Stunt Felling. The advanced course.

[Tom D]

This large beech was a difficult fell, there was a historic well just to the left in the first pic one of the stems was weighted in that direction. We strapped her up with 4 5 ton ratchet straps, and put the gob in, and then I knew that no matter what we did it was going to do its own thing. As I was cutting the gob water was coming out, once I got it out I could see the inclusion, no way it was going to hold.

 

So I had a problem, the three stems were each going to go their own way, one of which was weighted in the direction of this ancient well. I couldn't just bore in at the sided as the bar on the saw wouldn't reach in the middle, so I had to bore through the middle of the precious hinge. Then bore in at each side and come back leaving 3 straps one on each included section, she made a few noises as I was cutting.

 

Then the dilemma, which side to cut first? as soon as I severed any of the 3 sections it was going to go on its own, so I decided to do a dual fell, me on the 66 and Andrew on the 385, we lined up at different heights and realised that even with a 36" and a 28" bar we were 2' short of overlapping, so another boring cut through the back was required she made more ominous cracks as I did this, then we both put both our saws in the bored out cut at the back and went for it. I had told Andrew not to run if it made some noise, only when he saw it move, we kept cutting while the tree popped and banged then she started to go, 4 5ton ratchets popped like garden twine, but... they held just long enough to hold it together for it to miss the well.

 

So we sacrificed 4 ratchet straps but she's down. here's some pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Johny Walker]

what about strapping it higher up ,like a brase ,

[born2trot]

No need for annoying gangster rap garbage background music . Just a good honest treework post from Tom D as usual

[Stephen Blair]

i bet you could of passed Usain Bolt with an 88 over your shoulder when that big Girl started to go:biggrin:

 

Proper Job x10:thumbup1:

[18 stoner]

They done teach that in college!

 

Real tree work Tom, nicely done:thumbup1:

[RobArb]

wowzers:thumbup:

[mistahbenn]

What no video???

[GardenKit]

A question from someone who knows nothing about felling.

 

How much does a tree like that weigh?

[Tom D]

A question from someone who knows nothing about felling.

 

How much does a tree like that weigh?

 

Put it this way, I wouldn't want to take it all away in a transit.

 

People often over estimate the weight of timber, the owner thought it would be 50ton +. While that tree was huge, it will only contain around 25-30 ton of timber and maybe another 3 of 4 of brash. To put that in context its a whole artic load of timber.

I have felled a few trees around that size, that was perhaps the biggest. It is only about 20 man hours for the whole job though thanks to having two tractors and a big bonfire for the brash.

[SKStrees]

Very impressive! And probably proper nervy too! Top job