strongback
ArboristSite Operative
The big piece is 54" across and a bit under 6' long.
The little piece is 46" across and also just under 6' long.
These big boys have been sitting in the front yard of a house around the corner from mine for a while now. When I finally got a chance to ask the home owner whether I could have it or not all she could say was "Thank the Lord!"
In the before pictures, You can see the cuts from others who have gone before me and gave up. According to the homeowner there have been a few people who started in on these bad boys and got sent packing. One rip-off artist "offered" to take the tree for $2500. Yes, that is a 2 and a 5 followed by two zeros.
So me and my wood buddy (that's him in the pictures) got after it yesterday. I've only got a husky 455 rancher and my friends only got a craftsman so that just made a big piece of wood seem to grow as I started to cut. Fortunately, in the case of the bigger piece, the heartwood was hollow/rotted and that allowed my diminutive 20" blade to reach from the outside to the hollow so that we could pull it apart in quarters. Unfortunately, the hollow got smaller as we went and each section required more creative use of the little Rancher. More unfortunate still, is that the "little piece" is solid and 6 inches too big so I'll have to slice a couple of slabs off of it to get it done.
You can see in the last picture that just the 3, 16" long sections plus a little bit of what was left behind by others filled my bed well enough that we couldn't raise the tailgate. I'd guesstimate that each quarter was pushing 200 lbs. Not so bad getting them off of the top half but I think I'll be forced to split the bottom into eighths to save our backs. It took us about 2 hours to get what we got off of it but I think with a couple of lessons learned we should be able to get these buxom beauties carted off to the woodpile over the weekend.
Before I get flamed about PPE, know that I did all of the cutting and I was wearing chaps, steel toed boots and a mesh visor/ear protection combo.
The little piece is 46" across and also just under 6' long.
These big boys have been sitting in the front yard of a house around the corner from mine for a while now. When I finally got a chance to ask the home owner whether I could have it or not all she could say was "Thank the Lord!"
In the before pictures, You can see the cuts from others who have gone before me and gave up. According to the homeowner there have been a few people who started in on these bad boys and got sent packing. One rip-off artist "offered" to take the tree for $2500. Yes, that is a 2 and a 5 followed by two zeros.
So me and my wood buddy (that's him in the pictures) got after it yesterday. I've only got a husky 455 rancher and my friends only got a craftsman so that just made a big piece of wood seem to grow as I started to cut. Fortunately, in the case of the bigger piece, the heartwood was hollow/rotted and that allowed my diminutive 20" blade to reach from the outside to the hollow so that we could pull it apart in quarters. Unfortunately, the hollow got smaller as we went and each section required more creative use of the little Rancher. More unfortunate still, is that the "little piece" is solid and 6 inches too big so I'll have to slice a couple of slabs off of it to get it done.
You can see in the last picture that just the 3, 16" long sections plus a little bit of what was left behind by others filled my bed well enough that we couldn't raise the tailgate. I'd guesstimate that each quarter was pushing 200 lbs. Not so bad getting them off of the top half but I think I'll be forced to split the bottom into eighths to save our backs. It took us about 2 hours to get what we got off of it but I think with a couple of lessons learned we should be able to get these buxom beauties carted off to the woodpile over the weekend.
Before I get flamed about PPE, know that I did all of the cutting and I was wearing chaps, steel toed boots and a mesh visor/ear protection combo.
:greenchainsaw:
