How'd it go today?

[Danthetree1]

@treebilly I wasn't concerned about taking the slack out. We were sending it, and it felt solid.

 

[flushcut]

Did a $600 stump for $150 as a favor. The neighborhood was paying for it as the dad of a young family passed away from a blood clot, he was 23, and they have a 4 month old. They are planting a memorial tree.
The neighbor had a river birch so we did that as well while we were there. A little 1/2 inch insurance and off to the chipper whole, well each lead three of them. Easy money.

 

[FireFighterZero]

 

[FireFighterZero]

Those butt connections are worh 300 a piece.

 

[cory]

Ya mean that's what you saved by fixing it yoself?

 

[FireFighterZero]

Sorta.


That stupid position sensor is obsolete. You now have to buy an update kit for 600 dollars.




A test light and some butt connectors took care of it.



Frogsnacks....parts are getting outrageous.

 

[lxskllr]

What does the position sensor do?

 

[cory]

Yeah, you've probably seen those articles on farmers trying to buy old school equipment because it can be repaired relatively easily unlike the newest stuff. Maybe you were the subject of such reports

 

[lxskllr]

Same thing with saws these days, but at a lower cost of course. I'm super happy with the performance of my Mtronic saws, but I'm not so happy to be limited in my repair choices. The computer program should be made available to everyone.

edit:
and by "computer program", I mean source code and documentation of how it works

 

[Patrick A]

Cleaning up a take down. I remember strapping the trunk as a precaution. It opened up as soon as it hit the ground. The logs are still decent in size but no table top will come out of this job.

 

[ruel]

Sanded the ax handle down to 220 grit. 320 next and maybe 600. Overkill? Yeah probably. Made the fawn foot a little more fawn foot looking too, also overkill.

 

[BeerGeek]

In the middle of a 5-6 day job for a commercial client that's leading to lots of work. Took down this 90 ft, White Pine today (4 significant stems; 7+ hours of climbing and bombing down most pieces; had to rig down 3 tops; 34" DBH):


Filled the chip truck with it and the trailer with the wood. The 2 next to it are the next victims, then a 2+ day prune of a bunch of trees in the front.

The amusing thing is Brush Monkey #1 (named Joe), now has a new nickname: Bad JoJo. It seems the poor boy can't start a saw without significantly flooding it, or properly buck a log without serious kickback, or avoid hitting the ground w/the chainsaws... (UGH!!!). Well today, Bad JoJo took the cake. I'm about 60ft up dropping the last 2 stems and he's off to the side cleaning up the tops I had dropped earlier. All of a sudden, the MS-250 they have for limbing sounds like it jammed/had the chain brake on. BM2 comes over, looks at it and yells up "Something is f'd on this, you'll have to look at it". I'm thinking "Great, don't tell me I need to get another saw fixed!"

Once I'm out of the tree, I check it out. I don't know what this numbnutz did, but somehow, he jammed the chain brake handle over the exhaust/muffler in the front!?!?! Has anyone ever seen this happen (especially on a small saw just doing limbing)?!?!?! It took me about 3 minutes to figure it out, and another 2 w/a scrench to reposition it. After that, he was banned from saws until the next saw training day.

Life goes on.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I try to teach finesse instead of force. My son Levi gasps the concept. I cant fix the others. Bars nuts so tight they pull out of the oil reservoir or need a cheater bar on the scrench. Oil and gas caps so tight the o ring is smashed out of its seat and leaking, or fuel the same way. Need some channel locks to get it open. Chain brakes slammed almost WOT. Long list. Counting down to retirement and selective solo gigs.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

My personal favourite few days ago. I could hear the muffler rattling on one of the saws. Of course it was also louder. I radio down... hey, I think the muffler on that saw youre using is coming loose. Might want to check it. Comes back, " it only wiggled a little bit." Proceeded to start saw. Get back on the radio, did you tighten it back up?. I kid you knot, "ok, should I?".

 

[Tree09]

That sucks man. I hope you use the saying "this is why we can't have nice things" lol. It's one of my favorites anytime someone breaks or drops something at work. Constant humorous belittling has a remarkable effect on changing behaviors

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Yup, it is one of my catch phrases.

 

[Mick!]

I try to teach finesse instead of force. My son Levi gasps the concept. I cant fix the others. Bars nuts so tight they pull out of the oil reservoir or need a cheater bar on the scrench. Oil and gas caps so tight the o ring is smashed out of its seat and leaking, or fuel the same way. Need some channel locks to get it open. Chain brakes slammed almost WOT. Long list. Counting down to retirement and selective solo gigs.

Guy I know describes people like that, who seem incapable of any manual finesse as “dick fingered”

 

[flushcut]

I have a guy who lacks finesse. If it is going to break it will break while he is using it. Garonteed.

 

[pigwot]

Put a new helical cutter head in my 90 year old neighbor’s planer. He is an avid woodworker.

 

[lxskllr]

I guess I'm dick fingered :^D I tend to overtorque everything, especially stuff that has to contain fluid. I'm always afraid I'll leave it too loose, and it'll leak. The oil cap on non flippy saws especially gives me problems. The oil makes it work easily, and I end up getting it too tight, and have to use the scrench to free it.

I spent all day trying to get windows shares properly setup on my computer. I ended up using an "easy" program to do it, and kind of got it last thing. The program throws errors at startup, but it mounts all the shares. I need to figure out exactly how it did it. I couldn't get it by editing files. Everything looked right, but I'd get errors of various kinds.

Just a few more things to get setup, and I should be good to go.

 

[Cobleskill]

My Husky 346 likes its oil cap snugged lightly. Tighten it hard by hand and you will need tools to get it off.

I remember my old Echo top handle giving me a nice oil bath when the cap fell off. Didn't notice till it was soaking into my saddle and pants. Nice.

 

[FireFighterZero]

Kind of fellow who could break an anvil and lose the pieces.


Me on the other hand.....I have so much finesse that it scares me sometimes.


Like I have to check once in a while to make sure I dont like long walks on the beach and interior decorating.

 

[cory]

Counting down to retirement and selective solo gigs.

I hear ya, I can relate, I think we all can. Just a thought: maybe they need more leadership to produce better results and less stress on you. I say this as a natural born non-leader. When I started my tree biz, I always wished tree work could be done solo effectively; sure some guys go solo but ultimately its not me. Leadership is a lot of work but likely worth it. And of course, even in a 3 person crew, there is a lot of leadership or lack there of, going on.

Jocko Willink has some good stuff on it.

Constant humorous belittling has a remarkable effect on changing behaviors

And leadership aint all stuffy and boring. What 09 says there is definetly a component of good leadership.

Ruel, that handle is rad!

 

[treebilly]

Got a quick climb in this morning to rig up an uprooted maple tree. Shot my line into the oak it was leaning in and went to work. Up and down maybe 15 minutes. Lowered the rest down from the ground. Managed to bend my bar on the 462 in the process. Then rigged up a 3:1 to pull over a leaning dead ash. Estimates the rest of the day. Getting a high percentage of the jobs. I was worried I was under bidding but also realize that first contact has the upper hand. They usually have their estimate within a few hours, not days like most of the competition. Or it could be my great personality. Either way the boss is happy. 3 crews with a month worth of work plus a few weeks booked for oak prunes late fall-early winter. I’m adjusting ok to this change.

 

[cory]

Good stuff, Rich!