackle that big? I went to a local ACE hardware store here a few weeks ago and the biggest they had was MAYBE half that size. I would SEVERELY doubt that Home Depot has anything that big either

 

[Burnham]

In my neck of the woods, you'd drop by the local logging supply shop and find those with no trouble. Does anyone do any logging near you?

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

i have several shackles bigger, 1 with numbers ground off to use for friction device.

i think that pulling a load with a truck and a Porty with ~3 wraps is a fair way to meter force on the line to the lift or pull the load. That done on firm ground, takes some of the risk and variable out of that.

i'm finding that with a strong leveraged pull, more flexing is available for slower movement and a lower to the ground tearoff point by plunge cutting the face (non side leaner). i got that idea from an Eric Sorenson/Stihl safety VHS of long ago; he explained that doing so led to less spitting up the center trunk; into the most valuable lumber at the widest end.

Especially on a strong head leaner he noted, though i have used it on a rear leaner; but not hard side leaners; as i beleive that would violate the resistance of going to the side, rather than into the focus of the facecuts.

Mr. Sorenson went on to describe how center plunging the face horizontally, eliminated older stiffer wood from the hinge, forcing the utilization of the evenly matched, hinge strips (that thus pull evenly to center),theoretically in this younger wood, lending more flexible hinging on the arc.

i feel i am observing the same thing in pines especially and oaks, also that if i place high leveraged pull on a spar and draw it slowly to the ground; is liken the extreme lean example both being pulling forces and doing the same thing in this machine. So as i artificially load this tree as with some super lean, the same technique has seemed to work for me; the spar flexes further and slower (when green) with this technique methinx.

As a tree stands tall and falls to the ground on a hinge, it's weight and length don't change, but due to the angle/disposition of the spar changing thru the arc on the the hinge, the hinge takes an ever increasing leveraged load. So forcing the hinge to be strong and flexible before leveraged load on hinge increases, can allow the hinge to carry the spar through the available sweep as dictated by the openness of the faces.

So moving down from 12:00 to 3:00 puts more leveraged load on hinge; just as moving up on same arc, would put gradually less load on hinge, needing less strength. Same as, moving down from 3:00 to 6:00 on a hinge places less leveraged load on the hinge, the more the motion progresses.

So, forcing a hinge to be stronger and more flexible (if that is what is happening); that during it's arc on the hinge is going to require more and more support makes sense to me Making the hinge stronger anytime makes sense, but more critical here.

IMLHO

Or something like that,
:alien:

 

[treeman82]

No logging goin on around here at all. SOME small clearing, but no logging. However you did just give me an idea which I would like to thank you for Burnham. I am going to pay a visit to a local company which sells excavators, backhoes, loaders, and that kind of stuff. They might have them.

 

[Burnham]

That's a good thought, 82. If that fails, you might try a crane/construction/rigging outfit for who they get stuff from...

 

[tjk]

GRCS

Used the winch again today. 24" American Elm between 2 houses and 2 fences. Lots of little cuts for the brush. When the wood got down to where it was going to hit the fences we preloaded the rope and the log would just fall a few inches past the block. It was a real time saver because I would have had to cut cookie size peices and throw them down.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Another thing i like about it, since it is a ratcheting bollard in this application, is as the piece separates, i can pull in most of the slack while in free fall so it will catch even sooner.

Crank the tension in, take off all but say 2 wraps (or whatever is needed for the load) and pull back fast as the peice comes over.

My not want to try it with huge peices, but I have done it with some good sized chunks.