Did something dumb today.

[Bindian]

Howard,
     Trees like that are called Widow Makers for a reason. Murphy's law states if a 6 foot longer cable was used...............6 more feet of limb would have fallen.
hugs,  Brandi

[beenthere]

The jerk was dumb. Glad you are okay. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   I disagree.

[beenthere]

To clarify..

 It did not fall so I gave it a jerk and one of the forks fell straight at me.

[WV Sawmiller]

     I should have used a longer cable or put tension on before I made my cuts. A green/solid tree could never have fallen in my direction. The rotten top was weak and shaking it let it go. A harder jerk and it would have gone with the main fork.

[Old Greenhorn]

When I do those with dead stuff upstairs I try to avoid sudden moves. I do my face cut, then put just enough tension on the line to keep it taught. I do my back cut and watch for movement, if it starts to open I am done. If I get to a point where the hinge is the proper thickness with no movement, I get in the buggy and pull steady and easy. If it doesn't want to come, I leave a bit more tension, but not a lot, go back and thin that hinge just a bit more and that should do it, either it goes over at that point or I give it a pull and it comes along. It may take longer, but those trees are very tricky and deadwood cares about no man. Haste can get a boy hurt. Glad you are OK Howard.

[WV Sawmiller]

   This one was much older and more fragile than it looked. The natural lean was 40' down a run off where it would be a lot of work to retrieve so I was basically pulling it uphill with the tractor, snatch block and cable. The notch was right as was the back cut but as it turns out not deep enough so when I put tension on it my tractor was pointed 90 degrees down hill but was not heavy enough. The initial jerk was just talking the slack out which shook the fork free. I could have stopped with tension and probably should and increased the back cut but there was risk to that too. The second jerk took the main tree down as planned and in the safe area. A longer cable was really the right answer in this case.

[Southside]

I have seen a tree that size kill a man on an open station tractor when he pulled it over towards himself.  Remember it only takes 5 ft lbs of force to break a clavicle, or 8 ft lbs to break a neck. 

[Nebraska]

Be careful out there, I know this forum has lost very good folks to quick dumb accidental happenings.

[Nebraska]

Just a little sawing pointer, if you fail to tension your blade your sawmill will not perform well..... 

I had the little predator 6.5 hp motor that runs my hydraulics decide it wasn't  going to run anymore.  It was a spark issue after I chased it down. I decided just to go run down to HF and pick up another motor to swap out, and repair this one for another project.. So I hadn't sawn for a while and had backed off the blade tension.  So when cutting some 2 x 6 cribbing  my blade wandered   and i made some slightly curved,  designer dimensions.  I wondered why for just a moment and realized my folly...Lucky the blade didn't come off and ruin itself... my 2" side stayed fine so at least I got my cribbing....

[ljohnsaw]

I swapped out blades and it wasn't cutting good. This blade must have gone from the dull box to the sharp box without visiting the sharpener.

Changed the blade again but wasn't cutting good. Drive band was slipping. Was at the end of adjustment. Was able to shift both wheels because of how I designed it but messed up the tracking. Thought I had it back and started cutting. Dove bad, skipped off the back side of the guide and the idle side and ate the v-belt tire.

Put two new B57's on, adjusted tracking and tension. Cutting better than ever!

[firefighter ontheside]

Next weekend we have a PR event at the firehouse which is a movie night.  We show a movie on an inflatable screen in the engine bay and cook hotdogs.  This weekend I had to put up signs around the area inviting folks to come.  I carry about 15 signs in the back of the truck with a camper shell.  Get out at each location and open the back to grab a sign.  Well, at the second to last location I got out, opened the back and grabbed a sign.  Stuck the sign in the ground and went on to to my last location.  You can probably see where I'm going here.  Got to my last spot and went to open the back.  Guess what...its already open.  DanG it.  Luckily all my expensive gear was still sitting there.  The only thing I had lost was a sign.  Drove back toward my last location and found a sign lying in the road with no damage.  I continued on to the previous spot just to make sure, but there was nothing else on the road.  Back in the day when I used to "ride backwards" as we call it I used to hang my turnout coat on the side of the truck on one of the pump discharges.  Got to the call and I had no coat.  Got lucky in two regards.  One was there was no fire and I didnt need my coat.  Second was that someone had seen the coat come off and stopped to pick it up and brought it back to the station.

[sawguy21]

You had better call it a day.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well It's been a month and everybody has been good, I guess it's taken a while and is back around to me again. Now I took no photos so it really didn't happen, but if it had happened, this is the way it would go.
 I went down to make some lumber on the sawmill today and as always, when I got there I had to play hide and seek to learn where the Toolcat got left this time, as that is my prime machine for the mill. Well, since Bill put in the new OWB and it faces 180° from where the old one faced, he had the Toolcat parked at the other end, where it is a tighter fit and a load of junk logs on it. No biggie, I lifted the load and threw some bunkwood under them so the could cut the up off the ground and then started backing down the slope to where my truck was to grab my tools. Well there was some lumber on the right side of the machine I didn't want to back over, so I was watching that and creeping along slowly when all of a sudden things happened real fast, the machine shot back about a foot and the rear left corner dropped about a foot also. There was also some load and hard crunching noise. I thought I was gonna roll, but it stopped as fast as it started. As it turned out, I had backed the left rear tire right off the edge of what Bill calls a 'mafia block' that he has a a retaining wall on his gravel pile. I was hung but good, just laying on the skid plate. I took a breath and figure it out and with 50 back and fourth moves I could crab the rear right tire over far enough to the right that it was trying to climb back up on that block. Finally, with the application of the right (newly created) foul language, some extra throttle, and some luck, I got out. It all took about 15 minutes. Hours later when I got back to civilization I left Bill a voice mail and just said "Those skid plates on the Toolcat work REALLY well!" There was one single concrete drag mark on the skid plate and no deformation at all. I was relieved for that. I sure felt stupid, really stupid. Well I would have felt stupid if it had happened, which of course, it didn't.

[firefighter ontheside]

Well, if you got it out without the help of some other piece of equipment then its just part of the job.  That's what it was made for.  I got a skid steer in a precarious spot years ago on my pond dam and thought if I tried to make one more move I was gonna be in the pond.  I gingerly got out of it and went to get the tractor and my dad.  Dad was on the tractor and pulled back a bit while I drove the skid steer out of danger.  No pics of that either.

[sawguy21]

Now that it has your undivided attention!  

[rusticretreater]

Well if you were a young greenhorn you wouldn't have fared so well.

I did one today that still has me calling myself names.  I am doing some work in my garage and I had the usual mess of tools, cords and parts on the floor.  When I picked up the tangle of an extension cord, it brought a pair of tin snips with it.  So I go to close the tin snips and lock it shut with the little swivel arm thingy.  But the thingy is to the wrong side of the locking pin on the opposite handle.  

So I open my hand to let the snips open up, push the locking arm to the right with the thumb of my left hand and then close the snips again.  The snips do their job and nip right through 1/2 of the extension cord, causing a popping sound, an electrical arc about an inch from the palm of my left hand and made me do a skeleton dance.

Screwed up the tip of the tin snips and damaged the electrical cord.  My heart however, is pumping fine and dandy due to my improvised defibrillator. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well if I was young I probably would have doubled down and got myself really stuck, or worse. Bill has always been real good, and calm about me and his equipment, he trusts me, I don't know why, except that I fix what I break and that is apparently a new experience for him.
 The first time I got the Toolcat stuck and had to ask for his help, he just laughed and laughed at me. I was more than embarrassed that I had to ask for help but it was REALLY stuck, up to the running boards. It didn't help that Inga, his 6 year old came along to help and was giving me driving suggestions. But this time, when I confessed over the phone that I had backed off that mafia block before I could finish the sentence he couldn't contain himself and let go with some explicatives. I guess he was expecting that to develop into a rollover. He got hold of himself right quick when I told him I got it out with no damage, but I was hung up for a while while I figured out how to drive out of it. I think he was more worried about me than the machine, really.

[DbltreeBelgians]

Thanks Tom, you jinxed me saying "Well it's been a month and everybody has been good". Lol, not really but it sounds good anyhow.
So here we go,
It's been mentioned many many times on here and I'm guilty and very lucky.
All I can say is "WEAR YOUR CHAPS!! DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO!!" Those WERE a good pair of britches   Enough said, now I got logs to pull out of the woods. 
I'm one to talk but please be safe.



 

Brent

[beenthere]

I've seen that tear in my chaps, but never in my britches. Much too close to the leg ligaments just near the knee cap. 
Doctors have a tough time repairing those ligaments, I have been told.