Trees you've cut

[Teewhy]

Nice work to get with a few mates.
2 Leyland Cyprus and 2 Ash to come down,
Basket job, left with a truck load of ash for the stove, happy days
Machine delays mean we’ll have to be back, but it was a good couple days nonetheless.

 

[davidwyby]

 

[chiselbit]

That first one has some pretty wood, is there anything you can do with that?

 

[davidwyby]

That first one has some pretty wood, is there anything you can do with that?

It’s nice and stable unlike Euc. I mill it, sell to tule peak timber, or mostly make “cookies” out of it and sell to ladies for decoration. Or charcuterie boards. I’ve made some good $ doing it. Like 160 cookies for $7 ea..

 

[davidwyby]

I think I made a mistake by putting the back cut through a wound burl.

 

[Ketchup]

I think I made a mistake by putting the back cut through a wound burl.

Those darn short fiber trees like gravity too much. They never initiate the fall until you’ve already taken too much hinge. Then it just tears sideways and goes straight for the lean.

 

[TheDarkLordChinChin]

Those darn short fiber trees like gravity too much. They never initiate the fall until you’ve already taken too much hinge. Then it just tears sideways and goes straight for the lean.

Beech and sycamore are like this.

 

[TheDarkLordChinChin]

Western red ceder.
There's lots of it around here.
It was often planted around houses years ago.
There's one mill in the country that takes it, they pay top dollar for it too.

This was only a small tree, I've seen trees seven foot in diameter beside old farmhouses before. They don't usually grow too tall though, given the space they have not growing amongst other trees in a forest. Don't think I've seen one over 70 feet tall. This one was only about thirty feet tall.

 

[Catbuster]

Beech and sycamore are like this.

Honestly, most deciduous hardwood trees are.

Sycamore is probably the worst.

I strongly dislike spur, jump cutting and slick stumping trees but for where a lot of people east of the Rocky Mountains here in the US, it’s the best way to not pull fiber and leave a sellable product.

 

[Hoser]

I’ve been noticing the hand crews locally seem to just face cut, back cut and chase the hinge, which I never liked hanging out on the stump that long, especially with ash

 

[davidwyby]

Honestly, most deciduous hardwood trees are.

Sycamore is probably the worst.

I strongly dislike spur, jump cutting and slick stumping trees but for where a lot of people east of the Rocky Mountains here in the US, it’s the best way to not pull fiber and leave a sellable product.

@afleetcommand has the safe way to fell and not pull fibers down to a science. Open face, plunge and trigger with some stump shot.

*gut the hinge

 

[Catbuster]

@afleetcommand has the safe way to fell and not pull fibers down to a science. Open face, plunge and trigger with some stump shot.

He does & it works well for him. I’m just stuck in the fact that big face eats a lot of valuable timber where the butt end of the log is the most valuable, and you usually only get 12 to maybe 20 feet before a defect.

 

[davidwyby]

He does & it works well for him. I’m just stuck in the fact that big face eats a lot of valuable timber where the butt end of the log is the most valuable, and you usually only get 12 to maybe 20 feet before a defect.

As I recall, he trims a flare off vertically to function as a shallow face and doesn’t lose wood from the log.

 

[Bonez]

I'd have to get out my flash drives to find all the trees Ive cut down to clear my property, some nice sized oaks, cedars , walnut a few cherry and maples. I actually need a couple massive oaks and walnuts dropped around my house as I dont have the experience or equipment to do those as the oak overhangs and leans towards the house. But myself I use a nice Poulan Pro 20" I rebuilt ( just a bad diaphragm in the self priming carb ) runs excellent for 3 years now using non ethanol fuel. People around here knocks everything that isnt a Stihl but Ill take my poulan anyday .

 

[whitesnake]

He does & it works well for him. I’m just stuck in the fact that big face eats a lot of valuable timber where the butt end of the log is the most valuable, and you usually only get 12 to maybe 20 feet before a defect.

Feller buncher works well lol.

 

[Catbuster]

Feller buncher works well lol.

This is the quickest way to take out 90% of the trees in the U.S:



A feller buncher makes one hell of a mess compared to a guy with a saw.

And it’s not as much fun.

 

[Powerstroke Cowboy]

This is the quickest way to take out 90% of the trees in the U.S:

View attachment 440022

A feller buncher makes one hell of a mess compared to a guy with a saw.

And it’s not as much fun.

Looks to be hard on roads as well.

 

[TheDarkLordChinChin]

This is the quickest way to take out 90% of the trees in the U.S:

View attachment 440022

A feller buncher makes one hell of a mess compared to a guy with a saw.

And it’s not as much fun.

A lot of contractors getting into using machinery to cut roadside trees around here, especially ash.
Takes a lot of work away from the likes of me to be honest.
Landowners don't care, jobs that I would charge €2000 for they're getting done with a machine at a day rate of €500 and less.
A lot of the time the timber just goes straight into a machine fed, tractor driven chipper.

 

[TheDarkLordChinChin]

Tall sitka spruce from today.
If it had gone wrong it could have smashed a house, a shed and a broadband cable.
I laid it out neatly between all three.
Spruce is my favourite tree to fell. They usually grow straight and I have total confidence in the hinge wood.








Have you ever seen so much ivy?
I have but not often
This tree was 90 years old and the landowners said the tree had been smothered with ivy since 1996 when they moved in.


The tree you think you are cutting...








...vs tree you are actually cutting











This tree was 90 years old according to the growth rings but only 30 inches or so diameter at the stump.
I have felled taller, girthier spruce trees that were a third the age.
The growth rings on this tree were like what you would expect on a beech, they were so close together it was hard to count them.
Normally spruce has big wide growth rings, sometimes an inch or more apart.
The main stem of this tree almost looked like branch-wood as in there was a red heart wood and a white sapwood. Spruce branches look like this but the main stem is usually a solid white the whole way through.






One explanation I can think of is ivy.
If there had been this level of ivy smothering the tree for 90 years then this strangulation effect would cause the tree to grow much, much slower and pack the timber in much denser.
Disregarding the shear amount of ivy on the tree, you can still tell it was there for a long time by how few branches the tree had. Normally spruce grows a LOT of branches, especially when growing out on its own like this one.
This tree had very few branches but it did gave lots of knots and included branches, indicating there had been branches at one stage but the ivy had killed them off.



A pic of my stump. I was high on my back cut on one side but the hinge was consisten throughout.

 

[TheDarkLordChinChin]

Tall sitka spruce from today.
If it had gone wrong it could have smashed a house, a shed and a broadband cable.
I laid it out neatly between all three.
Spruce is my favourite tree to fell. They usually grow straight and I have total confidence in the hinge wood.

View attachment 440060






Have you ever seen so much ivy?
I have but not often
This tree was 90 years old and the landowners said the tree had been smothered with ivy since 1996 when they moved in.


The tree you think you are cutting...


View attachment 440061





...vs tree you are actually cutting





View attachment 440062





This tree was 90 years old according to the growth rings but only 30 inches or so diameter at the stump.
I have felled taller, girthier spruce trees that were a third the age.
The growth rings on this tree were like what you would expect on a beech, they were so close together it was hard to count them.
Normally spruce has big wide growth rings, sometimes an inch or more apart.
The main stem of this tree almost looked like branch-wood as in there was a red heart wood and a white sapwood. Spruce branches look like this but the main stem is usually a solid white the whole way through.


View attachment 440064



One explanation I can think of is ivy.
If there had been this level of ivy smothering the tree for 90 years then this strangulation effect would cause the tree to grow much, much slower and pack the timber in much denser.
Disregarding the shear amount of ivy on the tree, you can still tell it was there for a long time by how few branches the tree had. Normally spruce grows a LOT of branches, especially when growing out on its own like this one.
This tree had very few branches but it did gave lots of knots and included branches, indicating there had been branches at one stage but the ivy had killed them off.



A pic of my stump. I was high on my back cut on one side but the hinge was consisten throughout.


View attachment 440063

More pics of the ivy







Here's what a 90 year old spruce SHOULD look like







The picture doesn't do it justice. This tree is massive.
It's below the house.
Well over 100 foot.