What's the dumbest thing you've ever done?

[confused]

Was in the process of felling my first big tree (30") and had two Homelites to work with. Anyways i took way to deep in the undercut and the tree pinned the saw bar. So i proceeded to see if i could cut the saw out with the other one. Got that one stuck to. Uncle had to push the tree back with an hydraulic excavator. I didnt know i had a peanut gallery watching and laughing. At 16yrs old you feel really embarrassed

 

[Keener]

The only guy who never made a mistake was the guy who never did anything.
(Does not apply to government work, they don't do anything and still screw it up)

 

[homelite360]

dumbest thing i ever did would have to be buying a 78 for f-150 for my first truck. when i got it it looked really nice and then after one winter all of the duct tape which i though was the body started to peel off. and then everything started to go to pot so i ran her in to the ground and chopped it up for parts.

 

[WOLF_RIVER_MIKE]

I don't think this thread ever realized its potential. With all the newcomers to the list, there's bound to be some more good ones.

 

[guff]

i was 11 and using my father's old rattler to help him limb, and got his saw stuck in a pinch, i cut to the left, to the right hopin to open her up and free old faithful.....didn't work....so i took another saw to try to notch around the bar and free it, and cut the forward guard and the top plastic half of this green piece of junk down the middle..boy he was hot!! my dad was only 4'10"...i couldn't even hide under my bed if i wanted to he'd come under and deliver my woopin personally.....he didn't though, but all the relatives called me chainsaw charlie........i miss that old man, alot
guff:angel:

 

[crowe]

Stuck!!

Gosh,
I would have to say of the many things dumb I have done this would be the first that comes to mind. It's more embarrassing than anything. I was learning how to cut on steeper ground and we were on a rough slope I had just graduated H.S. we were cutting som nice red oaks, me and my dad were taking turns cutting and topping anyway he cut one I went down to top it, on my way down I slipped and fell over the hill. It was a good sixty feet to the tree I flipped and flopped all the way down and slid face first under the top of the tree which was just high enough for me slide half way under and get stuck. My dad and the skidder man quickly hollered to ask if I was alright when I responded yes they laughed for ten minutes then decided to help me out. It was quite humiliating and painfull. I am sure when I lay down for bed tonight I will think of a dozen more. Good thread, take care all Wade

 

[Climbing mike]

The stupidist thing I done was....Im in an oak tree about 40ft. The tree is beside the road next to the power lines (power company said 13,800 volts). I had removed half of the top and was getting to the side next to the powerlines. Ive always heard the you need to stay away from high voltage lines, but I didn't pay to much attention. The limb was leaning over the lines, I quickly look and said no big deal. I put the lowering line in the tree opissit of the lines made my notch back cut to where I could break it lose by hand, cut the saw off and pulled the limb. Now what I did not take the time to see was the one part of the limb that went down between the two main lines. When i started to pull I felt my hand hurt Like the were being crushed, I could see nothing was touching them. Then My body got tight and I could hear the power running through the lines. The limb rolled off and swung away and I fell totaly limp, hanging by my rope the lines boucing up and down. I could smell burnt skin and tastes and the metal fillins in my mouth. I had blisters and burns on my hand and arm, and a burn on my ankle next to my spike. I looked down at my helpers and said that sucked, They said what did, They never knew. It didn't bother me that day but the next day I hurt inside all over. I did finish the tree before I came out (only 2 more cuts). I definatly respect power lines now. Lucky to still be here!!!!!!!!

 

[Jumper]

There are many......

Losing the cell phone through the chipper comes to mind.....I did not get too much sh*t because my boss (good guy) had done the exactly the same thing about two months previous. We decided that the cell phones would remain in the truck when chipping.

And all on my own, I went to dump a load of chips, and thought the box was rising a little slow-duh. That happens when the chain holding the door in place has jimmied loose and the reason the box is rising slow is because it has swung around and you are driving it into the ground. $50 bucks worth of welding later everything was back in order. To tell you the truth I do not mind accidently breaking my own stuff, but when I do it to someone else's I get kind of upset with myself.

Going to work for a guy that spiked everything, after working for a firm that only spiked removals. It just got more and more ignorant the two months I was there, and I was dumb for not leaving sooner.....

 

[Jumper]

One more.......

Not really "chainsaw" but equipment in the bush.

But I did not do this one all by myself, my Uncle "helped"

We were sugaring, and the log bridge across the brook more or less had washed /rotted away, but we figured we could cross just one more time before it gave way with heavy spring thaw after considerable debate. Actually we got into the bush OK, but that night coming back, we sort of lost the rear end of the Massey-Ferguson past the driver's seat in the swirling water. This was stupid because there was a smaller tractor at the camp, that we used for gathering, we just did not feel like walking in. So we left the tractor in the brook,walked the 3 miles back to the house and went back the next am with the neighbour's tractor to pull the submerged one out. No problem, except the two milk cans of maple syrup(about 20 gallons) attached to the tow bar had become diluted with brook water that had leaked around the lid when they were submerged. I still have one of those milk cans that was given to me after my uncle died, and every time I look at it I remember the night Uncle's ass got wet while sitting in the seat! (I was sitting on the hood). I remember him not feeling too bad about it because it was the "bud" run and poor quality and would have been sent to the syrup cooperative anyways to be made into maple products. Still I think syrup was $10/gallon for the crappy stuff.

 

[NeTree]

Originally posted by sedanman
What is the one thing that when it when it was over made you wonder how you got out alive.

Got married.

Hey, you asked!



Erik
[email protected]

 

[Weatherby]

Well I would have to say the dumbest thing Ive ever done with a chainsaw was not letting it go. I got the bar stuck in a tree and turned the saw off. I got my cant hook out and rolled the tree off and as it started to go I grabbed my saw and tried to get it out of harms way. In the process of this I ended up with my chest over the end of the trunk as it hit the ground. Luckily, the butt didnt kick up or I would have been in trouble. I wont do it again, the saw isnt worth getting hurt over.

Rob

 

[bwalker]

I talked my brother into peeing a electric fence when we where younger. Stupid, but well worth the laugh.

 

[Chainsaw_Maniac]

I'll keep it limited to stupidity with a chainsaw, or else I might look even stupider than with just the chainsaw list.....

• Putting the chain on backwords several times in my life. But I laways noticed after a few seconds.
  
• Falling a thorn tree on myself. I was out cutting a lot of 1-3 inch trees and I didn't care if they fell on me or which way they fell cuz they don't weight much and can't hurt me.
  The thorn tree was heavy enough though.
  
• Getting my one saw pinched. Trying to cut it free with my second saw and getting that pinched as well. had to go home for a thid saw. lol.

One guy that worked for me was running my 028 with no bar oil, just gas.

Another guy I know had a thin tree that was bend over after he falled a biger tree on it. He went to cut it the small tree off and under the spring pressure it hit him in the face.

 

[johncinco]

With a saw, it would have to be while I was in college I trimmed and cut trees as a side job and extra money maker. A guy on a lake had some trees he wanted taken down. He had one big oak right near the new garage he built. to the south, garage, east , the power lines, west, all clear and the lake, north, his above ground septic tank. It was about 80' tall with lots of top growth. I climbed it and dropped all the limbs one by one from the top down until it was about 1/2 way down. Instead of continuing to take it down piece by piece, I decided I was going to drop it right in the yard towards the lake. I tied a rope off to the top, down to a pulley at the base of a tree near the lake shore, and back to my truck. There was still plenty of limbs and leaves left on it. I did not bother to check the wind, and sure enough it had started to come up off the lake shore. I cut a nice face and wedge and had the truck tighten up a bit. As I started cutting the back the guy driving the truck thought that meant he was really supposed to gun it. He took off, of course the rope broke loose, the wind gave a good push, and over she went in the wrong direction. I mangled the bar. The power line came down in a jerk and crash. Not much else was hurt but man was I embarassed. I was sure I had one heck of a bill to pay to the power company. When the guy came out he was not mad at me at all and it did not cost me anything. The funny thing was that when it came down it pulled the pipe the wires run through that was attached to the house, and the meter clean off the building. The owner thought nothing of putting it all back onto the house, since it was obviously not connected to anything any longer as the wires were laying off in the yard. When the guy saw what the owner had done, he reamed him out royally and said if he ever did anything like that again he would leave his power off for a week.
Marriage does not count as the dumbest thing you can do, that is called temporary erectile induced insanity.

 

[WOLF_RIVER_MIKE]

temporary erectile induced insanity.

"temporary" being the key word here.

 

[John Ellison]

Upside down barberchair

I ran into this thread and had to put up my dumbest chainsaw moment.
My brother and I moved from IN. to WN. in mid 70s and started working in the woods for Weyerhaeuser. We were cutting shake bolts in the winter when the logging shut down. Driving up an old road we came across a windfall tree laying across the road. It was about a 14" fir I think. So we got out the Super 45 and a peavey and went to work. The ground here was flat with a lot of brush and a bit of snow over everything. It " looked" like the tree was laying flat on the ground, with the root wad being on the edge of the road. Never occured to us to see just how deep the ditch was over there in that thick brush. My brother stabbed the peavey into the tree in about the middle of the road and then stood on top of it for a few secs. as I began to cut on the far side of the road from the root wad. Picture this!!!
My brother had just stepped off the tree and I was about halfway thru it when it barberchaired backwards towards the rootwad. A twenty foot section stood straight up with the rest of the split tree going up a ways and then coming down. The peavey sailed off in the air like a Masai warrior had thrown it. Made us both a little thoughtful.

John

 

[tony marks]

hate to say it brother but wasnt so long ago a little girl got killed that way,,playin in the root hole,, as her dad was cutting a blow dn.. he walked to the woods hollerering her name.. with a rifle in his hands.. never walked out the woods. it hurts to even think about it.. but needs to be said once in a while. be safe and u homeowners here ,,dont let anyone except u be where u are working with an saw..i know u need to teach u kids,,but make sure u know enuff to do that..

 

[MasterBlaster]

Yup. I've had to go wedge-hunting when I made the 18' cut and the 18' stood back up and set itself back in the root hole. I knew something odd was gonna happen when I made my cut, but I didn't think it was gonna turn into a catapult!

I woulda got my wedge off, first...

 

[Hemlock]

Some of the dumbest things I've ever done with a powersaw happened within the first few months on the job. It all started out innocently enough when I interrupted two fallers having a yelling match (that was about ready to come to blows) in the local saw shop. I think I was 19 or 20 yrs old and didn't know that they were fighting over a "strip fell every which way" and one of them was fixin to get fired. The saw shop guy told me "go over and talk to that guy, I think he might be hiring". So I did. "YOU KNOW HOW TO RUN SAW"?, yup I says, "O.K. YOUR FIRED SO AND SO, SEE YOU AT 4:00 IN THE MORNING KID, AND BRING YER SAW"
The next morning I'm finding myself squeezed in between two of the orneriest, craziest, stinkingest, raw onion eaters I ever saw. My eyes are watering and my ears are burning and these two guys (gorillas) are speaking "a language I don't understand" all the way out to the woods. We were in some of the biggest timber that I had ever seen, 4-8 ft. spruce and 10-12 ft. cedars, 3 ft. hard leanin' alders, and you had to buck a hole through the vine maple and devil's club to let the sunshine in! My Stihl 045 with 36" bar was the smallest saw in the truck (075's w 4' bars & 090's w 5'ers).
These two guys speedlaced their caulks on and took off over the hill racing for the strip at a dead run with me trying not to lose them in the dark. I fell down headfirst into a draw with my saw over my shoulder, (didn't let go of the saw) and got the dogs imbedded in my tricep up to the bone. Had to get patched up but hid it from the boss. Later on that week I noticed the way one of the guys was back barring the face cuts and shooting the face wood smartly out the other side on the little alders that we were using to bed the big ones. I tried it but didn't quite get the face cut loose. Instead of spitting it out the other side smartly, the saw kicked back and cut my knee, dumbly. One of them patched me up again and I made him promise not to tell the boss. "I thought you knew how to run saw", he said, "I thought I did"! I tuffed it out and tried not to limp but found myself wondering why chainsaw cuts didn't hurt when you first get them but always get infected and hurt like a bugger while you're healing up. Oh well, "long way from the heart, you'll be o.k kid" I was told. Besides, only cowboys wore chaps in those days.
Never tell a west coast timber faller you "know how to run saw" when all you've ever done is residential work and firewood. Doesn't even impress them when you tell them you own a new model production saw. See, these guys speak a different language and act completely different than most people you'd normally work with. Not easily impressed either. Who knows, they might even impress and convert you and make you into one of their own. Before you know it you'll be chewin' Cope, drinkin' whiskey, crappin' between yer heels whenever and wherever you get the urge, and telling the new kid in the brush that he might better look for work baggin' groceries at Safeway or sellin' women's shoes for a living.
That could be the funnest, most dangerous and exciting thing you ever do with a chainsaw, and pave the way for the some of the dumbest... anybody else know what I mean?

 

[Keener]

Glad to see someone dredging up old posts, (besides Gypo).
On the topic of root wads, the same fellow I mentioned earlier in this thread who was from England told me about three men killed by the same root ball.
It seems that the 3 where in the process of bucking up a very large Beech or Oak (not sure) and decided to break for lunch.
Since the sunny side was the upturned bottom of the wad and it was a good back rest that is where they decided to sit.
When they did not return late that PM a search was done with no results, just tools at the work site and no sign of them, until someone thought of lifting the root wad up to look underneath.