Dangerous things that maybe don't get talked about so much

Yeah, the thought of the rope in the chipper has always given me the heebe-geebies. Bad thought. Specially when I looked down and see the ground crew is pulling brush to the chipper and my climbline is caught up in it. It's an easy remedy though: just don't leave your climbline on the ground in those situations.
 
I'm with butch. I often keep my rope bundled behind me. Spruce and pine for sure. Medium to small removals when chipper is near by, or pin oak prunes etc. but I free climb a bit so one POA feels quite safe. I'll use two POA often enough though.
 
Who said anything about a climb line. The 2 times it happened to me it was a rigging line. One time I was in the process of tying a running bowline and if I had before the rope disappeared from my hand I would have died
 
squisher said:
Complicated? How so?
Click to expand...

Omg, that stupid ass selector lever to switch the juice from the winch to the feed wheels. AFter running a morbark where you can run the winch and the feed wheels and the feed wheel lift all at the same time, running the brush bandit winch is absurdly slow and complicated, and not one iota safer than the morbark setup, imho.
 
Cory I pulled the winch off of my Conehead and used the selector valve to power a discharge shoot motor I put on. That valve is a key safety feature IMO. We pull that knob many times a day if anything has to be cut inside the chute. Kinda nice having the assurance that the feed bar cannt just get bumped and chip your ass.
 
PCTREE said:
Cory I pulled the winch off of my Conehead and used the selector valve to power a discharge shoot motor I put on. That valve is a key safety feature IMO. We pull that knob many times a day if anything has to be cut inside the chute. Kinda nice having the assurance that the feed bar cannt just get bumped and chip your ass.
Click to expand...

this. being able to instantly stop the feed rollers without inadvertently reversing them is a very valuable option. if i had to rely on the feed control bar only to stop the wheels i would have to shut down the whole chipper to cut limbs in the hopper and such.

one thing that comes to mind is the habit of stubs and chunks to ricochet in the most unpredictable of ways. i had an instance where, due to the circumstance, i had to slash cut a piece of wood so that it would spear straight down. it was probably 6" dia and 12 foot long. slash went perfect, but on the way down it hit a limb just right and fired off horizontally into the woods like it had been shot out of the worlds largest crossbow. it landed almost 50 feet from the lz. luckily no one was in the line of fire, and it was no where near anything.
 
ive always called out "headache" when dropping branches and "stub" when dropping stubs. ground guys learn that when they hear "stub" they have to keep an eye on the piece all the way to the ground.
 
If you guys want a separate lever to be able to stop the feed wheels in addition to being able to stop them with the feed bar, that's a fine idea. But for maximum production safely , it's critical to be able to use the winch and feed wheels and feed wheel lift simultaneously, imo.
 
I would say the most dangerous thing that I do at work is drive/ride in tree trucks.
 
Levi, I gotta ask, is that your real name?? If so, you lucked out!

Right up there with Boone Speed.
 
Yeah that is my real name, no where near as good as Shanky McBuzzcock!
 
cory said:
If you guys want a separate lever to be able to stop the feed wheels in addition to being able to stop them with the feed bar, that's a fine idea. But for maximum production safely , it's critical to be able to use the winch and feed wheels and feed wheel lift simultaneously, imo.
Click to expand...


except when you don;t use the winch anymore... since I got the skid steer, the winch gets used only a few times a year... I never had a problem with sucking the piece hard up agaisnt the rollers , then flipping the lever for a second as it grabs, then back to the winch to unhook... then back to the rollers.. you know just typing all that sounds like a lot of work. Maybe working a few days with a morbark would change my thinking..
 
murphy4trees said:
... I never had a problem with sucking the piece hard up agaisnt the rollers , then flipping the lever for a second as it grabs, then back to the winch to unhook... then back to the rollers.. you know just typing all that sounds like a lot of work. Maybe working a few days with a morbark would change my thinking..
Click to expand...

I concur with this experience.





Cory, yes, I agree for max production with a very dialed crew, this is not ideal. For a less dialed-in crew, separating the hydraulic supply into two mutually exclusive circuits seems safer.

I suppose you can put in a larger piece, as you don't need to get the piece off the ground with the winch, so the butt will press against the rollers, for when the power is reapplied to the rollers, and the piece swings in.
 
Murph, I have a loader but the winch is still indispensable, imo.

Sean, I think it is a hazardous set up no matter the skill of the crew. Just too many levers, and I have no idea how it safer than a Morbark system, winch cable can still be as easily sucked in with the BB system.
 
Cory,

I agree the winch is indispensable. Loader or not. I believe BB make the winch stop the feed wheels because of a safety concern. Here's a trick I have used and I'm not saying it's the safest or best way but it has worked on some tricky and large diameter logs.

Try winching the log into the feed wheel(stopped)
Deactivate winch. (Wheels will roll)
Pick up feed wheel completely to top of cycle.
Quickly activate winch control lever and winch log into opening.
Flip winch off to roll wheel to catch log and on again quickly to stop wheel.
The wheel should have caught the log. Keep winch activated and put feed bar in neutral position to safely unhook winch cable before feeding log through chipper.
 
The most dangerous things I face come up when I'm doing dead tree removals. Hinges don't work. Limbs snap off when least expected. Things go flying through the air when a dead limb hits the ground and explodes into a hundred pieces.

I don't have much love for a dead tree. The only nice thing about them is the easy cleanup along the way.

Joel
 
As far as the tree cutting side of my life goes, I agree with Joel. I am a newb anyway.

In the fire world I work in snags are one of the big killers, and it has been proposed that you should get a special certification to cut one, even if you are a "C" faller.
 
Clients who despite clearly worded warnings/pleadings/entreaties will stand in front of or to the side of the grinder.
When you mouth to them to clear away over the noise they say "OK" and move 1ft further back.
I console myself that grinding is so boring to watch they feck off after two minutes max.
 
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