O.C.G.D. Thread, part two

[WoodCutr]

Unless you're cutting a tree over 12' across, the shorter bar will be faster. 6' bars are for West coast redwoods.

ive done a few where I had to cut out blocks to shorten a stump because the 42" bar wouldnt double cut it, took over a full day to bring the stump down from 4ft to 6"
I run a 28 on everything, if im at the point of using a 6ft im in 12+ ft stumps or milling

we plan to mill some massive stuff, going to build a sawmill capable of doing 8+ft diameter logs
im never going to grab an 881 with a 6 or 8ft bar just for the hell of it, and sure enough not buying a $600 bar unless I need it!

 

[flushcut]

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[SeanKroll]

you can fell a tree (roughly) 3x's as wide as your bar- length.


I've felled a roughly 5' diameter fir with a small Husky, 246xp with a 20"... our smallest rear handle.
I didn't sweep out the middle of the tree through the face cut, as it was heart-rotted enough to pull with a powerful winch.

If you have a big stump, you can cut it in short increments like 6-10", partial depth, and hit it with maul, rather than ripping all day. Once you have a center post that you can reach across with you bar, cut a tall round out of the middle.

I've had to do this with trunks against a concrete wall.
Once I was cutting very close to the wall, I could use a small saw and watch for bark dust.

 

[Burnham]

You don't have to jump from 42" bar to 72" bar. A 60" was what I used as my biggest set up on my 084 with the USFS here in big tree country. If you cannot do it with 5 feet of bar, it might not need doing .

Once you get past 42 inches on this scale of chainsaw, you have a very unwieldy package; it is extremely nose heavy with the 60 inch bar. Bar droop on the horizontal has to be dealt with. At 72 inches, it's a bearcat. Avoid if at all possible.

One is much better off learning techniques to get the job done with the 42", or if it must be then 60".

 

[friedrich]

not having a grinder makes me love shorter bars

 

[lxskllr]

Scored some brand new combat boots for $8...



They're steel toe which I'm not crazy about, but I can live with it for $8. They'll be my ground saw boots. I now have ground boots, spur boots, rope boots, and real job boots. It would be nice to simplify the setup, but I guess it's the price you pay going through secondary discount channels.

 

[Mick!]

Scored some brand new combat boots for $8...

View attachment 130990

They're steel toe which I'm not crazy about, but I can live with it for $8. They'll be my ground saw boots. I now have ground boots, spur boots, rope boots, and real job boots. It would be nice to simplify the setup, but I guess it's the price you pay going through secondary discount channels.

Be aware, they’re probably not steel toed but with a plastic composite toe cap designed for crush protection. Chainsaw will go through like a knife through butter.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm more worried about crush protection, but warning noted. I'm not even sure they're 'steeltoe'. They're hard, and I recognized the spec designation on the tongue, but I'll have to look it up to see exactly what the spec is. You may be right, and they're composite toe.

 

[SeanKroll]

A strong magnet will tell if they are steel.

 

[lxskllr]

Good idea with the magnet Sean. Saved me from having to look up specs. They're steel toe.

 

[Knotorious]

@lxskllr Just some thoughts about steel toe boots: In my opinion, they are only good if the things that can potentially roll over or fall on your foot where you where them, and the forces they generate when they do so, are below the capacity of the steel toe to maintain its shape. Otherwise, if you have a piece of heavy machinery with a heavy load on it roll over your foot and you're wearing steel toe boots, that steel cap is going to collapse and cut all of your toes entirely or partially off. In the same scenario with regular boots, with no steel toe, there may be a lot of crushed bones, but it's much easier to recover from than partial or total amputation for a number of reasons. If the steel toe has fully or partially cut some of your toes off, then you have to figure out how to lift that steel toe back up in order to extract the toes, adding further agony to the experience. One might find themselves working in an environment where steel toes are suitable, but then there may be a few days here and there where regular boots are going to be safer. I don't know if boot companies share the bending strength of their steel toes, but they definitely ought to. Some jobs outright ban them.

 

[Mick!]

@lxskllr Just some thoughts about steel toe boots: In my opinion, they are only good if the things that can potentially roll over or fall on your foot where you where them, and the forces they generate when they do so, are below the capacity of the steel toe to maintain its shape. Otherwise, if you have a piece of heavy machinery with a heavy load on it roll over your foot and you're wearing steel toe boots, that steel cap is going to collapse and cut all of your toes entirely or partially off. In the same scenario with regular boots, with no steel toe, there may be a lot of crushed bones, but it's much easier to recover from than partial or total amputation for a number of reasons. If the steel toe has fully or partially cut some of your toes off, then you have to figure out how to lift that steel toe back up in order to extract the toes, adding further agony to the experience. One might find themselves working in an environment where steel toes are suitable, but then there may be a few days here and there where regular boots are going to be safer. I don't know if boot companies share the bending strength of their steel toes, but they definitely ought to. Some jobs outright ban them.

What jobs outright ban them?

 

[Knotorious]

@Mick! All I know is that my friend, who is a longshoreman in Boston, MA is not allowed to wear steel toe boots because he works with heavy containers off of containerships that can easily crush through steel toes and fork lifts with huge containers zooming around, etc.

I was already thinking about it before you asked me about it, which is why you can see I posted about containerships just before you asked me this question haha

https://www.masterblasterhome.com/threads/the-random-pictures-thread-nws.16490/post-1132336

 

[Mick!]

Ok, i would have thought if you’re getting forces that will crush steel toe caps then your toes aren’t going to be in shape to perform Swan Lake if you’re not wearing them.
Still, live and learn.

 

[Knotorious]

Ok, i would have thought if you’re getting forces that will crush steel toe caps then your toes aren’t going to be in shape to perform Swan Lake if you’re not wearing them.
Still, live and learn.

I think you misunderstood. I wasn't suggesting that someone who isn't wearing steel toes will not still get badly hurt by the same forces. It's just that the damage is usually less complicated to treat by medical professionals and removing the foot from the boot may also be easier depending upon the situation. Nobody will be performing any renditions of Swan Lake directly after these accidents...at least not for awhile...possibly never for both parties.

 

[SkwerI]

We had two members here sustain crippling toe/foot injuries (Butch and Gerry) and neither one would have been prevented by steel toe boots. I ran saws for almost 40 years and never wore a pair of steel toed boots in my life. I also never had any chainsaw injuries to my legs or feet, just hands and forearms. Unless it is mandfated by code or law, I think each person should choose the level of protection with which they are comfortable.

 

[lxskllr]

Saw damage to feet is the lesser concern imo. Log shift/roll is the more likely attack. I don't like steel toes, and I'm not concerned enough about damage to wear them, but $8 boots are $8 boots. I think I can get used to them for that price. If not, they were only $8, and the laces are worth that much.

 

[WoodCutr]

in hindsight it looks tiny, but the volume of wood was insane, rotten in the middle, tri-dominate red oak took a right long time to cut down to ground level and was roughly 2 7x14 dump trailer loads of wood from chest level down!

Pics or it didn't happen.

the big issue was root flare sucks to cut, but yeah the 42 was much shorter than id like, and I do plenty of work where im felling similar size trees in really tight spots, having a long bar makes me feel better
mainly want a 6ft for milling, and my local Stihl dealer sharpens chains for $9 on the saw and $6 off the saw

 

[WoodCutr]

Saw damage to feet is the lesser concern imo. Log shift/roll is the more likely attack. I don't like steel toes, and I'm not concerned enough about damage to wear them, but $8 boots are $8 boots. I think I can get used to them for that price. If not, they were only $8, and the laces are worth that much.

I had to take the mini across a jobsite to lift a log off a workers foot once, steel toe woulda helped him there, no injury but he was stuck and apperently it didnt feel too nice

not the first time hes done it, just first time he has done it when I was around

long story short, he was trying to show off and had a short bar on his saw (18" I think), started bucking this smallish pine and a log fell on his foot, small log but still pinned his foot
no, it wasn't my job, I was helping him on his job

 

[Bermy]

Steel toe boots have saved my feet several times from rolling logs.
One would think if an adequate risk assessment / job safety analysis is done on site, the level of protection needed once the actual level of risk is determined would inform steel toe or no steel toe.
If the risk of catastrophic crush injury from steel toe boots is risk assessed as high probability one would think there would be other protocols to be established in the hierarchy of controls to reduce such a risk BEFORE steel toe boots become the last resort.
We all know PPE is on the bottom, after elimination, substitution, engineering controls, and admin.
I'll step down from behind my podium now.

 

[treebilly]

I never realized how many small hinge fall onto my toes until I’m not wearing a pair with steel or composite toes. They’ve saved my little piggies on several occasions. Never from anything that would cause severe injury. I’m pretty good at foreseeing those instances and not being in that spot.

 

[lxskllr]

Yea, I've had plenty of things fall on my feet without hard toes. It's just an "Ouch! Goddammit!" thing, and I get on with life. I try to be more careful when there's serious threats. Maybe hard toes won't be so bad. I only had one pair of RedWings that were steel toe, and they rubbed the edges of my toes and irritated them. Maybe it was just those particular boots, and my new ones won't be so bad.

 

[Marc-Antoine]

The norm for the steel toes boots ( or composite) is to sustain an impact of 200 Joules. That's the fall of a weight of 200 kg from 1 meter high, so 440 lbs from 3.3 feet. It's designed to prevent the most common small injuries to the feet, not to stop a truck load of logs, a container or a dozer. See that exactly as the purpose of the helmet: takes a little limb, yes, the whole tree, no.

From my experience, it doesn't take a major hit to appreciate the protection. Just a firewood log slipping during the stacking can give you a good insight. Limbing / bucking the tree on the ground too, say plenty of room under the trunk, excepted the unseen little stub under it which will pin your foot when the log settles down. It doesn't take much of a move to stuck your foot. It is like nothing with the steel toes, but you cry momy with a regular boot.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

A crush injury, sustained to the toes, with enough force that the crushing of a steel toe type amputation would happen; usually ends up an aputation prognosis.. For the record.

 

[Knotorious]

The norm for the steel toes boots ( or composite) is to sustain an impact of 200 Joules. That's the fall of a weight of 200 kg from 1 meter high, so 440 lbs from 3.3 feet. It's designed to prevent the most common small injuries to the feet, not to stop a truck load of logs, a container or a dozer. See that exactly as the purpose of the helmet: takes a little limb, yes, the whole tree, no.

Thanks for putting a rough value to steel toe boot strength and your helmet analogy is spot on. The only difference is that our helmets would be useless if they were made out of steel and I can't think of a dangerous situation involving impact where I would feel safer without a helmet. There's absolutely a place for steel toe boots! They wouldn't exist and have become so popular otherwise. People like them; people appreciate the value they bring. My intentions were simply to point out to anyone who may not already be aware that there exist situations where steel toe boots may not be in your best interest.

But considering that you can potentially benefit from and potentially not benefit from the same footwear on the same day every day depending upon your line of work, trying to predict when to avoid steel toes may not be realistic...but it can't hurt to try. If all you do everyday is move things in excess of 440lbs being held above 3.3' high or more regularly or if such weights are regularly being transported on vehicles around you, perhaps it's not the ideal choice for footwear. I'm not a boot Nazi. You can wear anything you want...it's your foot...your decision. But, ultimately, the best way to stay safe is to be aware and I sought to spread awareness.

Your strongest PPE are your knowledge and your intelligence after all.