How'd it go today?

[cory]

Good update! I gather you have gotten in shape for this particular type of work now, you said the first day was tough and I think we could all relate.

What saw you using, 562?

 

[Tucker943]

No I'm not is shape yet. It'll take a few full weeks to do that. I can handle it and hold my own, but I feel it when we strip out gear down and get on the road back home.

Yes, I'm using a 562 but after years of hard hours and demanding use, it started running goofy yesterday. It's the perfect saw for what I'm doing. I get in stands of 6" dbh black birch, patches of 2" beech stems, then go right to cutting 30" hemlock and 20" sugar maple and beech. A big saw would be cumbersome at points, and a bona fide small saw would be slow going at other times. This upcoming week I will run an old style 372 of mine.

I did barber chair 2 ash trees. Heavy leaners, somewhat frozen wood, and a nasty 35 mph wind one day pushing the trees in the direction of their lean. Even bore cutting them, I had two heavy leaners blow up on me and split 20 feet up before crashing down in place of where I was standing. Even with razor thin hinges it happened twice. I was on guard though and got free and clear with time to spare. Ash can be so volatile when multiple factors are at play. Once the wind stopped howling, I had no trouble boring and tripping the heavy leaners safely.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Get closer to the tree...

 

[cory]

Tricky stuff. Stay safe.

You just cut em and walk to the next one? No processing?

 

[Tucker943]

Butch I was pulling out of a bore cut to step around the tree. Notice my feet are sort of in motion and the saw is almost out of the stump. I wanted to be on the opposite side when i tripped it and let it fly so it wouldn't smack the downed maple beside me and get me pounded by either of the flopping butts.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Good to see you back at it Chris.

 

[cory]

That wind on Wednesday was crazy.

 

[Tucker943]

No processing at all Cory. Cut and go. The lines must be finished before the 31st when a certain species of bat that is in trouble migrates back to the region and roosts in trees. Forestry equipment of every configuration will sort the downed material out after the fact. But we are cutting stretches that the mechanical cutters couldn't get to for various reasons. Mostly because permits haven't come through in time to lay mats and cross creeks. So if the head contractor got 4.4 miles of a 5 mile stretch done before the machines couldn't go farther, that last bit has to hit the ground before the state shuts gas line cutting down for 6 months on the 31st. Otherwise, that unfinished stretch will stop the contractor from being paid on the whole entire span(s). We are talking money in the millions. There's a pressure on each of us involved as subs to finish out this shit before the 31st. Us 3 that are hammering away for this particular contractor have to get 7000 feet cut this week and while that sounds silly, its a lot. Especially because we have stream crossings that we have to flop trees away from regardless of their lean, and several high tensile 3 wire pasture fences to cut beside with trees reaching hard out into the pastures for sun light. Those hurdles slow us right down to nothing.

 

[cory]

Wow, that sounds like a heckuva job.

 

[SouthSoundTree-]

Ya, it does.

A work picture from you Tucker. huh. been a while.

Sounds intense, keep your guard up.


I had a big maple top on a different stem from my TIP, go over Backwards. . I thought it had enough lean one way, and was cutting from an awkward location. Tried to tickle the face, gut the hinge a bit, to get it to move, but it moved wrong.

Ultimately, not a big deal. A lot clearing job. First one I'm doing. A bunch of alders, which could mean some decent money, hopefully. One big hemlock. Not too big of knots, but some defect. Wife thinks the husband should keep it for firewood. Oh, Hemlock, how I love thee. Ahhh. Well, tomorrow they are going to start on the 8 pick-up loads worth of maple firewood logs on the ground. If she's helping. She will probably reconsider dealing with 300 pound rounds. All the maple, except the huge stump (which he thought he'd dig out with a mini-x, haha), is prime sized wood, 18" or less, by and large. There'll be a bunch of alder scraps, too. Great plans for him to move a 36" hemlock by hand, she has for him.

 

[Tucker943]

Sean, it is intense. 100 foot wide lines we are cutting. 3 fallers. That puts us side by side with a varying work distance between each other of 3-50 feet. Setting up so we are staggered down or uphill from each other would be suicide. We stay in a somewhat straight line that varies depending on what each guy is working on at the moment. If I lose one sideways, its not out of the question to kill a fellow cutter. It's not as simple as yelling with multiple saws screaming and ear muffs on. Could we set up with comm units? Ya. But we are ok without them. Some of these stretchs go up and over a mountain an down the other side. We work from the bottom to the top. Hardwoods usually have the slightest weight balance towards out away from the mountains so many of the trees we cut are ready to dive straight down the mountain with even a shallow notch. Some aren't like that though. And the hemlocks are any bodies guess where they want to naturally go. I have an assistant with me that fetchs me gas and odd things as needed and holds wedges and a wedge hammer. A lot of balanced trees I saw a little more notch into but not too much, back cut them out to a thin hinge then let off the throttle and give him the nod to bang a wedge in. Some stuff we stack wedges. If I get a hairy one that I'm going to just go for it and give it hell, I wait until I get eye contact with the nearest faller and gesture to him to be alert. He faces me and pays attention until the questionable tree is in motion.

 

[cory]

If I lose one sideways, its not out of the question to kill a fellow cutter.

"If something can go wrong, it will go wrong"…..Tucker I know you know this is one of the immutable laws of the universe. I encourage you to closely examine the system you describe and see if it is the best possible.

You are needed.

 

[Tucker943]

It is the best possible. It's not ideal. But neither is many of the challenges trees provide us. We staggered ourselves initially. But we are shooting the trees typically in one direction, down hill. What that meant was 2 of the 3 cutters had someone cutting above them and you'd be cutting with trees falling at your back. That was plain dangerous. Plus, because we are clear cutting, we have to work at the edge of what is cleared and chew away into the woods. One or two cutters advancing into the woods and laying trees down was leaving crowns at the base of trees yet to be cut. Fast forward to a faller being camouflaged at the base of a tree by a fallen tree top and we ended up with one close call because we were hidden from each other.

Our trees have a lay they want to head for, down hill. With trial an error we agreed quickly to stay together and fire them down away from us so we could see each other clearly, not have trees landing in blind spots behind us, and be able to get each others attention very easily with a wave of a hand before cutting any balanced trees that aren't already set to fly down hill away from us.

 

[Tucker943]

On a different note, I'm working with 2 other cutters. One is decent, and one is remarkable. Absolutely talented. He's a successful logger that makes good money hand cutting in the age of mechanical cutting. He blows me out of the water on sheer confidence, precision, and efficiency, especially with big questionable back leaners that make me study them a bit before I get a plan together. I'm still wondering how to pull it off and he's got the tree coming over the right way with no hesitation or self doubt. Very talented. I might say he is the best hand faller I've worked with in life. Very confident, fast, and precise. When he says "no, it can't go that way, lets open a hole and let it go where it is leaning", I know that its got to be that way. And damn he can sharpen chain too. My saw was in his truck over night and the next morning I cut into a tree and the chips were pounding my chaps much harder then I expected. He giggled and said he touched up my chain the night before and didn't want to tell me until I made a few cuts. Absolutely razor sharp and not overly grabby. I have to say he sharpens better then me and I'm damn good.

 

[cory]

Wow, that is a good story! How many years has he been at it? He works for himself or does he have a company too?

 

[woodworkingboy]

Very cool to hear about talented people in the tree cutting trade. A bunch of school leavers, I thought. Been called that myself.

 

[Tucker943]

Cory, he is 40 ish. Took over his grandfathers long established logging business and busted his balls big over the years to breath life into the business. I would never look at him and accuse him of being handed anything. He took something kind of ratty with a hit or miss reputation and grew it, upgraded lots of iron over the years, and turned the reputation into a solid one. He works dark to dark each day and busts his balls hard. In turn, he lives a fairly comfy lifestyle financially.

 

[cory]

He reminds me of one of the best fallers I ever saw, in CT. A large patch of beautiful land was being cleared for a mall. It was crammed full of monster red oaks, lots and lots of veneer. A forester friend told me about it and I knew I had to check it out before it was over. I got to watch him for an hour or 2 one day, this was like 30 years ago. He was using a Husky, I think a 285 or something similar. Remember when the saw bodies were metal instead of plastic and over time, the paint would wear off the handles and side cover? Well his saw had virtually no paint left on it, it was basically silver gray. This guy casually sauntered through the woods, would take just a moment to size up a lean, and then dog in, his saw moving like the proverbial hot knife thru butter. It was freaky watching how fast and smooth it cut. He mowed down 4'ers one after another, dropping em like ten pins. His stumps were low and precise. It was an awesome thing to behold. His last name was Treadwell and I think he also owned a garbage company. That dude could work.

 

[cory]

Wow, cool background info, thanks. I wonder if he will be in a better boat financially later on down the road than other blue collar workers that you referenced in the other thread about old people.

 

[cory]

Ha, let me vent about another memorable worker I had the privilege of witnessing. I went to FL on vacation, I was sick as a dog when I got there, had to spend the first day in bed. Outside my window, across the way, was a guy who was building a block masonry foundation. I watched him work and noted he looked pretty fast and steady, not that I knew anything about masonry. I'd go to sleep and wake up a couple hours later and see him still hard at it. And so on, and so on. Basically the guy worked from 7am to 5pm without any discernible break. Smoking the whole time. I was asleep some but you could tell by the progress he made that he'd been working non stop all day. He had a guy mixing cement for him and he just lay block non stop, like a machine. That was forever ago too, but he still sticks in my mind.

 

[Tucker943]

I can't answer that. I don't know what measures he takes for his future. I imagine he will work in some way until he dies. He doesn't work his ass off because it takes that much to get by. He goes beyond that point from what I can tell because work is deep in his blood. Last Sunday for instance. I was chilled out with my family. He calls me and needed a supply list from me for myself for the week. He was out all day grabbing all of us fire resistant clothing, cases of clif bars, filling his transfer tank to smooth out the ride in the truck we ride in, blowing all our saws out, hanging all our chaps in his work garage with a fan on them to make sure they weren't damp. Point being, I believe he lives and breathes work. Even on a day when we aren't out cutting these sections of gas line, his mind stays in work mode to get us poised to attack Monday morning. I busted his chops Monday morning about running around like a nut on Sunday and his response was that he can't sit still or he gets anxious and bored. He likes to go go go. He carries the heaviest mountaineering back pack each day of all of us on this crew and I asked why he won't shed some weight out of it. It's packed with spare saw parts, tons of extra bars, excess drinking water and gallons of gas and oil. He said he enjoys humping a heavy pack through the mountains because it keeps him in shape for packing out elk in Montana when he packs in the back country for 2 weeks each fall. Just a gung ho kind of guy.

 

[cory]

He's quite the fascinating character and you are quite the storyteller.

 

[Tucker943]

I know the type of block layer you are referring to. I joke and say "he does the windmill all day with blocks". Picture a guys arm spinning and laying blocks like a windmill. I did a stint with a commercial block crew when I was much younger and there was a bust ass block layer in the bunch that I used to say would do the double windmill with his arms down the wall and back again all day.

 

[cory]

Exactly

 

[woodworkingboy]

Funny how it goes sometimes. People will put down workaholics, but it's often what they can do best and it keeps them sane. Over here some years back they forced people to take time off, I think mainly pressure from the US, and it totally messed up the whole place, like permanently.