How NOT to fell a tree

[ukbushmonkey]

Thats one thing I have never 'legally' done, felled a tree with an axe, I can imagine its a lot of effort but rewarding and a relief when it finally falls (sorry for my 5 month slow reply mate)

It is always a danger when removing a rotting tree, most of the time if its that bad you would get a cherry picker, absail down from another tree (if there is one), or put a rope around the tree 3/4 of the way up, do your normal cuts but leave more holding wood in the middle and cut very slowly, getting your men to keep constant pressure on the rope and none of that rocking malarky. If all fails, the new boy did it

 

[hairyhippy]

Are there any good online resources for do's and dont's on felling smaller stuff? What is a safe size of tree etc?

 

[ukbushmonkey]

Any size tree can be dangerous if you dont do it right, I recommend you dont cut any tree down without any type of training, and make sure the tree your cutting down isnt protected otherwise you'll get a major fine and possible jail sentence.

as for where you can find out more info on tree felling visit www.arbtalk.co.uk its a very good website full of tree surgeons.

 

[No Idea]

After watching the first vid I was left hoping there would be a Part 2 of them cocking it up again

Er.....

There is.

[video=youtube;E_7Rr4SzkFc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_7Rr4SzkFc&[/video]

 

[baz p]

wow amazing stupidity on the vids people, vid one brilliant, the music, the tree sex hahaha...........class

vid number two...........i cant say anything apart from t***er,

the one thing i did notice was not one person hand the hand in the correct position for the safety break just in case of kick back.......just pure stupidity.

thanks for that what a giggle, i need to rest my stomach hurts

 

[baz p]

How on earth is it madness?

I work as a Health & Safety advisor on construction sites and you see people who can barely do their own buttons up anymore due to HAVS.

I think having to rotate tasks between people is a small price to pay to prevent that. Otherwise, we might as well get everyone snorting asbestos again, or are the controls on that madness too?

I fully agree with you tenchu, i work in a plant and tool hire company and have to deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis, when it comes to working aids its best to stick to the advice given to you, instead of having to give out advice because something has happened to you.

 

[demographic]

Can't say I would be too keen on felling trees that have a lot of rotten areas in the trunk, makes them quite unpredictable.

Especially if I was as much of a spanner as those on the video.

 

[ukbushmonkey]

the saw is blunt, you could use that chain on the 1st chainsaw as a skipping rope, cringing but so funny

 

[No Idea]

I think they should have just cut down the healthy tree to play dominoes.

Or maybe they would have managed to lean that on the rotten one and have two dangerous trees standing lol

 

[ukbushmonkey]

Its worth a crack, it cant exactly be made anymore cowboyish lol maybe he should climb the hung up rotten tree and chog it down bit by bit

 

[brancho]

I think they must have all attended a good idiot college to be that good

 

[PaulSanderson]

he he great vids...it seems idiots make the world go round....

 

[No Idea]

I suppose I do know how they got in such a mess.

When I was 25ish...

I worked for a horticultural firm.

There was this line of trees....

The boss was told he was not allowed to cut them down.

They were damaging our crops.

He decided I should pollard? them.

However, they were on the bank of a foot deep stream.

So, my foreman drove my tractor down the river with me in the bucket with a hire company chainsaw.....

No goggles, no helmet, no ballistic gear....

I did have a length of bailer twine that I tied around the chainsaw guard and onto my wrist so I couldnt accidentally drop it...

Foreman took me to the trees, I would step off onto whatever footholds I could find and cut the trees off.

THey were about 9 inches thick at that point.

Foreman moved back in case I miscalculated with my cuts - not that I had any training, it was all guesswork on my part.

There was some wind, so I cut them and hoped the wind would drop them in the river and not on the crops, which would have meant more grief off the boss.

Luckily, I managed to drop all 6 in the river.

I got reprimanded on that job for taking too long though.

I suppose things have changed a bit in the last 20 odd years lol

 

[ukbushmonkey]

Yea just a bit, you do get a lot of farm workers does it like that still though, I had to do some crane work and was made to stand in a tractor bucket to chain lumps off. Bailing twine around the rist is a good one lol

So were they protected trees if you was told you could not cut them down, unless the council said they could be pollarded? You can barely look at a tree these days without someone having ago, I have been told I am going to hell for cutting down a curtain tree (which had honey fungus) so I just say well ok imagine this 'diseased' tree was in your garden and you woke up one morning to find it laying on your car or hit a small child, it would be a different story then... old ladies are the worst for it!! And everyone seems to think they know more about trees than you do even though it’s your job.

 

[No Idea]

My boss was a real stubborn man.

If he said he wanted the trees down, usually it would happen.

I think he got permission to trim them a bit....

I just had a look on Google Earth...

The trees I pollarded arnt quite as tall as the little forest the farmer planted in his field directly behind them in protest at what my boss did.....but they survived.

I also did 2 on the side of a main road, simply having a few farm hands stop the traffic while I cut them and to drag the bits out of the way.

I didnt even have a road cone, let alone all the barriers, sign posts, permission to close the road, etc, that you would need today. lol

Just checked them too. That row are now some of the biggest trees in that area inc, in height, so I dont think I did them too much damage either.

Looking back, I hate to think how I would have managed if I had slipped or fell out of any of those trees with a running chainsaw tied to me....

Not sure they even had chain brakes then either. It was a tatty huskvana (sorry about the spelling), with a 36 inch blade - the only one they had on the day lol.

 

[No Idea]

The man who lives next to my mum cut down a 10 yard diameter bramble bush when he moved in.

One little old lady was almost spitting at him she was so incensed...

He calmly cut off a 6" piece and asked her to plant it in her garden for the birds as she so desperately wanted to save it.

 

[Mikey P]

Personally, I always like to see a yo-yo start. Instant fail.

 

[Cypress]

A forestry professor once told me that a tree with a bulge at the base of the trunk was likely hollow. Is that correct?

The tree that he was pointing out, a rather large and aged live oak, did indeed have a slight bulge, but there were no obvious signs of decay. The tree actually looked quite healthy. But I'm no tree surgeon so I might have missed something.

How can you tell if a healthy-looking tree (any species) is hollow or rotting?

 

[ukbushmonkey]

Depending on the tree, Lime trees for instance put loads of epircormic growth at the bottom of the trunk which a lot of people cut off, which over time this leaves a big bulge of wood, this is fine. Normally if the tree is bulging at the bottom, in a Cherry tree it has been crafted in a nursery, the root will be from a wild Cherry. Now in Oaks, Beech trees ect the bulge normally means the tree is buckling under its own weight and the tree fibres are pushing down on each other which leaves a bulge, normally referred to as 'bottle buck' even though this is not really healthy for the tree, the tree is not normally a danger and causes no real threat to the public.

How can you tell if the tree has rot.. Well normally it is visual, dying branches, cracking of bark ect.. Look for signs of wood pecker holes, they bore into dead wood to get the grubs inside, if you see bees, bats, pretty much any wildlife will nest in rotten cavities. If you have a bit of an idea of what your listening for you can tap around the areas of the tree you suspect to be rotten and you will hear a hollow sound, compare this to other parts of the tree (common sense) rot is not always a bad thing. Trees were around before us so they don’t really need Tree Surgeons pruning them, if a tree needs to be pruned, someone has put the wrong tree or building in the wrong place and its normally time to plant a new tree, but try tell this to little old Patty down the road trees have reaction wood and normally throw loads more wood to the decaying area to help support the weak spot of the tree. If you find a cavity in a tree and it is full of nasty gunky water.. This is good, people used to drill holes in trees to drain this water which lead to air, bacteria and everything getting in to allow further rot but today this practice has changed, the water stops the air getting in and prevents further rot.

Sorry if I went on a bit lol

36 inch bar Jesus lol I am sure the Health and Safety bloke would go nuts, but who cares to be honest, you kinda know when your pushing your luck a bit to much lol

 

[No Idea]

I forgot to mention that that was the first time I had ever used a chainsaw and was petrified of it.