Largest Tree You've Cut

[ciscoguy01]

Ok, i know the stories are going to be good on this one. What's the largest tree you've ever cut? What saw did you use? How big was the bar? How much wood did it make? And How long did it take you? For myself, trees aren't really that big here in the 'daks. Biggest for me was a 54" maple, one of those old old ones at the end of a farmhouse driveway. It took me 5 pickup loads to haul it all away. I used my ole' cousin's 056Mag with a 24" bar and had a little trouble going all the way through cutting both sides, we still had to beat on it. It took me 2 days to fell it, buck it up, and split it before I was done. Any pics would be great also guys. Thanks.

 

[Freakingstang]

not the largest I have cut, but the largest I have pics of. Measured 52"DBH. There was a lot of rot at the stump, where my waist is in the 3rd pic. Pic with the saws has a 24" on a 066 red light and a 36" on a newer 066 (660).

Largest I have cut was a 58"DBH solid white oak. Took me and two buddies the entire weekend, about 5 truck and double axle trailer loads, with 1 066, 2 372's and a 460 mag. Biggest bar being a 36". Stump flair was over six and a half feet in spots.

My first "big" tree was a 47" DBH Elm, also solid, saws were two 365's, one with a 28" bar and one with a 18". That wasn't fun...underpowered and under bar-ed. lol.

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

I don't have much work with very, very large diameter timber, but have done some tall ones. A 54" fir isn't as common as what you'd think. Here's the best pic I've got, but it gives you an idea. You can see me down at the bottom of this tree as it's going down. This was a stand of second growth. These trees were 100+ years old. Grew tall, just not thick.

Used my 440 in this stand if I recall.

 

[jomoco]

Biggest, Tallest, Highest Risk, Most Strategic?

Lots of big eucs here in San Diego with big bases.

Quite a few big ones I removed at the San Diego Zoo, but I cheated with cranes from 120, 150, and 300ton so that don't really count.

Cut down quite a few real tall cedars, pines and firs in Lake Arrowhead, Big Bear and up on Mount Palomar Mountain around 200 foot or so.

Riskiest was a big euc I pulled over in downtown Escondido, I got a video of that one, and a few of the bigger ones at the zoo.

My 88 with a 6ft bar hasn't met it's match yet, but there's still some pretty darn big trees here in California, so you never know.

If I can figure out how to convert my videos to digital, I could post some interesting takedowns to show you guys one of these days.

Work Safe

jomoco

 

[Cut4fun]

Last cut I made was at 40-44 inches across on a maple. Was bigger on down.

 

[Ed*L]

I had a huge sugar maple in front of my house, 60+ dbh. It overhung the house & the street. The trunk was only about 10' tall & then the branches went out & up, more of a huge cup shape. The tree also had several cables in it to hold the "crown" together.
It was close enough to the street that our village would pay for the removal costs. The tree service guy spent 2 days in a bucket truck taking the tree down to the trunk. He then packed up & left, leaving the standing trunk, "I'll be back to drop that later".........
I looked at it for 2 weeks then fired up the 084. The damn thing was so big in diameter I couldn't wedge it over & there was no offset weight to make it fall. Finially ended up using a bunch of wedges to hold it up enough to cut thru and get the saw out. Then I pushed it off the stump with the Bobcat.

Ed

 

[Adkpk]

ash

Here's my big one. Dropped it on a dime. Used my 260 with a 20" bar. I have a video of the event but haven't figured out how to upload video yet. I was alone and hand held the camera. It's a 10 on my list of ultimate feats by an artist.

 

[maveric944]

don't laugh, but mine is a 20' high with about a 10" trunk in old lady next doors garden, and it landed near enough exactly where i planned it. and boy did it feel good . not exactly playing with the big boys yet, lol lol lol

mav

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

If I can figure out how to convert my videos to digital, I could post some interesting takedowns to show you guys one of these days.

Work Safe

jomoco

That would be fun to see.
You could just use your digital camera to take a movie of the TV set playing your tape.
Low tech, I know, but it would work.

 

[maveric944]

If I can figure out how to convert my videos to digital, I could post some interesting takedowns to show you guys one of these days.

to convert ordinary video to digital you will need a TV tuner card installed into your pc. the picture can then be uploaded to the pc using the line in out sockets. the software to use is called nero 6, which you can get free from the net if you look round. if you need any help just ask, would be nice to repay all the good help and advice i get on this site.

mav

 

[Fumbler]

I'm a newb.

Biggest I've dropped was a 22" DHB loblolly pine.
Used an 044 with 28" bar.
Took forever to cut just cause the depth gauges needed to be lowered.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Speaking of video, here I am doing a big willow removal (I apologize in advance for the poor picture quality and being sideways):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJJzJjFvswU

 

[blis]

probaply around 15"-18" .... not too many big trees this north...

 

[RIX]

This is the biggest one I have taken down. About 36" at the base and about 70 ft tall white spruce, very common in northern MN. I used my 2+ year old MS290 farm boss with a 20" bar. Not the best choise of saws but my only option at this time. It worked well though, just not as fast as the 361 I have my eye on. I hope the pics work and are not too big, my first time posting pics.

 

[curdy]

White Oak maybe 40". Maybe not as big as some of the maples others were cutting, but man o' man, was that thing HEAVY!!! I got real creative using 2x4's, some small logs and some good old basic laws of leverage to move them. But at 150 lbs, I can only supply so much weight! Got it done though and it made a lot of firewood!

Didn't take any pictures of me cutting it (but I did include one of it while it was still standing). I have another one in the back yard I still need to cut. I'll take some pictures of that one.

I have a 455 Rancher with a 20" bar. Works well.

 

[B_Turner]

A few years ago I got in on a removal of a maple tree on a golf course that measured an honest 67 inches. My 066 with 42 inch bar barely reached half way in spots. My brother the arborist and crew did the upper tree, and since it's the wood I am after I just cut the bottom maybe 10 ft of trunk.

I cut it into about 20 inch rounds that were so heavy that we had to get a front end loader to push the rounds off the stump. We stood the rounds on their edge and and I plunged cut blocks out, turning the rounds into swiss cheese. Wish I had a picture.

I got about 4500 lbs of 20 x 20 x 20 inch rectangular blocks. Here is a really poor picture someone took of some of the rough turned bowls from that load. Most of them in the 20 inch wide by 16 inch tall size. It was so damp in my shop from all that rough turning I called my wife at work and asked her if I could bring a few rough turned bowls into the house near the fire to surface dry a little. When she got home she laughed, but when they were still there the next day she didn't think it was so funny.

Sorry for the bad pic.

http://www.billluce.com/bigimages/bowlpile.jpg

I think it was that day my brother showed me a trick when cutting stumps. If you don't want to use wedges, you can pull the saw (in horizontal cut) backwards and it will pack the kerf with shavings as you go. don't need a wedge. With my 6 ft pry bar I can then simply walk a round up to maybe 600-700 lbs right of the stump pretty easily. I then generally stand them on their side and cut out blocks.

These days on a tree such as this big stump, if I were by myself as I usually am, I would make a horizontal cut and then set my Granberg edging mill on a dedicated saw to cut exactly that depth and start blocking the round out in place. Once I could move it, I would slide it off the stump and block out what I want from what is left of the round. Works really great. Once I can get pieces to the maybe 450 lb size I can usually hand cart them into my trailer which I had custom built just for wood.

 

[l2edneck]

Biggest i ever did was a banyan in south st pete.Was approximately 8ftx5ft.Took little over 2 weeks from start to finish.If i remember it was 9 loads of chips(20 yrd box)and 12 loads of wood.Three days to dice the last 10 ft of stump usin 088 and 066(not sure of bar sizes)i think 088 maybe had a 42" and the 066 a 36".Home owner took pics but i never recieved them.Thinkin maybe he sent them to the boss and hes one of the stingy ones.

That tree will forever be etched in my brain.I doubt i will do any that even compare to that again.(and truly dont want to)

 

[hautions11]

I haven't done anything big to speak of, but I was really proud of this one. 32" ash, leaning hard left over the garage and several large branches of the left side of the tree. Pivoted it 90 degrees on the way down. Real heavy and real loud. 064 28" bar.

Before

After

From the other side

Lots of fun. 1.5 cords of firewood and 330 bd ft of lumber.

 

[SteveH]

For me, probably a 38" blue spruce. We lose a few every season, beetle kill. They go fast...you see a couple limbs turn brown, about half way up, then within a few weeks the entire tree is brown. Last one I cut I used the ol' thumb-site and pace-off to calculate height, 130 ft. which would put the upper thirty feet across the one-lane county road. No other good option, so I got up at dawn, after looking at the tree and standing under and near it about 20 times over a couple weeks, blocked off the road with my truck, dropped it and hustled to clear the road.

036 Pro with a 20" bar, round chisel. I cut the rounds down near the base to only 10 or 12" thick, being older now and hopefully not as ignorant as when I was younger and couldn't stand to cut 'em less than 18" for efficiencly sake.

Still had to split some of them into quarters to get them up into the truck along a 2 x 10 board, by myself. Seven truckloads.

Been a few times I have had to cut a big notch in the base, working back and forth from both sides with the 20", but I don't recall the width. Probably not much more than that 38", though.

Those big ones still scare me, so maybe I'm a smidgen less ignorant. [Don't ask my wife.]

 

[Haywire Haywood]

The largest tree I ever tried to buck was too large for my little 346 and I gave up. I left about 15' of a 25-30" Cherry trunk for the construction crew to carry off. Little did I know that my 346 was on it's last leg. Power was something that it had vague memories of. I wish I had that trunk back now that I have my 361.
The largest I ever actually fell was an 18-20" DBH Black Locust a few weeks ago.

Ian