what is the biggest/fattest tree you have taken?
- Thread starter DonNC
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Jags said:
Did you use the bucket at all to help? Reason I ask is that's not an option for me most of the time.
smokinjay said:
Not in the splitting operation. I usually locate the splitter close to the work. Sometimes I use the loader to bring stuff closer, but that is simply convenience to not move the splitter (like if I am trying to make a big pile).
Thats a big'un EarthHarvester. Any idea on the DBH?
Jags said:
Precisely.Dad & I use to be quite the team when he was younger.He's 81 now so he mainly just watches me or carries a few small sticks,saws a few smaller pieces while 95%+ of the job is done by me now.I take my time,dont try to do it all in one day anymore.When I'm tired,I dont try to push it like I did at 30 or 35.
When I was about nineteen I worked a short time for an outfit that logged old growth cedar trees on Northern Vancouver island. Mostly we salvaged downed trees that were left on the ground when the the area was originally logged out many years before. The logs were often buried under years of fallen debris and moss, we would literally have to dig them out of the ground and start cutting. Surprisingly the wood inside was in great shape and we would often get 10 or more cords out a buried log that you could hardly see before you started digging.
We (not me) also dropped a few dead standers that were so big you could walk inside them. I don't remember ever measuring the girth of the trees, but they would have had to have been 12-14 ft across and the solid (not hollow) portion of some of the logs were easily 8 ft or more in diameter.
When inquiring why these logs were not taken and milled by the original loggers that came through the consensus was that they were either too big for the equipment they had back then, or they were too hard to get, which maybe makes sense since most of the logs were a good hike from any existing roads, but who knows.
The only reason we were able to get the wood out was because we would buck the wood up into blocks and wrap slings around the blocks and every week or so we had a helicopter come and pick up the slings and drop them in piles down by the nearest accessible road.
It was great fun, but the job didn't last long for me. One day the company rented a truck to pick up some of the blocks that were cut up at the top of a steep mountain road (they were trying to save money by not using the helicopter), on the second load three of us decided to ride on the truck tailgate. On the way down the truck kept jumping out of low gear (it was an automatic and the truck was probably overloaded) and the driver had to ride the brakes to slow it down, unfortunately it was a long steep road and the brakes heated up and failed. I will always remember the smell of burning brakes and the look of fear in the eyes two other guys who were precariously clinging on to the tailgate with me, as the truck careened down the steep mountain road.
When I came to I was about 50 feet down the bank up against a log in a sort of sitting position, I remember looking up at the sky, it was a clear blue day and the birds were singing, I wasn't sure what I was doing there but I remember thinking what a beautiful day it was, everything was peaceful and I felt at ease,,, until I saw one of the other guys stand up out of the bushes, his head was soaked in blood and I started to realize what had just happen.
We (not me) also dropped a few dead standers that were so big you could walk inside them. I don't remember ever measuring the girth of the trees, but they would have had to have been 12-14 ft across and the solid (not hollow) portion of some of the logs were easily 8 ft or more in diameter.
When inquiring why these logs were not taken and milled by the original loggers that came through the consensus was that they were either too big for the equipment they had back then, or they were too hard to get, which maybe makes sense since most of the logs were a good hike from any existing roads, but who knows.
The only reason we were able to get the wood out was because we would buck the wood up into blocks and wrap slings around the blocks and every week or so we had a helicopter come and pick up the slings and drop them in piles down by the nearest accessible road.
It was great fun, but the job didn't last long for me. One day the company rented a truck to pick up some of the blocks that were cut up at the top of a steep mountain road (they were trying to save money by not using the helicopter), on the second load three of us decided to ride on the truck tailgate. On the way down the truck kept jumping out of low gear (it was an automatic and the truck was probably overloaded) and the driver had to ride the brakes to slow it down, unfortunately it was a long steep road and the brakes heated up and failed. I will always remember the smell of burning brakes and the look of fear in the eyes two other guys who were precariously clinging on to the tailgate with me, as the truck careened down the steep mountain road.
When I came to I was about 50 feet down the bank up against a log in a sort of sitting position, I remember looking up at the sky, it was a clear blue day and the birds were singing, I wasn't sure what I was doing there but I remember thinking what a beautiful day it was, everything was peaceful and I felt at ease,,, until I saw one of the other guys stand up out of the bushes, his head was soaked in blood and I started to realize what had just happen.
CL... Thats tough. I do know the odd feeling of coming to after being knocked out...but mine happened in football, not a accident.
Did u get permenantly messed up ? How bout the other guys?
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Jags, can u post some more picks of that splitter u made. I dont have one yet and was considering making my own....I never considered a lifter tho...cool idea
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Thistle I didnt think about the time... How long does it take to process one of these monsters?
Did u get permenantly messed up ? How bout the other guys?
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Jags, can u post some more picks of that splitter u made. I dont have one yet and was considering making my own....I never considered a lifter tho...cool idea
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Thistle I didnt think about the time... How long does it take to process one of these monsters?
DonNC said:
Anything in particular? The splitter part is just like all the others (ram, pump, engine, tank, hoses). The only thing a bit funky is the way I made the lift (and it works great - I wouldn't change a thing about the lift.)
had a 70 some foot maple taken down in back yard that was growing into my septic's drain field this past spring. Tree guy who took it down gave up on cutting the trunk to fire wood length because his saws wouldn't reach some pieces of the trunk even when cutting from both sides, he burned up several chains and I even had to fix the sparkplug in one saw of his that blew out of the head. But when I finally cut it up I would roll the pieces some with help from brother-in-law and drop them onto splitter that was standing vertical and split them until I could manage them by my self. One round yeilded 60 split pieces of fire wood. Got just over 3 cord from that tree.
Thanks for the excuse to tell the rest of the story.DonNC said:
For me it was one of those life changing moments, partly because it was kind of a miracle that nobody got killed. There were three of us in the in the cab and three of us (me being one of them) sitting on the tailgate of the truck. That steep mountain road was cut into the side of a very steep mountain, it was only one lane wide and the downhill side of the road had no shoulder for most of the way and dropped off a 1000 ft or so. Certain death for all of us had the truck gone over almost anywhere along the road. The driver (one of bosses and owners of the outfit), who soon realized we were in deep $&*% when the brakes failed, took a radical approach to stopping the truck and tried to slow or stop it by turning the truck into the bank on the uphill side of the road. It sort of worked I guess, the truck jackknifed and flipped, throwing two of us, still sitting on the tailgate (one guy jumped off before the truck flipped), down the bank.
After being jogged back to reality by seeing the guy with the bloodied head, I got up and started to assess the carnage. It was then I started to feel an intense pain in my back. The guy with the bloodied head required stitches, the gutsy guy, who managed to summon the courage to jump off the tailgate before the truck flipped, ended up with a broken arm. Out of the three guys in the cab, who really stood the best chance of dieing had the truck gone over the bank, only one was hurt, and all he got was a cut and swollen lip.
Turns out the driver made the best possible decision to do what he did where he did it. Had the truck flipped anywhere else on the road it would have certainly continued rolling down the steep 1000 ft bank, but about half way down the hill the road had a bit of a turn to it (he never would have made that turn) and on the downhill side the mountain stuck out and had a bit of a shoulder. He steered the truck into the bank just before the shoulder, when the truck jackknifed and flipped it came to rest off the road on the edge of that shoulder and the steep bank. Had it rolled once more it would have gone down, but I think the truck loaded with the cedar blocks may have saved their lives. It probably slowed the momentum of the truck flipping, and when it landed it blew apart and splattered cedar blocks everywhere, kind of like how an egg hitting the pavement and splattering will stop suddenly.
I ended up with a severely bruised back (nothing broken YEAH!), but I was in pain for months after and found a new career choice. ;-)
Anyway, now I can say I had the experiance of logging old growth trees, something many modern (real) loggers have never done.
Backwoods Savage said:
Yes, but the real problem is lifting it up onto the splitter bed.
Wait.... I forgot who I was talking to. ;-)
Biggest I remember was massive triple stem Shagbark Hickory around 75' tall 37" at stump growing at edge of neighbor's timber next to their 7 acre cornfield sometime back in 83' -'84.Thing was so huge it took Dad & I 3 1/2 weekends to clean it all up.Ended up with about 7 loads if memory serves.About 1/2 acre of timber had been cleared off/dozed years before,there was fire scar on one side of tree as you faced towards it.
Thats alot of Hickory. Allot of smoked pork
I dont know if shag is the best for cookin or if there is even a difference...but its the only hickory that I can ID atm
I dont know if shag is the best for cookin or if there is even a difference...but its the only hickory that I can ID atm
DonNC said:
I think they're pretty much all the same in regards to flavoring meat.Most that grows around here is Shagbark being widespread over pretty much the whole state & Midwest,all the way to the east coast.There is pockets of closely related Shellbark (Also called Kingnut -wood & shaggy bark on older trees is identical,different number of leaflets,HUGE sweet tasting nuts that arent too hard to crack) along some river bottoms & lowland areas in several southern counties of the state,it generally grows more abundantly south & east of me however.Also Bitternut,Mockernut & Pignut Hickories are found scattered in eastern Iowa,other areas of Midwest & Eastern US.
Here's actual size of Shagbark & Shellbark nuts.Shagbark roughly 75-100/pound,Shellbark when you're lucky to find them - 25-30
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Hmmm
Now youve got me wondering... Maybe I should try to cook with the hickory nuts one time and see how the flavor turns out. I mean... if those eggs are golden, I wont kill the goose. Ill use oak for the stove
Now youve got me wondering... Maybe I should try to cook with the hickory nuts one time and see how the flavor turns out. I mean... if those eggs are golden, I wont kill the goose. Ill use oak for the stove
I didn't take the whole tree down. My grandmother had a silver maple taken down. The professional arborists who said they'd haul the whole tree away apparently got annoyed when they realized exactly how big it was, how much work it was to remove it, and how much they underbid it. They rolled several of the 3' diameter limbs down a bank and hid them with vines/brush. They also left the 'stump'. When they didn't come back the next day she called to see when they were going to come get the rest of it, they said they took the whole tree away. If she wanted the 'stump' removed it would be another $1500. She didn't find the 1/2 a cord of large diameter limbs hidden in brush and vines till the fall when the leaves dropped. Things stayed that way for about 18 months.
Then we prepared the ~3' diameter limbs to go up my and my parents chimneys.
The part I removed from the 'stump' was ~12' tall, the top wider than the bottom, and I couldn't reach the middle of the bottom with my 32" bar. I had to stick the saw straight in the notch to cut a ~10" diameter section in the middle of the tree I couldn't reach from any side. Over the course of a eight-ish weekend visits over a year, my dad and I moved the 'stump' into her basement. Its been sitting down there as 2 1/4" thick planks for six years now. About half of it was either curley or had wild grain. I guess I ought to go pick it up one of these days.
Then we prepared the ~3' diameter limbs to go up my and my parents chimneys.
The part I removed from the 'stump' was ~12' tall, the top wider than the bottom, and I couldn't reach the middle of the bottom with my 32" bar. I had to stick the saw straight in the notch to cut a ~10" diameter section in the middle of the tree I couldn't reach from any side. Over the course of a eight-ish weekend visits over a year, my dad and I moved the 'stump' into her basement. Its been sitting down there as 2 1/4" thick planks for six years now. About half of it was either curley or had wild grain. I guess I ought to go pick it up one of these days.
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If that is what was left and called a stump I would have had to call the bank and stop payment on the check. I cannot believe a small claims Judge would have agreeded with a stump that big.
"Sledge and wedges is the ONLY way you can get started on something like that. I’ve not taken anything that big down but I’ve split up many of them.
I remember as a kid thinking how awesome it was that my dad would even think about tackling something that big. He taught me about the power of the wedge and and about breaking big jobs down into smaller ones. Damn, I miss him. "
Rusty, I know what you mean about your Dad. Reminds me about my own father's early woodcutting experience. He grew up in Nebraska and planned to grow sheep. (Note: There were few trees where he lived.) After a year on the farm following high school, he went West to join his aunt in California. He signed up to be a logger. He described the trees as if they were redwoods. Could have been, but I doubt it. I suspect these were just the biggest trees he had ever seen. In any case, he lasted one day as a logger. He didn't have much of a head for heights and figured his life expectancy in this occupation was pretty short. Next day he enrolled in a welding class. Shortly thereafter, he was drafted in World War II and spent the war defending the coast in Monterrey. Not a bad billet.
I remember as a kid thinking how awesome it was that my dad would even think about tackling something that big. He taught me about the power of the wedge and and about breaking big jobs down into smaller ones. Damn, I miss him. "
Rusty, I know what you mean about your Dad. Reminds me about my own father's early woodcutting experience. He grew up in Nebraska and planned to grow sheep. (Note: There were few trees where he lived.) After a year on the farm following high school, he went West to join his aunt in California. He signed up to be a logger. He described the trees as if they were redwoods. Could have been, but I doubt it. I suspect these were just the biggest trees he had ever seen. In any case, he lasted one day as a logger. He didn't have much of a head for heights and figured his life expectancy in this occupation was pretty short. Next day he enrolled in a welding class. Shortly thereafter, he was drafted in World War II and spent the war defending the coast in Monterrey. Not a bad billet.
KarlP said:I didn't take the whole tree down. My grandmother had a silver maple taken down. The professional arborists who said they'd haul the whole tree away apparently got annoyed when they realized exactly how big it was, how much work it was to remove it, and how much they underbid it. They rolled several of the 3' diameter limbs down a bank and hid them with vines/brush. They also left the 'stump'. When they didn't come back the next day she called to see when they were going to come get the rest of it, they said they took the whole tree away. If she wanted the 'stump' removed it would be another $1500. She didn't find the 1/2 a cord of large diameter limbs hidden in brush and vines till the fall when the leaves dropped. Things stayed that way for about 18 months.
Then we prepared the ~3' diameter limbs to go up my and my parents chimneys.
The part I removed from the 'stump' was ~12' tall, the top wider than the bottom, and I couldn't reach the middle of the bottom with my 32" bar. I had to stick the saw straight in the notch to cut a ~10" diameter section in the middle of the tree I couldn't reach from any side. Over the course of a eight-ish weekend visits over a year, my dad and I moved the 'stump' into her basement. Its been sitting down there as 2 1/4" thick planks for six years now. About half of it was either curley or had wild grain. I guess I ought to go pick it up one of these days.
That is a friggin monster!!
All these big tree pictures motivated me to finally get a jump on next years wood and take care of a problem tree. It's a Big leaf maple that has multiple arms that go all over the place.
Unfortunately one arm leaned heavy towards what's left of my barn while the others leaned in various other directions mostly over the electric fence, thus my procrastination in taking it down. After seeing all your guys hard work, I decided to give it a go.
I went for the arm leaning towards the barn first and got it to fall about 45 degrees North of where it was leaning which came out great for clean up. I did the remaining in one cut as low as possible due to all the seems and probable rot. Sure enough, the tree pissed water for a good minute during the back cut but it all came out alright and I'm glad not to have to worry about it anymore. Now to the clean up!
Also thought I would add a picture of a cedar I cut next to but won't cut down as it's "old growth" and circumference is 36' at 4' DBH and still alive but mostly hollow from the other side (that's 6" wide camera bag for scale.
Also a 63" hemlock I saved for my buddies saw mill up the road.
Unfortunately one arm leaned heavy towards what's left of my barn while the others leaned in various other directions mostly over the electric fence, thus my procrastination in taking it down. After seeing all your guys hard work, I decided to give it a go.
I went for the arm leaning towards the barn first and got it to fall about 45 degrees North of where it was leaning which came out great for clean up. I did the remaining in one cut as low as possible due to all the seems and probable rot. Sure enough, the tree pissed water for a good minute during the back cut but it all came out alright and I'm glad not to have to worry about it anymore. Now to the clean up!
Also thought I would add a picture of a cedar I cut next to but won't cut down as it's "old growth" and circumference is 36' at 4' DBH and still alive but mostly hollow from the other side (that's 6" wide camera bag for scale.
Also a 63" hemlock I saved for my buddies saw mill up the road.
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