critique this please.

[treeman82]

I guess it's my turn to be like Ken. A friend of mine needs me to take down an elm tree for him at a cemetary nearby. There is no real LZ because the maple trees have such large canopies. The road is pretty narrow, and has gravestones on each side.

What I am thinking is to do a traverse line through the 2 maple trees, and put a 5/8" block on that for my life line to go through. Take a 5/8" bull line and anchor that as high as i can go in the larger maple tree. Run it out to the truck on the road at an angle. To tension the speed line, have a fiddle block set anchored to the truck and running to the bull rope. Place a 5/8" pulley on the speed line, with a distel or other high performance hitch attached with a micro pulley via a carabiner. Run a 1/2" lowering line up from a porta wrap on the ground, through a block in the big maple, out to the pulley and hanging down. Use that line to control the pieces descent towards the truck. Also put a tag line on the tip and run the tail of the tag line to the lowering line as a spider leg.

When down to the spar, use a combination of the fiddle blocks, and the friction hitch to place the wood in the truck.

I know that description is garbage, but what do you guys think? I appologize for my horrid artistic ability.

 

[treeman82]

let's try this.

 

[treeman82]

and this

 

[TREETX]

Why don't you just lower it again??

Is it above the maples??

Graves?

 

[treeman82]

Nathan, it is both above the graves, and above the other 2 maples. There is no real clear path to drag the brush through either as the grave stones aren't really in any organized rows. Oh, and the elm is DEAD. What bark is left on the tree, is working its way off pretty rapidly.

 

[TREETX]

Sounds like that is a plan if the angles are there for the speedlines. Maybe you can hire Ken to write a lengthy explanation of the diagram with poetry that surely will result in just hurting everyone's face??

If you go for it, take some pics to share

 

[treeman82]

oops. posted the same thing twice sorry bout that.

 

[City climber]

treeman 82

in a lot of older cemetaries trees are planted in rows if there is another tree opposite the small maple .(3 trees in a row)u can run a line from the 2 trees put your block in the most open area. tension line with a come-along. use a pull line if necessary . only negative with this setup u need a lot of rope depending on space between trees.

 

[kf_tree]

what about driving the truck on the grass on the other side, so you have a short drag?

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I can see it working, in theory.

Could you get a crane on the cemetary drive?

 

[kf_tree]

jps
a crane????? this is matt were talking about. he barely gets paid enough to buy a stick of gum when the job is all done. there's no way he could figure the cost of a crane into the mix.

sorry matt i had to get a dig in.

 

[treeman82]

Thanx Ken

In all honesty though the job is not mine. I will be climbing for a good friend. On the other side of the rock wall is not cemetary property. I was told that the other side is a field, but I couldn't see that when I went and looked at the tree because of a lot of vines and underbrush.

 

[treeman82]

A crane I think is kind of out of the question due to a couple of things, 1) I don't think it would be able to get enough reach. 2) price 3) the road is pretty narrow, barely wide enough to get a small dump truck in there.

 

[kf_tree]

it might be worth looking over the wall. hard to tell from the drawings. if you could get a good crotch and swing the brush over the wall with permission of course, chip the bush over there then bring the truck around for the wood with some hand trucks.

or if its not your job then put it on the ground and leave. let him deal with it. the speed line "could" work but will definitly take a long long time. one bad cut and a couple of broken tomb stones.....things could get ugly. no one said tree work is easy, put it on the ground as safe as you know how and let your friend get a bunch of labor on site to drag the brush......if we remove tree's through a house with out damageing them. some times the guys even have to deal with stairs but it gets done. a one eyed brush dragger should be able to navigate around some tomb stones. some times the best way is the simple way.

 

[treeman82]

I still haven't taken the tree down, because my friend who's job it is has been really busy digging, and putting in new lawns. Supposedly, we will be going there this coming weekend to do it. I took a ride by today to look at the tree, and it appears as though the lead that was going out over the person's yard snapped off a few days ago. I don't think that woman is going to be happy at all. Looks like where it snapped off is about 25 feet off the ground or so. Wood was maybe 6 - 8 inches in diameter at that point. When that lead snapped off, it also left a nice sized widow maker lodged in one of the maple trees that I plan on using for my climbing line. I am going to do my best this weekend to get pictures for you all

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

I don't know why you need a crane, those headstones are not that heavy. Just remember where they go so you don't mix them up.

 

[DadF]

Don't know about that cemetary but the ones that I mow have most of their headstones set in a concrete base!!! Would be most difficult to move. Depending on the age and type of stones most of the newer(as in last 50-75 years) are probably going to be able to withstand quite a bit of abuse especially from a dead 6-12" dia piece of elm.....

 

[M.D. Vaden]

Can you imagine a large chunk crashing down and all of a sudden you hear the crunching of bones as it mashes through the surface soil and an old coffin lid?

Or if the wood chunk hit one end and popped the end of a coffin up through the ground?

It could even be like stepping on one of those "balls" in the forest that spurt dry spores out, should you pop a grave cavity with cremations in it.

Nothing like a little extra effort in that environment to keep the memorial grounds intact.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Originally posted by M.D. Vaden
Can you imagine a large chunk crashing down and all of a sudden you hear the crunching of bones as it mashes through the surface soil and an old coffin lid?

It's not like whoever's in there will feel anything.

 

[DadF]

Had a straightline windstorm goe through one of the township cemetary a few years ago. The Trustee called me to see about removing the blown down trees. I didn't get over to look at it until after dark. Several 2'dia spruce were totally uprooted. Talk about spooky try checking out the holes after dark with a half dead flashlight!!!!!:angel: