Tony Croft aka hamadryad

Love thy nieghbour! pretty self explanetery really, one oaks propped itsef up on a nieghbour started to weld then the nieghbour probably shed its support by absscision and the overly long, but thin, branch failed, teach him to be a lazy toad!

that reduction was abit on the heavey side! what was the spec!

One of the main ident features of fungi is in thier Gills/pores, some being maze like others with small fine pores, others like Polyporus squamosus have angular pores. The shape and form of gills varies greatly also, and this aspect of fungi is really the first stage in acurate key use for identifying a given species. the two here are both pored species. Trametes gibbosa "the lumpy bracket, close up of pores. Heterobassidion annosum - spore surface. sorry no common name known to me. Olive Oysterling. (Panellus serotinus) Olive Oysterling. (Panellus serotinus) Pluerotus ostreatus "the oyster mushroom" on road side chestnut!

LOL! Nah, I doubt it, apparently I'm just a hacker, and if I aint a pro by now after all this time i never will be!

Yesterdays job, spec was back to previous, bit harsh i reckon but what do i know! and fell the one nearest house. Took three fill ups to complete the reduction believe it or not! but I was making more cuts and making sure I had enough growth in place before finalising so probably reduced twice overall! Across from the job on the green was this lovely young oak, what a tree it can be! and is. oh and our new motor, got loads of poke for a littleun, cabs a bit tight though!

hares too!?

My dry cleaners done all three pairs! Bout time This firm sorted the zips out, they cclaim to use high quality zips but my one fitted by the dry cleaners is as tough as boots and going strong.

this subjects well covered in THE FUNGI section! thats what those old threads are there for, as reference material.

Inonotus hispidus (The shaggy bracket) This ones a bit on the aggresive side, and is highly infectious in dense stands, often being frequent in a particular area. It infects Fraxinus excelsior predominantly (Common Ash) though is also found on many other broadleafs including apple and London plane. It is a well documented fungus, so i wont go into too much detail here, but here are some images to act as a reference. Trees infected (ash) can often be spotted from a great distance if your familiar with what to look for, as dead wood sections are often the first sign of problems at late stages of colonisation. The tree below I spotted whilst walking with the dog one day, I had a gut feeling and had to walk a fair way to get to it. Whilst trying to stand on the buttreses to elavate myself to shoot the bracket I found to my utter horror that Hornets had found the cavity a good home! needless to say we both ran like the wind and this is the best I could do from a safe distance! This group of matured and aging fruit bodies show the bright yellow spore print associated with this Fungus. Believe it or not they went unoticed by anyone, despite being on a busy highway and next to a building site, well on its boundry, how was this missed in the arb survey? Finaly here is a cross section of an ash stem with very late stage decay, penetration of barrier zoning is obvious and so to is the callous forming at another typical feature of the strategy of hispidus, necrosis/canker.

If any of you reading this are happy to mill decent sized timber in back yards I will take a number off you and bare it in mind in ALL future suitable scenarios, I am certain my customers (due to comments) would be happier knowing it was going to a better home than firewood. Bonus is this way carbon is locked for eternity too.

Most of the root decays will show up as dysfunctional/decayed wood if only as a very small cone shaped zone usualy around a metre from ground level. The ganodermas will obviously show decay well into the trunk, its the Collybias, the meripilus that hide well, Inonotus can be tricky to see in the ealry stages. Suggest you check out two or three threads in the fungal section.

A few from my beloved Whippendell, home to many a fine warrior and more fungi than you can shake a stick at. This little wood has been teaching me for over 15 years, i probably learn more in there in one day than in a life time spent in books:thumbup1: How many welds can you spot?

That was a fine assortment of goodies you got out of that vent dean! at least i know where to look for a biro for the next risk assesment on site, where to find a teaspoon when brewing up etc etc!

All good stuff, i shall reserve jugdment on the pulleys and potential for movement thing till Ive had time to really think about the possabilities, with a lot of help from dad!

Are you consulting sean? you certainly know your bunions! good post, never really thought about cables as a means to redirect a failure, is that what you meant?

Some of the lads in here get together from time to time, you could do a lot worse than turn up to one of these and have a good old laugh and chat with the guys. Youll get some good advice, a go on some kit and loads of different perspectives and ideas of what consitutes effective efficient climbing techniques and kit. The experiance within a group like this is invaluable, get on it i say.

http://www.tree-consult.org/images/pdf/eng/BracingISA.pdf You mean like these?

Seeing as thats my local area (watford) I will keep my ears and eyes open for you, gutted for you fella. Whats your firm? where are you and have you recently had any "scummy" guys work for you recently?

Thanks for making me see what tony means! Tony, do you mean that there is little movement in the bottom attachment but greater at the higher point so asking where the extra rope/slack comes from. So as to increase the avaliable movement of the top portion. i think i understand your issue with it, and im not wording it well! But i can see your point and get it. Your right too and I need to go away and speak to my rather ecelant and quiet mad engineering father!

it seems to me there is a massive void and market avaliable to a smart man with a portable mill cpable of gate back garden application! There is just so much good and big wood around, if one guy got wise he would set up to take all these big butts off contractors for free on the premise that the contractor would save money/time on the butt clearance leaving that portion to the miller!

well said Tony, anyone would think this is rocket science, its just a communication thing. It would be so much better if ALL jobs had been specified in the manner Tony describes before the quoting stage, even for domestic jobs, that way we would all be quoting for the same job and on a level playing field. one mans quote currently for a 30% reduction is not another mans 30%, Quality work takes a little more time to do, is harder to do and requires more skill. Anyone can come along and "wack" out 30% of a tree overall and that makes this an unfair quoting scenario. The customer is often blissfully unaware of this situation.

I never said the system was perfect! I said (in not so many words) that this needs to be looked at, developed further etc Allowing movement in a bracing system simply has to be benificial as it allows for loads to generate "optimisation" growth. Due to the axiom of uniform stress (Claus mattheck) general bracing systems overly support the structure as the tree continues to grow in size they even support more as they tension. That has serious implications in bio mechanical loading points as the tree re adapts its growth with the support offered by cabling. As i mention in another thread, and it appears others have been working on the idea for a long time too, the perfect solution, for some genus at least is to create or encourage natural grafts. beech trees are really good examples and have the highest potential to be gained due to thier propensity to included and weak "stazi ears" forks. The bottom line is that no current bracing system is perfect, probably never will be a perfect system other than natural grafts, but i suggest that with further work, evaluation and application these basic designs have great potential. JFL deserves a round of applause for at least going some way to moving this up a notch or two, I dont see anyone else having any (none natural) alternatives or better solutions, I stand to be corrected......

Thats an amazing bit of observation considering I never noticed it myself! was propably so excited at finding mint condition A.muscaria I failed to notice it and still failed even looking at these photos till you pointed it out! I havent looked at the mycena's much, have noticed they are able to break down tough old sativa stumps though, and theres not much that can deal with that wood! I have a pic of another mycena I found showing its bright i think its pink mycelium, will try and dig it out from the vaults!

Yes all the distances increase! thats the whole point isnt it! The rope moving through the pulleys? Tensioned this system cant allow the limb to move so far as to creat fracture surely, and in any case it is taking out the "shock force" resonance or sudden upward then downward forces from big gusts would be well dealt with surley?

The Y bracing system must surely just allow the two sub branches to move but without excessive movement, I mean to as far as the limit and fracture stress point. My only doubt is its ability to stop barn door fracture of the main union. The Z sytem is going to be incapable of stopping barn door also but IMO it will assist in slowing down whilst still enabling sudden movemnets in high winds. as the pulleys and ropes work on each other they will have the effect of cushioning the force. I think these are simple diagramatic examples, hence i said i would be looking at ways to make them work. I think there is a great deal of merit in a system that allows for a greater degree of natural movement for stresses to encourage adaptive growth and this needs some consideration before being written off and dismissed so easily Tony.