Checking Chain Brake? Also, new logger questions

[Trx250r180]

Skookum was a company that made overbuilt strong logging equipment ,seen the name on big blocks and i think choker bells

 

[Canyon Angler]

Thanks, Westboastfaller and Northmanlogging. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain this stuff.

Skookum was a company that made overbuilt strong logging equipment ,seen the name on big blocks and i think choker bells

Yes, I think they're still around, I've seen their ads for marine towing and rigging equipment in marine industry trade pubs...Skookums was a pet name I had for a longtime girlfriend, so the name stood out to me when I saw the ads. Always wondered which came first -- the company name or the expression "skookum."

One thing I didn't see much about in the BC Safety videos was kickback. I would have expected them to spend more time on it than they did. You guys who are falling in the woods every day -- do you get many saw kickbacks? And what do you do to minimize the danger?

The things I've heard are, watch the "danger zone" on the bar, keep the saw sharp (duh), try not to cut at less than WOT (hard to avoid if you don't like to over-rev the saw and eat fuel), keep your left elbow locked, and try not to stand directly behind the saw bar. Any other tips you can offer?

In high school, a friend of mine had a saw kick back and it almost took out his eye. I can still see in my memory, over 40 years later, those individual tooth marks with stitches, including in his EYELID, and it scares the **** out of me...

Thanks again.

 

[Trx250r180]

Longer bars help prevent kickback's, mostly happens if start the cut with the top of the tip of the bar ,chain catches and pops the bar up as it rolls around ,if do a bore use the bottom of the tip to start the cut

 

[northmanlogging]

Skookum, is mostly from Chinook jargon, sort of a native Esperanto that would allow the round eyes talk to the locals... Skookum rigging stuff was I think were originally made in Seattle but that is mostly a guess.

As for kick back, keep your thump wrapped around the handle bars, avoid use of the top front quarter of the tip, other wise yeah thats about it... kick backs happen, but if you pay attention and keep yourself out of the way its not so bad, Think I can count on one hand the kick backs I've had that set the brake off, mostly just minor little jumps. More common is the undercut type kick back, where your are under bucking a log, logs break free, and grab the top of the chain just enough to throw the saw into yer sensitive bits, or slam into your thigh, not all that dangerous per say, but painful and annoying.

WOT is good when in a cut, more air, more fuel, more cooling, as long as its cutting it will slow down enough to not detonate.

WOT all day just for the noise of it not so much.

 

[Trx250r180]

Here is a kickback demo Buckin Billy did ,shows the tip of the bar placement and the saw kicking back .

 

[Canyon Angler]

Thanks Northman and TRX, I appreciate your help.

 

[Canyon Angler]

Since it sounds like kickback isn't the primary thing to watch out for, I'm curious how most loggers and fallers (especially new guys) get hurt in the woods.

What would be the main things I should watch out for as a new guy? Falling branches/dead tops? Trees falling the wrong way?

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse with this thread...I googled "logging accident statistics" and found this:

and it looks like being "struck by" something is the biggest risk...so the hardhat and "eyes in the sky" would seem to be some of the most important things for a logger / faller, would you guys agree?

 

[northmanlogging]

Trees throwin **** at ya... they fight back and play dirty

Followed by skidding or yarding accidents. Never get under any cables and stay out of the bight if possible. If using a tractor keep the load low and slow.

Couple years ago we lost a couple crews just from driving too or from the site, steep windey dirt roads usually at night usually at insane speeds... in all sorts of shittier weather.

 

[Canyon Angler]

Thank you, Northmanlogging.

Was out with the new 660 today but forgot camera to get a good shot of that tree that's hung up in another tree. I'm kinda hoping it'll fall down on its own (and when I was looking at it today, debating on whether to wrap a chain around the base and try to yank it back away from the hang and down, I could hear wood fibers cracking/breaking!) One issue is, it's kind of near a road, and could conceivably come out almost into the road if my shade-tree geometry is right...

 

[Bwildered]

Thank you, Northmanlogging.

Was out with the new 660 today but forgot camera to get a good shot of that tree that's hung up in another tree. I'm kinda hoping it'll fall down on its own (and when I was looking at it today, debating on whether to wrap a chain around the base and try to yank it back away from the hang and down, I could hear wood fibers cracking/breaking!) One issue is, it's kind of near a road, and could conceivably come out almost into the road if my shade-tree geometry is right...

The golden rule is to never leave hung up trees, they are potential death traps even to just get them down safely.

 

[Canyon Angler]

The golden rule is to never leave hung up trees, they are potential death traps even to just get them down safely.

Yeah, that makes sense, but it wasn't an aborted fall...it was a natural blowdown, and on private property, and I don't feel quite confident enough to go poking sticks into this particular death trap yet...

 

[Gologit]

Since it sounds like kickback isn't the primary thing to watch out for, I'm curious how most loggers and fallers (especially new guys) get hurt in the woods.

What would be the main things I should watch out for as a new guy? Falling branches/dead tops? Trees falling the wrong way?

Most of the fatal falling accidents I've seen in the woods were from things dropping down from above.
A lot of people new to falling don't take the time to really size up a tree before they start sawing. Watching out for dead tops and limbs is important but you also want to look at the trees close to the one you're falling.
As your tree starts to fall it can brush other trees, bending their limbs under tremendous pressure. When they pop back they'll sometimes break off and come flying at you. It happens fast.
I've lost two falling partners to falling limbs. In neither case was the limb from the tree they were falling. One brushed a tree on the way down and a limb from an adjacent tree snapped back, fell, and hit him. The other was a broken top that was limb locked with the tree he was falling. In both cases they died before we could pack them out.
If you're pounding wedges look up frequently. If you're really beating the snot out of the wedges they can send a tremendous amount of vibration up the tree. A neighbor of mine was killed when the top broke out of a tree he was pounding on.
Bucking can be dangerous too. A friend of mine was walking a doug fir log, limbing as he went, and from what we could tell afterwards he fell and took a jagged madrone limb through the carotid artery.
A guy I went to school with was crushed to death when a log he was bucking sprang back at him and pinned him against another log. His brother was killed when a log broke loose above him and rolled over him. Their father was killed years before that when a Cat knocked a rock loose above him, the rock hit a log, and the log spun around and clipped him with the butt.
There's lots more. Too many more, really. But you get the idea.
You've done well to ask the questions you've asked. But when you're out there playing logger just remember that the trees don't play.
If you've cut quite awhile and you haven't scared the crap out of yourself a couple of times from close calls you're either too stupid to recognize danger or you just weren't paying enough attention. If you find this to be true, take up another hobby. Stamp collecting, watercolors, something like that.
Good luck to you.

 

[northmanlogging]

I've been incredibly lucky, and I know it, but here's a list of **** that should have killed me but didn't.

tops breaking out and coming back to the stump. More then I can remember, been hit by several, but luckily just the ends or branches, had to replace one hard hat... (hammered the dents out of the other...)

snags... ******* snags... theres pics of the results of one of them in Descriptive process thread, they break and are completely unpredictable.

bucking on a ridge, it slabbed off and drug me uphill for 20', running saw between me and tree, working alone.

several barber chairs, some with no warning signs, all of them close calls.

tops working up over the skidder tires and trying to drive for me, hitting me in the teeth, or damned near crushing my foot against the pto cover.

falling limbs, more falling limbs... and falling limbs, one got me hard enough to see funny colors and forget how to walk...fer like an hour... ****** my memory up for several months too (though that could have been the folks I was working with being complete ********?)

doing wheelies with the tractor, a tractor notably with no cage... while trying to skid logs.

trees doing random weird **** like moving sideways when the shouldn't be going anywhere, and taking me with em.

Rolling logs, in the I'm on top 8' in the air and it decides to roll over a couple times.

Had an axe bounce off some hard set wedges... got me in the bicep... no stitches (cause I'm cheap) though it could have probably used 4 or 5... gots a real sexy scar from that one.

Fell once while climbing... my own fault, in not checking my gear to see if it was set correctly... I was using a back up on that one, and it stopped me about 6' from dirt.

There are more, some caused by my "help" some from me, some just trees fighting back...

 

[Canyon Angler]

Holy crap, you guys are scaring the bejesus outta me!

Fortunately, it's pretty flat around here, so not as much chance of the logs rolling downhill (I know they can still roll) but ... jeez.

One thing that kinda sucks is that we see a fair amount of rotted out heartwood in the hardwoods and weird rot and fungal growth way up high...you see a lot of blown-down living limbs after bad windstorms, particularly in red oaks with bad/steep crotch angles. Was working around a big blown-down red maple today and noticed some fair-sized limbs broken and hanging from fibers on adjacent trees...I guess you've got to spend a lot of time looking up. I can see a small pair of binoculars being real handy when cutting.

Thanks very much for the replies and advice.

 

[Trx250r180]

Wood is heavier than it looks ,

 

[Canyon Angler]

Yeah, especially when it's moving at 32 ft/sec²

 

[Skeans]

There’s nothing like the feeling of getting hit by a widow maker, even when doing everything right getting up off the stump etc. a few years back I got drilled real good by a fir limb that did exactly what Bob said on its return broke free hit my hard hat as well as my shoulder which saved my butt, the only damage was a broken tooth, bit the tip of my tongue off, and a concussion.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Canyon Angler]

For you fallers who carry a small axe on your back for driving wedges -- how long of a handle and how heavy of a head do you prefer?

I've got a full-size axe with 31" fiberglass handle, and a short "camp axe" I think they call it (longer than a hatchet but shorter than an axe) but nothing I can carry comfortably on my back, handle-up, within easy reach for quickly driving wedges when falling. I need another hatchet/axe like I need a hole in the head, but I can see where you might want something handy in a hurry when falling...was considering one of these, which is 26" overall and gets great reviews for a $24 tool:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CZ9UY4/

Alternately, is there a (safe) way to carry my ~18" "camp axe" on a web belt, maybe? Because it works well for driving wedges, but is a pain to carry around with everything else.

 

[RandyMac]

never cared much for havin' a bunch of stuff strapped to me, impeded flight.

 

[northmanlogging]

3.5# and 28" handle

Just make sure it has a flat poll (the bit what hits the wedges)

if you just have a belt slipping the handle into it about mid back works for awhile.

otherwise consider a grizzly industries aluminium scabbard... they come in a bunch of sizes, but will hold the handle straight up against yer spine, and is mostly out of the way there.