dadio

c'mon now.. you gotta roll one or two on a roof when you get a chance to see what happens... I'll see if I can dig up some old footage of Big Jon bombing some monster oak pieces from 40-60'... at least one landed in the kitchen... turned out to be a mistake though casue they were hard to get out (and off the roof) and the demo guy charged my buddy and extra $500, just to move the pieces out of the way. It was his house and hopefully he still has the tape. I gotta a couple hemlocks coming down on the tear down property soon. Have to pick up the camera from the shop for that one.. I did roll a medium hemlock off a garage roof on purpose many years ago.. worked beautifully, as the hemlock has all those nice limbs to cushion the fall. I'll try to put these two trees on the roof without damage.. Just for FUN! Might try using multiple narrow notches to walk them down .. not sure if it can be done with trees this big.. any suggestions?

some nice drops... Question on that one with a lot of side weight, pulled with the big truck: Do you really think that wedge does much good? Guessing you used it to keep the bar from getting pinched if the tree set back.. I have used wedges and lots of force on pull lines together before, but this one didn't really look like it had much back weight...

I study hinges... normally would have edited a lot of that out, but there was some "discussion" going on at the tree house about wether the sapwood fibers have more holding ability than heartwood... anyone care about that?

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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e7pKCaQp-4]Treehenge - YouTube[/ame] it works!

It was an experimental cut, which I;d been thinking about for a while.. Worked pretty well, though it could be refined.. Rather than make a notch undercut, I just plunged straight in and came out the bottom, so no need to cut up against gravity.. second cut was plunged in higher, leaving a small strap of holding wood, and top cut acted much as back release cut in falling.. so the piece just popped off..

Apparently too well to be worthy of more comments.... LOL

shows sound fundamental falling technique used to safely direct the fall of two extremely large white oak trees. One of these 115' trees was within 70' of a new house. Both had significant back lean. If you watch closely you can see them sit back a little when the back strap is released, even with two pull lines pre-tensioned with trucks.

That guy on the ladder would have been better off if he thought it through a little and put an old mattress down where he was going to fall...

Glad you noticed... Its nice to get people thinking a little... even if it is just to say how much they dislike me! LOL

Those are actually good points of concern (for a change LOL)... The answers are somewhat complicated... not sure if you really want to know... A lot of people will look at a video like that and say with all that set up you could have just used the bucket and rigged out that weight over the house.. Not really true.. While one or two people (mostyl just one) were setting up the rigging, other crew members were able to go about cleaning up the existing mess.. Also the log loader was on site and waiting, which is not only costly, but wastes his time.. so putting the tree on the ground as fast as possible was important.. let him take the logs and the clean up can be done later.. as was the case with my time. I had another job to get to.. once the trees were down, I was free to go.. A straight hinge may have worked, BUT NO WAY was I about to find out.. the retainer line was tied to a big limb stub ... BUT that stub was being torques sideways, making it much weaker... So the point of failure was unknown and I would have liked to have a lot more tension on the retainer line.. You can say the depth of the notch was only a matter of a few inches, and try to dismiss that, but how do you really know what difference that makes? I believe in throwing everything to the fallers advantage.. big 3120 husky w/ 36" bar made that notch quick and easy... More importantly was the added length to the hinge, allowing the lean side to be removed and still having quite a bit of length on the tension side.. That's just common sense... And yes the bar nose did get pinched, which was more of a safety issue for the bar than me... If I felt at all threatened I would have left the saw and run! All the lean was away from me and nothing over my head at risk of falling.... I was happy the bar as undamaged... could have been worse.. a good (free) lesson to learn.. I still need to think about how that could have been done differently.. I wasn't happy with the communication with the skid op.. I'll have to talk to him about exactly what happened on his end.. It might have been better to preform the hinge with a bore cut and then step back and call for the pull, which I do on the vast majority of falls.. Hope that all makes sense..

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ui0uZaNIv8]Tree Service Bryn Mawr PA - YouTube[/ame] had some fun with this cut... hope you all enjoy the video.. Cheers!

For good reason... the added stretch of a static line greatly reduces the shock load on the system. If the weakest part of the system is the tree and the climber is tied into the tree, the stretch in the line can be the difference between life and death.

Here's a video I made some years back about "near balance point" rigging.. This is a technique used to get slow and steady movemnt of a lowered bit, while making sure it is a bit tip heavy so that it travels down and away from the climber. I decided to "pull" the video becasue it got a lot of feedback that the danger of not allowing the piece to run was not well enough emphasized.. Its presently unlisted on youtube, but can be viewed with a link Understanding "how to" do it and "when and why" to do it are two different things. There is a lot more to it than put in the video and if you don't have a firm grasp of the basics, trying to do this can put the climber at considerable risk... I put this together on a very limited budget. Hope to be able to cover the technique completely at some point. Hope you can appreciate it for what it is, without being too hard on the incompletes.

Pruning 4 large silver maples and 1 large pin oak. The client was originally debating removing 4 of these trees, as their size was overwhelming his yard and house. I was able to convince him that the trees could be reduced to his satisfaction, which would be the most cost-effective, while preserving the beauty and value of the trees. The MEWP was invaluable in getting this job done at a reasonable price. We generally use alterna mats to protect the lawn, as the truck is very heavy.

All EXCELLENT points.. and very well put.. the best of which is that there are just way too many factors to strictly go by a "rule" book.. Knowledge + Experience ... there is no substitute.. fortunately the knowledge is much more readily available through these internet boards.. there is so much knowledge shared, making it a much faster learning curve when that understanding is applied in the field.. You're a good man Reg! Thanks for sharing all you have!

actually in re-thinking that and running the numbers.. it may be that they both stretch the same for any given weight, just that the extra strength of the polydyne makes it 1/2 the % of tensile of true blue..

Polydyne / High Strength Double Braided Rope | Yale Cordage Here's the chart for polydyne.. the 9/16" weighs less than 1 lb. more per 100' than the 1/2" true blue.. Here's the true blue stats: Samson-The Strongest Name in Rope, TRUE-BLUE true blue stretches 2.6% at 10% tensile (which would be 730 lbs) tensile is 15,000 on the 9/16" polydyne, so it has about twice the tensile as the 1/2" true blue.. when you get into 1500 lbs, that's 20% for 1/2 true blue and 10% for 9/16 polydyne, which would be 3% stretch for both.. get above that and the stretch for true blue is MUCH less than polydyne.... true blue chart doesn't go above 30% tensile =4% stretch, while the polydyne stretches over 7% at 30% tensile and 9% at 40% tensile.. I can imagine a scenario where the bucket is maxed out and I'd rather take a big top from the safety of the bucket than climb out and rig off an unstable tree.. Setting a block as high as possible and using a redirect to keep as much of the 200' of polydyne in the system as possible.. That's gonna be fun!

"That's always a relief"... LOL.. for sure.. that tree looked like it had been dead a good while! Nice cuts and rigging.. You've been keeping busy.. You blew off this advice last time I gave it, but here goes again.. When blocking down tops I like to keep the block as high as possible next to the cut. I set the block, then make the notch down very close to the sling... leaving my lanyard and climbing line/fs under the block.. Whatever distance there is between the block and the cut will create 2x that much distance in fall.. When working with big pieces, that can make a huge difference in overall force, especially if everything else is not perfect for reducing shock loads.. You obviously know all this, and have a nice system and ground men that can be trusted (for at least 7/10), and are taking very reasonable sized pieces, so it is being said primarily for others to learn from.. In extreme cases where there is a compromised structure below you etc.. you need to throw everything possible to your advantage, becasue your life is on the line. The bigger the top, the more important it is.. I think I AM going to get some 9/16" Polydyne for just such occasions.. Checking out the stretch characteristics of that vs 1/2" true blue yesterday.. There's a big difference as you get into 20-40% tensile

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT58A&feature=my_liked_videos&list=LLseSwqsha7yQm1oZhJcPhsw]The Story of Your Enslavement - YouTube[/ame]

Hardly, this guy is so lost, he put this vid up to brag about the saw.

A little bit of both with an added measure of no access to the backyard with big equipment without taking out several nice large shrubs and small trees... I actually wasn't sure hwo it was going to go when I got to the job and was thinking I could get the mewp if needed.. She was a pleasure to work for... Thanks for all the positive comments.. Nice to be able to re-live that good day and share it with those that can understand...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p04sxvuZu7E]dangerous Oak Tree Removal Bryn Mawr PA - YouTube[/ame] Here's the latest removal video.. We got to the job and the first thing my co-worker says is.. "this is NOT a Monday tree"... He was right, but we got it done anyway... I love that intensity... get to re-live it all again on youtube...

Upon slow motion review, it appears he had a fairly good body position, standing on the cut of another big lead, with only slight bending for the cut..

I like to have a dedicated groundie.. He NEVER walks away from the tree while I AM in it or the bucket.. He manages ground traffic, so I don't have to, and has a complete understanding of what is going to happen next... He would have stopped me from making that cut with my line fouled like that. The tirck to make the team run efficiently is to be fast enough as a climber to keep him busy, and have the rest of the ground support able to process the debris fast enough to keep up. I never have to wait to have a line untied or fro wraps to be taken etc ..