Text 1923, 90 rader
Skriven 2004-11-18 00:07:14 av Jack Yates (1:3613/1275)
   Kommentar till text 1917 av Philip Lozier (1:267/169)
Ärende: Woodchucks
==================

 JY>> Geez, man, 5 feet in diameter is one BIG poplar!  How far
 JY>> to the first limb?

 PL> Somewhere around 45 ft or so... didn't take a tape to it. There was no
 PL> climbing it with a buckstrap around the thing, and had to freeclimb
 PL> (without any protection at all) to the highest crotch (around 60ft.)
 PL> to get a skinner line set so I could take out the lower limbs without
 PL> going for a bounce myself.

You gotr more guts than I have, and a lot of self-confidence, for sure.


 PL> Was a biiiiig tree.  I took out the largest White Oak on record in New
 PL> York State about 4 or 5 years ago, and it was nowhere as tall as this
 PL> poplar, though the base was close in diameter... the oak had quite a
 PL> bit more limbs too.  I almost wish I took a few pictures of this
 PL> thing.  I do have a picture of the White Oak after about a third of it
 PL> was down.

White oak is a fairly scarce commodity down here compared to the availability
of the pines.  The one that I have staked out has about 35' to the first limb,
it's ~24" in diameter

 PL>>> middle as you're cutting, and the weight of the tree itself,
 PL>>> along with placement of the the pie cut, will allow it to fall
 PL>>> exactly where you want it to.  As it wants to snap, the meat
 PL>>> left will still hold it and make it peel slowly in the desired
 PL>>> direction before it lets go and snaps,

 JY>> You're talking about leaving a wedge-shaped hinge in the
 JY>> cut rather than the standard straight hinge so that the
 JY>> tree twists itself off the stump instead of falling
 JY>> straightaway and splitting the trunk, or have I
 JY>> misunderstood?

 PL> Something like that, except that using the smaller bar that doesn't go
 PL> to the center of the butt log leaves a solid center...

I've done that.

 PL> if the cut was
 PL> all the way through it wouldn't peel over the pie cut the same.  It
 PL> would basicly snap and give way all at once, and it would come across
 PL> the pie too fast and the momentum would take it whichever way it
 PL> wanted to go.  Letting it come down slower gives it that exact
 PL> twisting effect you describe above.

I always left a "hinge" or solid part between the undercut and the back-cut to
direct the fall of the tree; usually the hinge would be rectangular, but there
have been occasions when I made the tree twistas it fell to clear power lines
etc with the limbs.  Don't get the idea that I ever did this stuff for a
living, just as needed and for friends.

 PL>>> watched last night taught me something." ;>

 JY>> I "got lucky; I don't have to fell any trees, just pick
 JY>> up the logs at they recycling center.  I was talking to
 JY>> my woodworking friend yesterday, I'm thinking of building
 JY>> a chainsaw mill and buying chain in bulk so I can grind

 JY>> his bandsaw and make lumber.  I have access to what would
 JY>> be about a thousand board feet of white oak, and we get
 JY>> longleaf yellow pine out there all the time.  I think we
 JY>> could make a few bux with the white oak boards; I could
 JY>> use the pine to finish my house.

 PL> Quite the enterprise it sounds like.

Just a few extra bucks is all.

 PL> Me, once they're on the ground,
 PL> I don't want to know about them anymore.  All the wood, even the prime
 PL> stuff, ends up at one of the several wood dumps in the area.  I'll let
 PL> people have it for firewood so long as they come pick it up, and load
 PL> it themselves, at the jobsight.  If my crew loads it, it goes to the
 PL> closest dump.

Gee!  No firewood business?  there's a big profit in firewood and yu can work
it up at your convenience during the year to sell in the winter.  Thisis a
cheap part of hte world and oak-hickory firewood is bringing $150/cord. People
go crazy about it at this time of year for that festive look in the fireplace.

 PL> Especially this time of year... aside from the trees, I operate a
 PL> chimney cleaning and repair outfit from Sept. 1 thru Dec. 23 of each
 PL> year.  Don't have time to worry about the wood.


--- McGuffey's Reader                                 GoldED+/W32
 * Origin:    (1:3613/1275)