Dont Know if my pics are worthy of this thread but heres one only about 25 feet up. Ear muffs make for goofy pic I know guys in the past used to stand on top of spars a hundred+ feet high.
Falling pics 11/25/09
- Thread starter Burvol
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Burvol
Bullbuck
Brian, I like it!
Brian, or Jeff, or ...why am I thinking about ants? Maybe too much cold and shade.
Here's a hooktender cutting a tree. The one that is in awe because I worked with his mother umpteen million years ago.
That's my fresh paint on the tree.
Here's a hooktender cutting a tree. The one that is in awe because I worked with his mother umpteen million years ago.
That's my fresh paint on the tree.
Burvol
Bullbuck
I have cut some fairly substantial Douglass Fir off and on all year this season when I finally got going in mid-summer.
I'm a self-employed contract cutter. Sometimes I work on crews that I am not the boss, sometimes I am. I am now. I have cut logs for quite a few different logging outfits, but prefer to stay with one or two when I can. I keep the logging end of it confidential to a point, but I have nothing to hide. I prefer to just stay in my corner of the world to cut logs, fish for salmon and hang out with Lindsey. Arboristsite has been a cool place to find though. I have made some good friends and read some interesting and entertaining nuggets here, LOL
coastalfaller
ArboristSite Operative
Yeah, there's still some areas on Vancouver Island and on the mid coast with some beautiful stands of fir. What areas did you see? As far as falling in BC goes, it's all about certification here. You have to have the little card that says you can fall timber over 6"dbh! Without it, you can't legally fall timber. The whole process has been in place for the last 6 years, and it's still not working smoothly, but you know what they say about fighting city hall! For experienced fallers, like yourself, you can challenge the course. You would have little problem passing. It consists of a written exam and then field testing. If you got in on the grandfathering, which they did for the first 3 years, you could get your certification for free. Now, if you challenge the course, I believe it costs around $1200.
If your a brand spanking new faller, no matter if your the son of faller or been around it your whole life, your treated like one of the guys who have seen Axemen, never been off a sidewalk in their life, but think it would be cool to be faller. (Even though their right, it is cool, they have no clue, and most have no acumen for it either, not to mention the attitude-think teenagers!) You have to take a month long course, I believe the first week is in a classroom, the rest is in the field working with a trainer. The cost for the course is $10 000, yes I said $10 000! Not to mention you supply your gear and have to put yourself up and feed yourself for the month. Your looking at around $16-18000. There are ways to get government sponsorship for the course, but a lot of hoops to jump through for it. In theory, it's a great idea, and there have been some guys come through it who will be and are good fallers. It just penalizes those of us who were breaking in fallers the right way.
Anyway, enough of a rant!
oregoncutter
ArboristSite Operative
Brian, or Jeff, or ...why am I thinking about ants? Maybe too much cold and shade.
Here's a hooktender cutting a tree. The one that is in awe because I worked with his mother umpteen million years ago.
That's my fresh paint on the tree.
Hey, You don't let everybody highstump like that do You? If so my knees are headed North!
I do when it is for rigging. That tree also was quite a ways outside of the boundary so had to be left where it fell. Kind of limby anyway. We had to hike quite a ways UP to find suitable tailholds and then twister trees. The ground up there is loose pumice so reinforcing the tail trees and tailholds is a good thing. There was a lot of downhill yarding on this sale. I got in pretty good shape from chasing after the boys with my trusty can of paint.
oregoncutter
ArboristSite Operative
I figured as much! Just giving You a rough time. That's something I was thinking about the other day as I had to work outside my normal duties painting trees for a thinning harvest as I pulled the last frozen can of paint from my backpack at the bottom of the unit (my truck was at the top idling thawing out cans), was there has to be a better way!
That's something I was thinking about the other day as I had to work outside my normal duties painting trees for a thinning harvest as I pulled the last frozen can of paint from my backpack at the bottom of the unit (my truck was at the top idling thawing out cans), was there has to be a better way!
Quart cans and a squeezy handled paint gun. You can paint from farther away too. And, with me being a bit mechanically challenged, I prefer the way fewer parts to keep tabs on Treecoder paint gun. It is the orange plastic one. Be sure to take the screen off the bottom before using it in paint. I can take this gun apart and diagnose any problems on the tailgate.
The other has way more parts...I never even could figure out how to take it apart.
You can add thinner to the quarts when it gets cold.
I was idling yesterday to once again warm up a logger, who sees my pickup arrive and knows it will be warm. But it messes up my highly organized pickup cab!
The other has way more parts...I never even could figure out how to take it apart.
You can add thinner to the quarts when it gets cold.
I was idling yesterday to once again warm up a logger, who sees my pickup arrive and knows it will be warm. But it messes up my highly organized pickup cab!
Curlycherry1
Addicted to ArboristSite
Those pump and spray squeezy cans were what the foresters that I knew used. They used water based paints in the summer and in the winter they switched to some sort of solvent based paint in the winter. I helped one guy a few times in the winter. I was the tally guy. I had the clipboard and had to write down what he told me (tree #, DBH, height, scale). They could hit trees from some pretty good distances with those cans.
Something I am puzzling over from the pictures in this post that I have seen: why do the foresters mark all the way around those big trees? Isn't that a waste of time to go all the way around the tree? All I got to identify the trees I was to cut was a blue or red spot ~4-5" in diameter on the tree and one on the stump. They mark the stump in select cuts so as to know if unmarked trees were cut. The fines for cutting unmarked trees was steep. 4-5X the maximum log value.
So why the mark all the way around the tree?
They're easier for the fallers to see. We might come at the tree from any direction...if the mark is all around the tree we're not as apt to miss it. The foresters get grumpy if we miss any.
It also gives the tree marking person more exercise...and something to grumble about.
Curlycherry1
Addicted to ArboristSite
They're easier for the fallers to see. We might come at the tree from any direction...if the mark is all around the tree we're not as apt to miss it. The foresters get grumpy if we miss any.
It also gives the tree marking person more exercise...and something to grumble about.
As a marking person that would suck to have to mark those beasts all the way around them. Gawdaweful time consuming also. Not to mention all the paint that would take. I wonder how many million trips back to the truck to replenish the paint tank they have to do per contract?
The foresters I worked with did mark trees within 20' of the property lines by marking all the way around, usually with a different color like yellow. That gave us a view of where the line was so we did not drop trees over it if possible.
I gotta give you guys some good natured poking for not being able to see a spot on a tree and needing the whole thing ringed with paint, maybe you guys need to walk a bit more and open your eyes? Aren't most of your contracts clearcuts?
I got stuck with a selective firewood cut one time where the trees to be taken were about 75' apart and were about 1 of 15 in the area. So it was a bad game of where's Waldo in that contract. The kicker was that I would get pinged if I damaged any of the remaining trees and that included bumping against them skidding the logs out.
As a marking person that would suck to have to mark those beasts all the way around them. Gawdaweful time consuming also. Not to mention all the paint that would take. I wonder how many million trips back to the truck to replenish the paint tank they have to do per contract?
I gotta give you guys some good natured poking for not being able to see a spot on a tree and needing the whole thing ringed with paint, maybe you guys need to walk a bit more and open your eyes? Aren't most of your contracts clearcuts?
:hmm3grin2orange: First of all, we don't care how much extra effort goes into marking the trees. (I'll catch hell from Slowp for this) What we do care about is being able to stand in one place and plan out some kind of falling sequence that keeps us in lead. Having the trees marked all the way around is a big help in steep brushy ground where our direction of skidder travel and lay out are pretty much determined by the terrain. Terrain rules....especially out here .
And you're right about the clear cuts...that's mostly what I do. But, the leave trees, the re-gen trees, the boundary trees and such are the ones that are marked in that case and it sure helps to be able to see them clearly. I work mostly on private ground but we're checker-boarded with Federal and State ground and you most definitely do not want to get over the line. Everybody gets grumpy when you do that and there's all that damn paperwork to fill out.
A little extra paint and a little extra effort on the part of the tree marker can sure make our job easier.
Besides, most of the FS and State people that I see marking timber look like they could really use the exercise. It's always fun, when they come huffing and puffing back up to the road, to point out a tree waaaaay down in the unit and say "I think you missed that one".
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Gologit;1884588 A little extra paint and a little extra effort on the part of the tree marker can sure make our job easier. Besides said:most[/I] of the FS and State people that I see marking timber look like they could really use the exercise. It's always fun, when they come huffing and puffing back up to the road, to point out a tree waaaaay down in the unit and say "I think you missed that one".
Yes, that's a game to play. But with me it is usually, "We decided to change the tailhold and lift trees and you'll need to paint the new ones."
I don't mark all the way around the tree. Usually, on steep ground, all you need is a stump mark and a higher slash on the DOWNHILL side. The cutters are working from the bottom up. On FLAT SKIDDER TYPE ground, which around here is apt to be cut with a buncher, you will need more paint on the tree. And some operators have WHINED and want reflective paint so they can see it in the dark. That's NO from me. NO. Get your own reflective paint.
I just mark out the corridors, skid trails, landings and tail trees and anything else that tickles the logger's fancy (within reason). We now have the loggers mark their own trees, and that gets a mixed reaction. They either hate it or get a kick out of it, depending of course, on how much they get paid. The fallers that turned into markers thought it was great. Paint weighs less than a saw. The didn't spell BEES completely on one tree, I noticed.
I think fallers make the best markers. They understand the concept of having a strip and tying in with their partners. That's a big no no, a missed area. Big no no.
The youngsters on the rigging crew are in awe of my paint gun. And I'll sternly tell them to STAND BACK (unless they've been bad) and I spray the tree. I think people who work in the woods are easily amused, and I include myself in that statement.
Here's another lesson, environmentalists and 'ologists don't like dollar signs painted on the nice trees. :biggrinbounce2: And sometimes your boss might come down in the unit and see his name by SUCKS. :biggrinbounce2: And don't paint the cows either. Or put stripes on the road, or....
LOL...we had a landing rat that was painting FSOT on the backs of big logs when he'd brand them on the truck. Several loads went down the hill before somebody figured out that FSOT meant Former Spotted Owl Tree. He switched to just painting a little owl silhouette inside a circle with a slash through it but they made him quit that, too. No sense of humor in those green pickups sometimes.
Oh, another fact to know. Timber fallers have extremely good eyesight when in a patch of good timber, and are able to see and point out the most minute speck of paint, if it is a cut tree marked unit. 
As in, "See this speck of paint? The rest must've faded away along with the stump mark so you better paint it." Or, "I cut it because see, it had paint on it and they must've forgot to put a stump mark on it."
Try for no overspray when marking timber. Pay attention to the wind direction.
As in, "See this speck of paint? The rest must've faded away along with the stump mark so you better paint it." Or, "I cut it because see, it had paint on it and they must've forgot to put a stump mark on it."Try for no overspray when marking timber. Pay attention to the wind direction.
oregoncutter
ArboristSite Operative
I agree, only problem is I only have myself to cuss later over leave and take trees, makes for an interesting conversation with myself. I agree from running a buncher here and there a mark around the whole tree is the only way to go, don't allways know when painting which direction I might come into a tree from. Also helps me when I look back to see my last mark.
Oh, another fact to know. Timber fallers have extremely good eyesight when in a patch of good timber, and are able to see and point out the most minute speck of paint, if it is a cut tree marked unit.
Try for no overspray when marking timber. Pay attention to the wind direction.
Eyesight can be a selective thing.
Sometimes, late in the day when you're hurrying to get done, your eyesight might get real good...or just kinda fail you altogether. Wearing glasses is a big help and a great excuse for missing a doghair way down in a corner when it's five minutes past quitting time and you have a long pack to the road. " I had dust on my glasses and missed that tree...just have the skidder knock it over".Curlycherry1
Addicted to ArboristSite
In the construction trade we would call that passing it on to the next trade. The excavator digs a bad hole and expects the foundation guys to correct it. The foundation guys make a bad foundation and expect the framers to make it right. The framers pass on a bad framing to the drywallers and the drywallers leave it to the trim carpenters. The trim carpenters are the ones that get stuck with finally making it right, even though it was the excavator that could not follow grade.
Burvol
Bullbuck
Eyesight can be a selective thing.
That reminds of me a story, not sure if I told you guys or not. I've told Slowp about the patch of Silver and White fir we cut north of Adams that was a stand full of huge wood.
They left some trees for seed and wildlife, and some happened to look really nice and tall. I was having a nice day in some big wood and just kept my strip going. I was bucking one of those nice trees when my Dad came up to me while I was limbing. I actually grinned and said something about the wood being so nice. He was pissed! He then said something to me about wanting to be some big shot timber faller and this and that, and I said "what?". He pointed to painted ring on the tree and I said "what ring?" And that one! He says. I slid my amber lens Stihl glasses down and saw the yellow paint. Oh ####! I thought. I quickly handed my glasses to my Dad and made him look. He was just as shocked as I was. I left a few big ones in my strip for a trade and told the guy on the shovel to scrape the bark off with his grapples in the landing. It all turned out ok. I know longer wear those shades in heavliy marked units, or orange and yellow.
