An old time family friend said he was going to have to take a bunch of trees out as the ash bore had done their thing. He's over 80 years old and still gets after it. I offered, no insisted, to help as they are close to his house on hilly ground. He had a few cut when I got there. We are going to cable most all these and do it the slow way so we don't have any surprises. 3 more down in the back and there are more away from the house but he wanted to get all of the ones close to the house first so we'll move to the front. Cutting a lot of these higher with larger hinge cuts. Then pull them down slowly. This one in the process of being pulled and did a wedge hinge to get it to roll instead of being a hanger. You can see how much it was leaning as it still has not overcentered at this point. 4 more down and he wanted the one in the very center to slip between the 2 trees on either side. Not my choice but that is where he wanted it. We are using a pulley point at the bottom of the hill and cranking it tight way to the left. Everything is going exactly where he wanted it and we are all happy about that. Cable goes to the tree in the center of the pic then back up the fence line out of camera range. Takes a 100ft cable 50 cable, chain on 2 trees and strap on the pulley tree. Tree hung up some in the top but cranked the cable till it stopped. the hooked it to a tractor and pulled it the rest of the way down using the cable. Most of these trees are 16 - 30 inches in diameter and like telephone poles. I hook a chain around the tree and attach the cable to that using an extension ladder. Ground is pretty hilly around and that slows things up. Owner of the property in the pic here, he's 82 years old and is amazing to me.
Have about 8 dead ones along his drive. Power lines on other side and naturally most lean that way. Most were cabled as we didn't want any surprises. Bad pic but trees are pretty thick and most had no good way to fall away from power lines without getting hung up. Slowly but surely we got them safely down 2 more down along the drive. Here you can see the power lines and the road out there. Steep hill on the right Down the hill they go and he'll drag them back up to cut. 30 incher done. Slope is steeper than it looks. We'll get back over there after Christmas to get the rest down and start cleaning up all of them. Going to have a fair amount of wood and a LOT of work yet to go.
Wow! You guys have some skill. Beautiful property and primo wood. Wish I was closer , I would love to come over and watch pros at work and help buckng . Merry Christmas .
Never claimed to be a pro. Everyone has their own way I tend to make my wedge cuts a little big and deep sometimes. Most would say we are wimps for using cables! Have taken a lot of trees down over the years so do have a good bit of experience on what works...and what doesn't Overkill on the 150 ft of cable with 90 degree pull on some of them, but Harry and Dad (78 years old) can't run like they used to. work with what you have I guess. Just nice to be all working together to get the job done.
I use good rope on anything i am not at all certain about and keep a pocket full of falling wedges. Can never hurt and rather do it in advance than hang one and create a real danger. My truck bumper, 8000lb tensil strength rope, sometime a small pulley i hitch to another tree with straps if i need to redirect force, and my truck tow ring on the front. Seems to work well
Good work Kevin and thanks for helping the fellow out. Those are some good ash trees and there is plenty of firewood there! Easy bucking them up now too except for the ones on the steep hill.
The ones on the hill will actually be easier as the cleanup will be nothing. trim them out where they are and drag the trees across the driveway to cut up. Got to move all the brush with the ones in the yard.
Using a cable to control the tree and avoid bad situations dont mean that someone is not a pro and dont know how to cut a tree good job here friend , and hat off to the old superman
Great job Kevin and kudos for helping the neighbor. He seems pretty spry even attempting to do something like this.
Kevin That is a stand up thing to do! It looks like an absalutly beautiful place too. Hee takes good care of the property from the look of it!
He's a Vet and has fused vertrabre in his neck. He STILL rebuilds totals for his daily driver cars and used to do it for money on the side. It was always fun to go over to their place as a kid because you never knew what he building or making. Learned a lot from him and my Dad over the years and he was always interested in what I was into as well. Old school hero to me. He went to school with my dad and his brother was in Dad's class, they became friends then.
Went over after Christmas and we started working on getting his saw to work. He had collected 4 Stihl 031's and had parts from I believe 2 others. Checked the compression and took the best one [170 PSI] but wouldn't run. He took a junk saw and cut the rod off and mounted to a drill press. Here we are testing all the coils and condensers to see what we have. Don't know if some have used this notch system or not but it works really well on smaller trees you want to wedge but the wedge would get in the way. Basically if the wedge is too big for a tree. Make a face cut like normal, then plunge cut through the center. Don't do this on a hard leaner but normal stuff it works great. Go all the way through the back of the tree. Go ahead and drive the wedge in as much as you can. Then make lateral cuts above wedge about 3 inches, staying away from the wedge till it is even to the edge of the wedge. Here is a view from the one side Drive the wedge home and works like a charm. Makes a tongue and groove effect. Like I said though. Do NOT do it on a leaner to the sides or back. Normal trees it works great on. I don't remember seeing this posted before so forgive me if it has. Got 3 more down and now we're going to cable the one in the center of the pic on the right. You can see Dad between the trees and owners shop to the backside. Cable goes to the tree at the top of the hill in the upper right corner, then a pulley directs it to were they are working the winch which is attached at the base of the tree closest to them. I got the notch cut and start the back cut till the get some tension on it.
Another really nice ash here. He'll take a few logs for lumber out of this one too. Timber! Right where we wanted it. Here's my Dad and our friend cranking up another one out of that clump. Here's the beefy come a long we are using to pull them down. He got it from an Ag equipment dealer he worked for in the 1950's. Double geared, double pawed and with the handle you can get a lot of pull on it. Don't see them made like this anymore. This one was leaning toward his shop pretty hard. Still not overcentered and notice the gap on the back cut. One more down. I tend to leave a healthy hinge and let the winch do it's thing. More controlled that way. Ended up being 27 trees total and started bucking them up but ran out of time.
Quite a bit of wood in this one area. That tree on the right was the worst leaner as all the weight was going the wrong way. Winch got it where he wanted though.
Anyone who said you were a wimp for using a rope/cable and playing it safe is flat out an idiot. An oz of prevention beats a # of cure any day. We used a rope daily clearing right of way for the power co. You did it the right way. Great pics and great thread!
