We ventured out to Cleveland to some work for family again this weekend. This time was for my Dad's cousin. She and her husband had a dying ash, around 36 to 40" dbh, weighted toward their house. Our best estimate was about 110' total height, I climbed up to a large split at about 60' and removed a few limbs to put the weight more in our favor. We then guyed it to remove any possible failures.
After I removed the limbs toward the house
Here's Dad hugging the trunk for size reference
The slayer and the beast
Not the best hinge, but for my biggest tree so far I'm pretty dang happy with it. Took my time with the 32" bar till the notch was just right, then started the bore cuts behind the hinge on both sides with a my smaller saw. When I went to bore deeper with the 32, I found out how much harder it is to bore with skip tooth chain. It bucked and threw the chain twice, chewing some drive links the second time, so I went back to the 25" bar and finished the hinge and proceeded to cut the back strap. The back cuts did not line up well, missed by about 2-3", but none of that mattered. I got the fall on video (and it is AWESOME!!), with the option of slow mo, when I get that figured out and up on youtube I'll post it up.
Took these dead stems down to clear the way for the big Ash tree.
Then we took down this 70' Ash, leaning toward the house. I shot a line in it as I was uncertain of how long its been dead, and the wood around the outside was not very promising. The outer wood turned out to be all that had started to rot, the rest of the trunk still had lots of good wood in it and it hinged wonderfully.
The next morning the local inspectors rolled in to check on our work.
nice!!
