Yeah, a block face to try and get more foldability (new word?). Climbing is certainly often one option that we chose, but there are also those ones that seem sketchy to climb, and many trees have competed for light and have grown tall and skinny. I'm not sure if the beetle infestation here is the same as Stephen's area is experiencing, apparently different beetles devastate trees in different ways. I think what we have here is akin to the Southern pine beetle. the most destructive kind. They carry a fungi that gets into the sapwood and disrupts the flow of water, the tree dries out almost before your very eyes. The tree isn't simply dead, they are often very dried out brittle. I can't quite figure out how they manage to dry so quickly. Normally it would take some years for logs that size to lose their water starting from a healthy point, but it seems to happen much more quickly when water isn't moving up to the crown. I guess that as the water intake decreases, the needles are quickly losing what remains.
We usually pull with a combination of cable through the puller, attached to rope to the tree. Trees sizes run the gamut, on up to thirty inch diameters or so. Average is about 20 inches.
I know from steam bending relatively thick wood for furniture, that existing moisture content before you put it in a steam box, has a direct impact on how successful you can bend the wood without it fracturing. With thick wood, when steaming you can't introduce moisture beyond a couple millimetres below the surface, steaming only heats up the water already in the wood, which allows it to bend. Too dry and it's a no go, and it is also takes a lot more effort trying pull it around a form. It's the same with the infested Pines here, they won't bend towards the lay nearly as easily as ones with water still in them, you be cranking and they don't want to move much, and I would estimate that the tendency to fracture at the hinge is at least three or four times earlier in their movement toward the lay. It does seem like speed with adequate power, would be an asset in getting them over to where you would want, even if they are breaking during the process. Perhaps hanging a log would help, but it would have to be a very heavy one. The Tirfor can generate a lot of power, but each crank is only an inch or two of cable travel. With a pretty good back leaner in a very dried out condition, making the cut as Murph suggests, then pulling with a Tirfor, you could well be getting a break at the hinge too early. The trees have become very static. The cut a little pull a little more has been our preferred method, as Dave mentions. i'm definitely going to try the block out face. I've used it before, but hadn't thought about it for the dead Pines. Thanks for all the thoughts.
Sean, a bunch of small towns have incorporated over the years, to where the whole area combined has a population of about 100,000. From a northern point however, the terrain is mountains and woods extending for many miles east and west and north to the sea. Vacation homes and a lot of nothingness along the way.
