The Official Work Pictures Thread

I have pulled my chipper up a steep gravel road. My tongue weight on the 4400 pound chipper is about 100 pounds. It is balanced in a funny, and frequently useful way. It could also flip over backward too easily. I'm down a hill with it at the moment. A heavy chipper would/ could push the loader over backward (loader downhill/ chipper uphill. Loader uphill would be facing the wrong way, and could tip the chipper over backwards. A decently steep hill at a lake.



The slop of the pintle ring and hook shoves it around somewhat.

I'm thinking of having 1/4" angle-iron cut down to weld to the outside of the BMG tow-hitch's round tube to make it fit snugly in the square tube of the grapple. The hitch pin holes are wallered/ egged out, and the grapple pin hole is slightly egged out, so a lot of slop for pushing. My grapples stabilize the hitch, but it happens cumulatively.

Ahh! I use a pintle hitch attached to a universal mounting plate. It is one more big thing to lug around but there is hardly any slop. 100lbs on the tongue seems awfully light and I can definitely see the tippy aspect.
 
Treework is way more a chess game then it is checkers!

For some.





I try to be 5 moves ahead.




Some people are always 2 moves behind.

Ahh! I use a pintle hitch attached to a universal mounting plate. It is one more big thing to lug around but there is hardly any slop. 100lbs on the tongue seems awfully light and I can definitely see the tippy aspect.

A mounting plate-hitch would be much tighter! For my current job, I worked the chipper through and back through a new metal fence with the slimmest of margins, VERY slowly.

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I may have talked about this before, can't remember, but at work all of the buckets (backhoes) have a pintle hitch right on top of the loader bucket. So any time you need a trailer moved or rigging, you just curl the bucket down and there you go. Works so well I'm mad i didn't think of it myself. So maybe just weld a plate on the top of the bucket and bolt one on. Convienent tie down spot too.

I welded up a hitch receiver thing for my backhoe that you simply rachet strap to the cutting edge. That way i can switch out hookups to what i need. Makes moving stuff around the yard an absolute breeze if you have help to hook up.
 
Where late the oak once stood

Large pin oak removal today, victim of oak blight. We had removed some limbs from off the roof last fall, homeowner knowing that it was a losing proposition and the tree was likely a goner, but gave a bit of relief for the winter & spring storm seasons. It leafed out this spring, but nothing lasted through the summer, so it looked like it was already fall time. Another stumpzilla whenever she wants to have it ground...

We brought out the log truck with our "new" grapple. We just acquired it from the Mexican national who bought our knuckle boom crane. He had it on his flatbed to take it back to Mexico, but we offered him a $1K credit toward the purchase of the knuckle boom. We had aspirations of either making a skid steer grapple (Branch Manager) with it, or using it in this application -- as a smaller grapple for our log truck. So today we got to give it the full shake out -- smaller, lighter, much surer grab for smaller limbs, can rotate fully, and strong enough to rig from (some BIG wood).
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Nice pics, big work.

What?s going on here though? Has your climber got a wooden leg? Is he a pirate?
 

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We sent up the 372XP for that large fork drop -- one cut, then he lowered it back down. He's holding it, 200T is clipped to his belt. No peg leg yet!
 
Pruned two cedars for view, added onto the job. Did it before chunking, to add to the pad.
The stairs extend up to the level of the upper retaining wall (orange cones), under the brush.

Should have taken the funky, ugly breakout piece from below the three new tops in a smaller piece. I didn't want to go up into the pitch blisters in that section, which was nasty. The lower sections, less so. Fighting the pitch has been the hardest part of the job.

The irregularity gave a funny bounce, 2" too far, denting the metal fence panel.

Luckily, they had two extra panels, and isn't fussed.
The wife went in for a breast biopsy yesterday.
The fence guy damaged his drain field with the auger, and damaged the big cedars buttress roots with his mini x bucket.

Puts perspective to things.

Beginning of the chunking. Deck railing height is about 20' up the trunk.
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Chunked until having to run to get D to the dentist. Short day. I got to where my 28" bar was chasing the fronts, and just enough for the back-cuts (magic cuts). Need to Wraptor up with the 36" tomorrow, and bring down another 30-40' before felling the short stick.

New guy, after a run-through and practice with the mini-loader, was retrieving chunks, so I'd have dirt to hit.

I've got a layer of chips sandwiched in tarps for extra deadening.

There is a gap uphill of the tree to the retaining wall that is filled with logs, under the brush. Hope this will shore up the wall for the hits upslope.

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Three sheets of plywood, overlapped at the trunk, and extended to the far side, supported a bit with a pitchfork. Well-pump building down the slope, next to the dock.

Luckily, yesterday he got his boat back, so that at the bottom of the hill.

Probably have him move it tomorrow. I forgot, trying to orchestrate and prep and train on the mini and deal with the pitch mess. Had to peel my glove away from the top-handle. Carb cleaner to cut it.
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Gumball Machine

First job was a sweet gum removal. Nothing too complex, just a fair bit of long leaders to feed the chipper -- but decent drop zone space, no targets. Piece out, bro! (No rigging needed.) I dropped the spar (bore cut with the 395XP), we'll pick it up in the morning with the log grapple truck.
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Then just outside town to an affluent country suburb. We raised the crown on 2 pecans to allow more light onto some rose bushes. Then I went out back to raise the crown & lower deadwood a honey locust, while our climber lightened the tips of a co-dominant hackberry. We'll be back out for some cabling & bracing when our Cobra Cables arrive (*ahem* -- sponsor!). This will actually be the first cabling job we've done in Kansas or Missouri in almost 2 years. Doesn't seem to be a service in high demand here, even though we've been offering it the whole time.
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Down to the stump.

Barely able to grab 12-16" rounds, from a down hill position. All up in solid ground.

They added onto the job.

Going to do some more work today, as D is out of town for 5 days. I'll possibly be off the latter half of the week.

Usual, unusual work schedule, which doesn't bother me.




Jumbled order.

Double-cut, deep-face Humboldt turned into a full Gap-face, with a snipe to turn it to the last a bit better. Hard to cut accurately at 7' on a slope.

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That snipe was way too shallow to do any good.
Like you say, hard to cut accurately on a tree like that.

Nice job, looks like a happy client.
 
I was only going for a small turn, and I put a block of wood in the one side to close the face a bit. Didn't really check to see how far off it landing from where the hinge was directing it.

I hit the dirt a hair chunking up a log that needed to be moved from the slope, before the felling cut. The back-cut was slightly curved, killing me trying to double cut at height. Shoulda grabbed the springboard. I'd cut up both sides to the hinge, letting me reach across the entire strip of holding wood with the 36" bar.

The top of the log stayed off the ground, so the impact was all at least 5-8' from the foot of the stairs of the deck.

The neighbor came out and said she felt it hit the ground. Funny, I never do...something about getting out of dodge and habitually watching for stuff falling of the sky, even when there is nothing to hit.

Probably made a noise, too. I didn't notice it.



FWIW, the pic through the facecut is in the air. I wanted to try to turn it a bit, with the snipe, and as I got lower, I needed to get the same horizontal distance with less height, to keep it from going down the hill.

I was experimenting a bit. Wanted to ask opinions on notches and snipe and such for max distance with short chunks.

Trying to push them with one hand, any extra distance, was the plan, but felt like pushing a brick wall at they fell.



#OgreDon'tCare
 
Got this coming up next week, end weight reduction and thinning. Big ash tree
 

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