I felled a big black locust on my shed...

[cnczane]

This happened fall of 2022. I had successfully felled a number of the too-tall locusts (80') in an area of the property next to my outbuildings using a pull rope with pulleys, and had rigged a 27:1 pull rope about 30' up for the last one which was closest to the shed, only 4' away. I even had made a "push-jack" by slipping a rectangular tube with a toothed, angled foot welded onto one end over the end of one of those long tall farm bumper jacks. So I had push and I had two helpers for pulling, and they were pulling through a re-direct pulley to be out of the line of fall. At the last moment--isn't that always the way?--I decided to change the 27:1 pull back to 3:1 so the pullers wouldn't run out of pull rope before it started going over.

Remember watching the first 'pro' video you watched, emphasizing "the plan?" I remember thinking, "Yeah, yeah, let's get to it!"

The pro video talks about walking around the tree, establishing things like paths of escape. If I had done that, which I didn't because it was open all around it, I might have noticed that the tree was not round cross-section, but elliptical/oval. I thought I had everything covered with the pulling and pushing, but my face cut--which I had made without examining the tree all-the-way-around--was much too deep for the broad side of the oval, and thinking I'd already cut a half dozen "just like it", I made the back cut too deep--and the hinge was too thin and snapped while the tree was still vertical. There aren't many things scarier than seeing an 80' stem start "walking" on the stump... Right away I realized that the redirect meant nothing because the tree was out-of-control, and it turned out the 3:1 pull was nowhere near enough for the pullers to be able to influence the fall.

Mercifully, as the tree slowly spun on the stump it tipped over onto the shed. I was already toting up the destruction costs when the tree stopped, hung up in another standing dead oak on the opposite side of the shed, saving it.

It could have been much, much worse, but as it was, it cost me $1,000 to have professionals remove it without further damage. The damage to the shed was a half-trunk-diameter-sized indentation in the roof--which landed precisely between two trusses--requiring banging the crushed waferboard back out and reinforcing it and applying some repair shingles, all the time cursing myself for being so over-confident. When I actually thought about it, I realized I'd actually felled maybe 20 trees in my lifetime, if that.

I got a proper scare, and don't approach felling with the same attitude as before. "If you're not scared, go away and come back when you are."

 

[Mad Professor]

 

[cnczane]

You really should look up the word.

 

[Del_]

How do you rig for a 27:1

 

[cnczane]

Essentially, create a 3:1, which is a pulley attached to the pull rope on the tree, the rope then going down to a pulley at the base of a distant tree which it passes through and goes back up and through the pulley on the rope. If you count the "ropes" attached to the pulley attached to the rope, you'll count 3.

A 3:1 requires 2 pulleys. Now, attach a second pulley to the pull rope coming out of the first pulley attached to the rope, run that rope down to another pulley at the base of the tree and back up to and through it to get a 9:1. Repeat for a 27:1. There's a special attachment "plate" sold for this purpose by logging stores. You also need to rig a "pull capture" to hold the "purchase" (the movement "so far") so that if needed, the pulleys can be reset to continue pulling.

A good way to think of it is, when I want to make the rope in my hand easier to pull, I can attach a pulley as high on the rope as I can, and another pulley at the base of a distant tree tree and run the rope as described to get 3X the pulling power on the rope in my hand. (In fact, I have to think about it this way since I don't do it that often.)

The problem with amplifying the pulling force is that it takes 3X as much rope to move the tree as a direct pull. Meanwhile the distance between pulleys is being reduced as you pull. When any pair touch, you've done all you can and you have to reset. I didn't want to reset in the middle of a pull, but then didn't have enough force.

In retrospect, I _could_ have constructed a Very Long 27:1 setup on the ground before throwing the pull rope into the tree and hoisting it up in place.

FOR THAT MATTER, it occurs to me only now that (since I described the 3:1 as being "for the rope in my hand") I _could_ have brought the pull rope down to a pulley at the base of a different tree, a re-direct, and then rigged a 27:1 to a third tree to pull on _it_, on-the-ground AND in-a-safe-direction. Resetting the pulleys would not involve "reaching as high as you can reach." You'd still need purchase capture.

There are good online videos for this, especially by rescue squads.