fun with a chainsaw

Re: fun with a chainsaw

Carole in VA

>Next Wednesday's chat should be interesting if others have tales like that! LOL

Re: fun with a chainsaw

Doug Trembath

>I had much the same experience about a year and a half ago, a big red oak fell in my wife's cousin's yard. Limbed it out, in the rain, and while walking the trunk, slipped and fell against a limb, bruised a couple of ribs. Couldn't breathe right for a month! Then, as I cut sections from the trunk, it began to rise. The cousin was off with my second saw, cutting up some small branches, and couldn't hear me. I all but climbed up on it to weigh it down, but it kept on slowly rising. Finally I gave up and got out of the way. The tree fell up! His wife is a spiritual person, said it was supposed to be there. It sprouted small branches, as a log will do, and she thought it would live! I let her go on thinking this, but it soon gave up the ghost, and they finally took it down about six months later. You never expect something to fall up!

Never fell one on a truck, though. A buddy of mine here, in his seventies, has a tree service. He told me he has had them spin 360 degrees and fall exactly where he wanted it to go. They'll do some funny things.

Doug Trembath

Studio in the Woods

Re: fun with a chainsaw

john Lucas

>Cutting near the root ball is extremely dangerous. They weight thousands of pounds with al the dirt and stuff. I read an article about some kids playing near a rootball that had already been cut. The Ball decided to go back into it's original position and crushed both kids. I try to keep that in mind everytime I'm working on a tree.

I think most of us can cut up wood safely and probably can fell a tree safely. Where I always have problems is when it's on the ground. Which way to cut without pinching the saw, how to cut limbs without having them slap you when they pop free and of course what to do when you get near the root ball.

As long as we're having fun with a chain saw..>>

RonZ

>..>>A [insert your favorite name here] walks into a hardware store and asks for a chain saw that will cut 6 trees in one hour. The salesman recommends the top of the line model. The [insert your favorite name here] is suitably impressed, and buys it.

The next day he brings it back and says, "This chain saw is defective. It would only cut down 1 tree and it took all damn day!"

The salesman takes the chain saw, starts it up to see what's wrong, and the puzzled [insert your favorite name here] says, "Heck, what's that noise?"

Re: As long as we're having fun with a chain saw..

Barry Turner

>Moooooooaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn....................

Re: fun with a chainsaw

Glenn Hodges

>Friend of mine told me this story. His daddy had a big pine tree beside the hog barn, and thought it might fall on it so he bought a chainsaw and had his other son cut it down. When the saw was about through it the wind picked up and twisted the tree, and it fell on the barn killing some hogs. My buddy got some barbeque,and a ham out of the deal.

A Chainsaw, a large tree, and a truck

Russ Fairfield

>Not a good combination in the hands of a fool.

Re: A Chainsaw, a large tree, and a truck

MikeinCapeMay

>That looks like a nice hunk of wood, I wonder if that woodturner figured how to get that purple piece of junk out of the way.

Re: fun with a chainsaw

MikeinCapeMay

>About 25 years ago I was felling some black locust trees for a friend. About the fourth or fifth tree I made the through cut to the notch, the tree twisted, sort of did a little jump up and then back down onto the stump with the base kicking back toward me, hit my hand and saw and drove the bar toward my right shin. The chain cut through my jeans and did not touch my skin. In a thread aboive I said that I don't wear chaps, maybe I should rethink that.....or maybe that's why I don't!

During that same era a friend was taking down a huge limb for an acquaintance, I was an innocent bystander. He misjudged and dropped this monster onto utility wires. This was in an urban area and as it turned out power was knocked out for blocks around the site. The utility company responded, while they were enroute my friend removed himself, his saw, ladder, ropes, truck, etc. The fellow he was doing the work for explained to the utility guys that the old limb must have just fallen due to it's age and condition. The foreman eyeballed the fresh cut, the sawdust everywhere, looked at the owner and said something like "yeah looks to be the case". In the area I'm referring to and I guess probably everywhere if utility lines are damaged by someone they're responsible for paying for the repair. The foreman was good enough to look the other way.

Dead old maple...

steve antonucci

>standing about 20 feet from my house, no limbs (last one fell in a windstorm on the roof and exploded on the corner eaves, waking me and the wife...), so I decided to cut it to avoid having the main trunk eventually slam into the house.

Tree is probably 30' tall of 16" clear trunk, leaning towards the woods, so I figure I'm "safe". Felling notch, cut to the hinge, and instead of a slow fall, the tree twists and jumps off the hinge, landing right next to the stump, which is nice enough to prop up 30' caber, now leaning toward my house 20' away.

Thought about cutting it again, but seemed like a pretty good way of getting myself killed, so I tied a two ton strap as high as I could and pulled it past vertical, where gravity did the rest.

Re: Dead old maple...

Tom Mullane

>The above stories are the main reason I don't play that game... LOL...

Roughing out bowl stock is enough for me....

My BIL decided to help my FIL out and trim the top of an old pine that was too close to the house... Now my BIL not being the brightest light in the lamp decides he does not have to trim any branches to do this... Final result... replacing about $3000 of tile shingles on the roof of a 250yr old farm house... Wanna guess who did not pay a cent toward the reroofing costs...

Re: A Chainsaw, a large tree, and a truck

Barry Turner

>You know, there is always some good in every bad situation. Take this one for instance; this guy here is getting a NEW TRUCK really, really soon...........

Not a chainsaw, but same idea

David

>I've got a couple. One is a friend of my dad's helping him remove a small tree from the front yard. For reasons known only to himself, dad's friend cut the tree down to about a four foot stump with a couple of branches remaining. He put a a chain/rope I forget which around the "tree". He then attached the chain to the hitch on his pickup truck. When he started pulling, of course the tree heeled over (as my dad predicted before the tree was cut in half), and it wasn't terribly long before the inevitable happened. The rope/chain slipped over the top of the tree, and in an instant, the friend didn't have a back window on the truck anymore. Machination was required to get the stump out after that. I wasn't on hand, but dad still almost can't tell the story without pausing to laugh and recount other similar stories.

The other one, I also missed. When I was in scouts, there were two brothers, Paul and Doug. Doug was a linebacker, Paul was only slightly smaller. Doug was using an axe to chop firewood. Paul was standing in front of him. The axe head came off the handle and went flying past Paul's head. They learned a little lesson. The next time, Paul stood behind Doug. This time, the head came off during the backswing, narrowly missing Paul's head on the other side.

What a shame

Ron in Drums PA

>No way to get all that wood home to turn.

Re: fun with a chainsaw

Dale Stansbery

>OK, one more. This almost had to be seen to be appreciated. About 15 years ago, I had a huge cottonwood tree on the edge of the county highway ROW. The county wanted to straighten the road a little while replacing the bridge, and remove the cottonwood which was about 38"-40" dbh, 60' or more tall and leaning over the road about 7 degrees off vertical.

They used an old 6x6 army truck with a poured concrete bed for ballast and a huge winch. The cable was run to a snatch block in the woods then up into the cottonwood. After the tree was notched and the back cut made, the winch was used to pull the tree back past vertical and on over to fall into the woods. when the tree was leaning back towards the woods about the same amount it had leaned over the road the cable snapped.

As the tree moved rapidly back up and over center, it looked like the 6X6 and the power lines were history. The amazing thing was that the tree swayed back and forth several times and stayed upright. The hinge was about 3" thick.

After they spliced the cable, and cut a little more into the hinge, the tee fell as planned.

It was almost as amazing as was the night the EPA burned up a county bridge, but that's too far OT.

Re: fun with a chainsaw

tek-Brunswick, Ohio

>I have no Horror stories. I've dropped maybe 20 trees, so I'm no expert. I have had a wood burning stove for 16 years now and cut a lot of firewood and some turning wood. I have some words of advice though. Put the gas oil mix and the chain oil in the right tanks and put the chain on with the teeth in the cutting direction. You might think I know about this from experience, but I'm not telling! Am I the only one that inspects each piece of firewood before I burn it? I just may change my mind and want to turn it instead.

Re: A True Turner!

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In Jersey

>Will use most anything at hand to cushion the log as it falls; simply won't do to have cracks induced in valuable blanks by hitting the ground.

I seem to remember a report that the surgery to remove that small piece in the picture went rather well.

M

Re: fun with a chainsaw

Darrell Feltmate

>After hurricane Juan hit last year I ran a chainsaw for about ten days straight (except for Sunday). I have used one a lot since I was a lad but this was the worst cutting I have ever seen as well as the most dangerous. There was a lot of crisscross and blow down with huge root balls that would yank the tree back up as the top came off. Plus I was going from neighbour to neighbor so there were too many houses handy and too many amateurs with new chain saws. I found the way to cut a leaner with a root ball. Work back as much as possible from the top until you feel that it is balanced and another cut may make it spring or, if that is not possible just go to step 2. Make sure you have room to run clear when the tree moves. Notch the top of the log where you plan on cutting through. Gradually widen the notch with successive cuts on either side until you see or hear the tree start to split. Notch a bit more if necessary. As it start to split, step well back, run if necessary. The top may roll and the bottom will spring back up. The notch prevents the saw from binding. An under cut may be neater but the chances of binding are a lot greater. Use the top to anchor a come-along and use it to give direction for the remainder of the trunk, now upright. Notch, hinge and drop it. hope it helps and I hope you do not need the advice. Those suckers are dangerous.