The Official Work Pictures Thread

Jed, is that tree just leaning on the house, or did it fall and do damage?

It ended up being seven Alders, and one Cottonwood (maybe 80'... nothing like the 100' that I was told) and yeah they all did a tiny bit of damage... basically just rain-gutter and minor eve-smashers... caved in a chimney-hat, but none of the other-little-roof-vent-deals were hurt at all.

Brian/Gary/Corey... thanks for the commiseration brothers... seriously... I think I was just lookin fer a shoulder to cry on last night more than anything. The crane woulda made small-potatoes out of it.

Rajan: Yeeaaahhh...... :(

Rich: Man, you got it freakin GOOD! Our PW is like, $25.00 above my regular pay grade... not kiddn ya... might be some "cost of living," stuff to factor in.

Mick: Sound advice, my good man... I usually do, as you know all too well. I've only had one serious back-fire in all of the roof-buckin shows I've been dealt.

We just had (as I mentioned... that Cottonwood wasn't an inch above 80') one of those really rare, magical days where my two groundies (and may God bless em both) were acting like a coupla track stars on Meth... man, I couldn't believe those guys... that freakin job's basically done except fer a ton of cleanup. We lucked out... the root-wad just stayed put... didn't go up, but it didn't go down neither, thank God...

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Here's the "before," from yesterday that made me cry to all you guys...

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I was just messing with you Jed. It's a decent raise for me but nothing like 25 an hour. What do you get classified as. The state considers us general laborers. From what I remember from being a union laborer, my area has the third lowest pay scale in the state.
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Tall skinny dead ash drop. I was a touch off on my gun and thinned my hinge up a bit much. Two broken limbs on the white pine. No biggie
Also had a friend hang out most of the day. Must have a nest close because it was never more than 100' away.
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I love it when I have a hawk hanging around while I work. Cool stuff!

Something I picked up from an old timer here many years ago is to gut the hinge in certain situations where otherwise you would end up with too thin of a hinge. By gutting the middle, less flexible fibers you can leave the hinge fatter on the sides where the more flexible wood is. Can be helpful on side or back leaning spars where you have already topped out all the brush also.
 
Thanks Brian. I'll remember that one. I was tired and just wasn't paying attention. Should've walked away when it started tipping.
 
I love it when I have a hawk hanging around while I work. Cool stuff!

Something I picked up from an old timer here many years ago is to gut the hinge in certain situations where otherwise you would end up with too thin of a hinge. By gutting the middle, less flexible fibers you can leave the hinge fatter on the sides where the more flexible wood is. Can be helpful on side or back leaning spars where you have already topped out all the brush also.

I agree gutting the middle allows you to leave the hinge fatter on the sides but it's because the sides have more leverage due to their location which gives them better relative strength, rather than them having more flexibility, imo. Same effect, different reasoning.
 
Ray: Can you really make a type of jelly out of that stuff??

Corey/Brian/Burnham/Rich: Uhhhh.... First.. Corey... I think Brian and Burnham are suggesting that when the hinge is to be sawn deep (we'll say 45 to 50 per cent) then that entails a good little bit of heart-wood which (species is really important here) may be a good bit brashier than the sapwood. Pretty sound reasoning... here's the thing... What's heartwood good for?? TONS and TONS of compression... That's what. So what?... The compression storage saves-out an absolute TON of sapwood directional capacity by preventing the sapwood from "mushing-out," in compression in a really big tree. (Spars would be a different matter.) I wood say ta never never ever gut the hinge except fer little spar shots, and such; but never do it with a maturish tree. That's just me.
 
If you add a turbo you would also need a different injector pump and injectors I believe.

Yes Jay I have a computer and can simply over ride it. Only time I ever do that is when we break the a2b cable.

Right on!


Jed at least it's down.
 
Ray: Can you really make a type of jelly out of that stuff??

Corey/Brian/Burnham/Rich: Uhhhh.... First.. Corey... I think Brian and Burnham are suggesting that when the hinge is to be sawn deep (we'll say 45 to 50 per cent) then that entails a good little bit of heart-wood which (species is really important here) may be a good bit brashier than the sapwood. Pretty sound reasoning... here's the thing... What's heartwood good for?? TONS and TONS of compression... That's what. So what?... The compression storage saves-out an absolute TON of sapwood directional capacity by preventing the sapwood from "mushing-out," in compression in a really big tree. (Spars would be a different matter.) I wood say ta never never ever gut the hinge except fer little spar shots, and such; but never do it with a maturish tree. That's just me.

Well, it's not me, Jed. I've gutted out many a mature west coast Cascades conifer, bigleaf maple, ash, or red alder. Including some really big trees.

I think you are wrong regarding this mushing out...at least nothing in my experience echoes this perspective if the wood is solid, either green or dead with no rot.
 
I've had one doug-fir squash down on my bar. It was rotten.

Had a couple alders bind when bore-cut. Not seen squashing, as amazed as I am that it doesn't happen regularly...think about how much the weight of the tree is when concentrated on 5-10% of its original cross-section or way less, even, if not standing on wedges.

We cut a cottonwood that was hollow a 90+ percent, reduced as possible given the size of it and our very limited reach to 60'. I chased around the backcut with lots wedges as my work partner cut the back-cut. MS660 with a 36" bar, in 4-6" of wood. That saw made a great armpit prop for my former co-worker, who is not overly tall.:lol:
 
Lightning struck pin oak removal from yesterday and we're finishing up today. Just waiting on the chipper to show up now.
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The home owner seems to be a nice old man. He used to work for Ohio power and was in charge of ordering trucks for them. He kept teasing me saying he couldn't figure out why us tree guys used such tiny bucket trucks.
 
Lowered/ pulled these back leaners, whole... Dead as dead gets alders.
Wraptored up a big fir to set a block.

The branches I had hoped to use for pulling a rope into the tree broke. I had to do some trick work to set the rigging lines from the ground without much for branches, only tiny stubs.

Kept tension on the rope and throw line to install the rope, them doubled the throw line through the running bowline hole in order to keep tension on the whole works while tightening the running bowline from the ground.


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Dahlia wanted to be a photographer... Happy face/ crazy face hahaha
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Homeowner added an easy alder and tiny dead fir. Easy so long as I didn't drop stuff where it could go downhill to the propane tank, heat pump, air conditioning unit, and house.

Profitable day and a half. Had to pull the chipper out with F450 dually... Steep and loose gravel driveway. Almost looked like pea gravel in places. Thought I might have to double-team it. The worse part of the driveway is the very top at the street part, transitioning from gravel to asphalt.

Heard of people snapping chip truck axles going from spinning in gravel/grass, then grabbing payment.

Another cedar and maple removal, too, that were easy, so long as I didn't lose anything to a bad bounce.

While bucking, a round rolled down the driveway, but stopped short of the garage door.

Being explicit about a steep site with a new guy is important. He's doing a great job, especially for a19 y.o.

Had help from my regular guy, who is going to stay for a while, as his Union gig is too far from home with all the travel.

Two solid guys for a change. Another solid guy wants to come back when his Ironworking layoff happens.
My flaky former employee wants to come back, now that he's back from his honeymoon. Maybe not!
 
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Bomb fest tulip removal today. Ran up and blew out about 6 or so big (30-40ft) leads, dropped the stick, then onto a whole bunch of cleanup. Wish we could've got this one to the mill, the first 30' or so were straight as an arrow with no cat faces or imperfections. The guys got a video, ill try to post it up when I get it.
 
Bomb fest are always fun! Love the rare opertunity.
Finished up the lightning struck pin oak today plus another easy maple removal.
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Gutted out the one side in the double cut. Had a touch of lean that way so no big deal. I was plum whooped by that point. Hot and humid is kicking my ass again.
 
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