Ptarmigan
ArboristSite Lurker
With all your guys help, advise and information I rebuilt and modded 372 (a 51 and 55 too) last fall. Every spring we have to cull the bark beetle trees from around our lodge. This year there's about a dozen plus trees to take down. So with a certain amount of fear and respect for the work to be preformed I was tasked with felling some of the trees today.
Donning my safety gear, I started with training wheels for safety, taking tension on the tree with a rope tied to our snow groomer to ensure it would fall in the correct direction. My first tree was about 18 to 20 inches and maybe 40 feet tall. It dropped about 5 degrees off where I wanted it to go. On my 3rd tree, a little smaller than the first 2 I worked without the tension and again it dropped about 5 degrees off and hung up on another tree. We were able to pull it off with the rope and groomer, but just showed me how difficult and dangerous a hanger can be.
From there the trees started getting bigger, into the 30 inch range and I switched to a 385 with 36" bar. Working with the owner who is more experienced then me, I learned a little about setting wedges and started getting the back cut a little better aligned and dropping the trees pretty close to where I wanted them. All of them seemed to go over nice and controlled, a much slower experience then I initially expected, but nice in allowing time to ensure you can get back to a safe area.
All in all I now have a about 2 tanks of mix through the 372 and brought the rpms up from my initial tuning and think I need to bring them up some more to have it chewing through the lodge pole at top speed. Most likely I'll get to fell a few more tomorrow. And there will be plenty of bucking to come.
I just wanted to share my new experience and thank you all for all your help.
Maybe I'll get some pics tomorrow.
Sean
Donning my safety gear, I started with training wheels for safety, taking tension on the tree with a rope tied to our snow groomer to ensure it would fall in the correct direction. My first tree was about 18 to 20 inches and maybe 40 feet tall. It dropped about 5 degrees off where I wanted it to go. On my 3rd tree, a little smaller than the first 2 I worked without the tension and again it dropped about 5 degrees off and hung up on another tree. We were able to pull it off with the rope and groomer, but just showed me how difficult and dangerous a hanger can be.
From there the trees started getting bigger, into the 30 inch range and I switched to a 385 with 36" bar. Working with the owner who is more experienced then me, I learned a little about setting wedges and started getting the back cut a little better aligned and dropping the trees pretty close to where I wanted them. All of them seemed to go over nice and controlled, a much slower experience then I initially expected, but nice in allowing time to ensure you can get back to a safe area.
All in all I now have a about 2 tanks of mix through the 372 and brought the rpms up from my initial tuning and think I need to bring them up some more to have it chewing through the lodge pole at top speed. Most likely I'll get to fell a few more tomorrow. And there will be plenty of bucking to come.
I just wanted to share my new experience and thank you all for all your help.
Maybe I'll get some pics tomorrow.
Sean
. As a bonus I didn't crush any cabins and was able to snap a few pics. The 372 is still running slightly rich, some 4 stroking in the cut but was cutting much better today. Just waiting to really spin up some rpm's until I can check and recheck the plug to ensure everything is looking good. I'm just prudent with leaning it out too far here at 10,000 ft. I'm still cutting the bigger ones with the 385 for more power, but the bar needs to be dressed and dives on the back cut. 
