Dramatic heart rot in a tree

[British Red]

When felling trees, there is little scarier than heart rot. Heart rot is where the heart of a tree is rotted out meaning a huge tree is supported on an inch or two of sap wood around the outside of a tree. This can cause an uncontrolled fall where there is no integrity to the hinge or even a "barber chair" where the trunk flies backwards at the feller.

We had a willow with heart rot that needed removal & I thought it might be interesting to make a short video showing how an apparently intact tree can actually have the structural integrity of a sponge!

 

[Kadushu]

Then sometimes they are full of bees!

 

[Woody girl]

Had to fell a willow yesterday that was rotten. It took 3 of us several hours as we had to slice the branches and trunk due to being too close to buildings and the road. Each huge chunk was so light that even I could lift it one handed.
Will have a go at punk char making next week.
Does anyone know if willow punk wood is any good for that?

 

[Disabled Preppers]

I have a few funny stories on tree felling as kids but the best and this points pout why you should always get the right man for the job .
My dads mate had a huge garden and some huge pine trees and one was close to the house and this is the late 70's he asked dad could he chop it down , my dad being the yes mate not a problem type well he and my uncle worked out the angle of fall and the way they wanted it to go they grew up on a farm in ireland as kids in a remote place so you did it yourself so he goes they get the big ladder a triple ladder we were builders after all lol u pthe tree and then up goes my uncle ties the ladder to the tree , they took off the top 10 to 15 ft i would say move the ladder down to a thicker bit now tied off and dad went up and notched the other side and then started to cut the other side , the wind was still that day but a little breath of wind came you hear a creek a little click you ok dad yup the blade trapped he gets it free and starts sawing another blow and this time click bang dad came flying off the ladder lucky on to a spongy lawn but still winded him but lucky the tree snapped and fell the way he had notched but it coudl have been so much worse , funny now but as i say always get the right man or lady for the job trees can fool you so easy and you may well have it falling the right way until it spins like a top and jumps back .
.
The reason i also replid never heard of punk char but would the wood be any good if it is rotten

 

[Kadushu]

Sounds like my dad. He rigged up what amounted to being a death trap with a rope tied to 2 trees to catch a third tree being felled between them. It did catch the tree and it lay horizontally on the rope and swung back towards him like a battering ram and knocked him off his ladder into the road. I thought he was dead but he was fine except for a black eye. It didn't knock any sense into him.

 

[oldtimer]

I have a few funny stories on tree felling as kids but the best and this points pout why you should always get the right man for the job .
My dads mate had a huge garden and some huge pine trees and one was close to the house and this is the late 70's he asked dad could he chop it down , my dad being the yes mate not a problem type well he and my uncle worked out the angle of fall and the way they wanted it to go they grew up on a farm in ireland as kids in a remote place so you did it yourself so he goes they get the big ladder a triple ladder we were builders after all lol u pthe tree and then up goes my uncle ties the ladder to the tree , they took off the top 10 to 15 ft i would say move the ladder down to a thicker bit now tied off and dad went up and notched the other side and then started to cut the other side , the wind was still that day but a little breath of wind came you hear a creek a little click you ok dad yup the blade trapped he gets it free and starts sawing another blow and this time click bang dad came flying off the ladder lucky on to a spongy lawn but still winded him but lucky the tree snapped and fell the way he had notched but it coudl have been so much worse , funny now but as i say always get the right man or lady for the job trees can fool you so easy and you may well have it falling the right way until it spins like a top and jumps back .
.
The reason i also replid never heard of punk char but would the wood be any good if it is rotten

Your dad and your unc!e were a man short. Being Irish they should have known that to get a tree down you need tree fellers, not two

 

[Woody girl]

Your dad and your unc!e were a man short. Being Irish they should have known that to get a tree down you need tree fellers, not two

Tee hee , ..not always, .. we managed with two fellas and a woman!
We had one incident that made me wince a bit.
The other chap with us ( a volenteer) was asked to secure the chainsaw to the rope with a larkshead and carbina, onto the saw rope, simple enough instruction, so l leave him to it, turns out he used a granny, and at one point it came undone and the chainsaw plummeted earthwoods. Luckily, the engine had been cut, and it was only about 15 feet. Enough to do damage if it had landed on someone mind! Missed him by about two feet!
After that, being the only other person with tree felling and rope experience, I jumped in and took charge of securing it, and everything else, when I saw he was gonna do the exact same thing again. He wasn't too happy, but realised he'd just had a close call, and narrowly avoided a potentialy serious accident, or an expensive chainsaw size hole in his wallet.
Top man was quietly angry, I was too, but we said nowt, but it almost ruined a £600 saw, and serious injury avoided more by luck than anything else. Thank god, top man was a professional and cut the engine at the end of every cut, before any other maneuver . His professionalism saved the day.
You can't mess with trees and chainsaws, they get you in the end otherwise.
I've seen a few nasty moments, and awfully close calls in my time working in the tree industry! Check everything twice, then check again for good luck.
Took home some nice long willow poles, and have spent today slowly scraping the outer bark off, and processing the inner bark for cordage.

 

[Woody girl]

I have a few funny stories on tree felling as kids but the best and this points pout why you should always get the right man for the job .
My dads mate had a huge garden and some huge pine trees and one was close to the house and this is the late 70's he asked dad could he chop it down , my dad being the yes mate not a problem type well he and my uncle worked out the angle of fall and the way they wanted it to go they grew up on a farm in ireland as kids in a remote place so you did it yourself so he goes they get the big ladder a triple ladder we were builders after all lol u pthe tree and then up goes my uncle ties the ladder to the tree , they took off the top 10 to 15 ft i would say move the ladder down to a thicker bit now tied off and dad went up and notched the other side and then started to cut the other side , the wind was still that day but a little breath of wind came you hear a creek a little click you ok dad yup the blade trapped he gets it free and starts sawing another blow and this time click bang dad came flying off the ladder lucky on to a spongy lawn but still winded him but lucky the tree snapped and fell the way he had notched but it coudl have been so much worse , funny now but as i say always get the right man or lady for the job trees can fool you so easy and you may well have it falling the right way until it spins like a top and jumps back .
.
The reason i also replid never heard of punk char but would the wood be any good if it is rotten

Punk wood is rotten wood. I've made punk char for firelighting from rotten birch which takes a spark well. I'm hoping the willow will do the same.
Same process as for char cloth.
Useful if you run out of char cloth in the wild.
Sound like your da, was a bit of a character!

 

[Disabled Preppers]

@Woody girl thanks for letting me know what it is , i do have char but again i am a addict of fatwood .
Oh my dad over the years did some mad stuff lol and i guess that was where i got my wreckless streak , hence no hard hat and wearing flip flops on site , i learnt the hard lesson after a brick dropped 2 floors on to my head .

I have toyed with making char cloth as we have a huge amount of old cotton sheets given to us over the years i always kept them in sacks for using when decorating , i think next time i use the big chimnea i am going to do a few tins of char and hope to get good results .

I should have known about punk wood due to being a ex chippy but we learnt all about trees and wood in college back in the 80's but i guess punk wood was never mentioned as it would be more for the tree surgeon i guess .

I love learning new stuff and this site is throwing up lots of new stuff for me to learn , please keep us filled in on updates on how it works out

To your point on chainsaws i have always fancied one now i have used most tools in my life but then i remember some of the storiers told to me about the novice and a chainsaw and i say hmmm maybe leave it alone , lol i will give you a giggle on that .
I was working for a firm refurbing houses and one old lady had died in a house but the back garden was 6ft high in rose bushes rambling and standards , now the man next door had put corrugated tin down to stop the roots going up his side yup you know where i am going , the boss said get down the tool hire and get a industrial brush cutter now i have used a strimmer before but so off i went the guy at the shop just hads over the machine with all theb its , i went back and as i had finished in the house and painters were in i said i dothe garden now i get kitted out and start the machine i start making in roads and i am like a pig in you know what i am loving it roses bushes flying all over i had ear defenders first time in my life and they played the radio so i am loving life the rain started but now i can hear nothing until someone threw a stone at me i looked round at the guys in the house waving screaming at me i turn the engine off remove the ear defenders to them saying look pointing to the other side of the garden where i had worked lol i had opened the corrugated tin and the chainlink fence like a can opener lol funny i never got asked to do that work again lol just the carpentry lol .
I laugh now but at the time i guess it could well have ended so much worse well the man next door was not happy lol .

 

[Kadushu]

I accidentally cut a leg off the vicar's stepladder with a brushcutter!