I’m cutting down a big tree yesterday. Before I started, I googled for techniques because I had to make sure this tree missed some structures.
I read a website telling me how to make a V-cut in the direction I wanted the tree to fall and an angle cut from the other side. Armed with these intellectual “google muscles,” I went to cut down the tree. Halfway through the angle cut the tree rocked back slightly pinning the blade of the chainsaw with a couple of tons of poplar.
Shit!
The fact is that this has happened to me so many times it’s not funny. I will have some problem or need to do some project that I would normally call a professional for. Instead, I google it, get some “google muscles,” and screw things up.
I’ve done this with electrical stuff in the house, window replacement, pool filter repair, and most memorably I killed the transmission on my old truck changing the radiator.
You may say that I have nobody to blame for these things since I did them to myself, but you would be mistaken. Anytime you have a problem there is some guy on the internet who has tackled the problem and wants to tell you about how he did it.
Reading it, and looking at the illustrations or pictures gives you the impression that 10 minutes of googling can replace 40 years of experience as a lumberjack, mechanic, electrician, brain surgeon or what have you.
Fuck you google for making me think I can do things that I shouldn’t.
Indeed. A little learning is a dangerous thing.
So, did you get the tree down? I once had to wait almost a week to get my chainsaw bar back from a possessive red oak.
I wouldn’t feel too bad. I didn’t have much of a masculine influence growing up so I am a self-taught yet experienced chain-saw wielder and that is probably the thing you don’t want to teach yourself. I got a Poulan Pro saw earlier this year and the chain would fall off every ten cuts or so. I posted about it here and people quickly explained that I wasn’t using the chain adjuster correctly. I was thrilled when I tried the hint and I was sailing along on tree #2 of the day when I too got the fucking chain stuck. It has happened to me a lot as well and it sucks when you are by yourself with several hundred pounds of wood clamping down on it. Maybe they should make chainsaws like razors and just have a bunch of different blades so they wouldn’t ever get stuck.
There are people dumber than us though such as my brother-in-law. My FIL refused to let him borrow his large chainsaw but he snuck and took it anyway. Standing on the top step of a rickety ladder in his back yard, the inevitable happened and he fell off with the chainsaw. Luckily, the chainsaw was actually stopped at the time but even a stopped blade can cause 20-something stitches to an arm and hand. My BIL is 45 and there isn’t much hope except to hide the chainsaws even better the next time.
Google-fixes may be risky but they are all I really have. I have Google-broken more than my fair share of a wide variety of things but I am just a little too dumb not to keep doing it.
Felling logs, splitting stumps, and otherwise dealing with large ungainly chunks of wood can often mean that things don’t behave exactly as they should
I remember loading a 3-foot cross-section, maybe 2 feet thick, onto the gasoline-powered wedge and hitting the “engage” button. The awesome power of internal combustion pushed that narrow iron wedge right into that piece of stump, which made some eeeeeking noises instead of splitting and promply brought the gasoline engine to a full stop. No problem, I’ve got three old-fashioned manual wedges and a sledge with a 10 lb head (and spare handles). I’ll just work the stump directly across from where the gas-powered splitter buried itself. Hmmm, OK, then I’ll just insert a second wedge right here in-between them, at that point there will hardly be any wood in that line, just three consecutive intervening hunks of metal, stump’s gotta split, right? OK, maybe not. Got one more wedge, I’ll juse go in at a 90° angle from the bark side, into the same plane. OH yeah, now I feel like B’rer Rabbit. Damn tar baby stump! Leggo my wedges, damn you!!
That’s not supposed to happen. That’s the generally approved technique for splitting. But the wood has its own ideas about such things.
Don’t blame the advice you got on Google. It sounds spot-on. These things happen.
The trick is to figure out which way the tree wants to fall, and then help it fall in that direction. That doesn’t help when the tree wants to fall in the absolute wrong direction. Thats when you end up with ropes and pulleys to convince it. You need to make the last cut on the side of tree that’s in tension.
The trick I know and use removing a stuck chainsaw is the ancient and wonderful two wedges and a sledgehammer.
You pound a wedge to each side of the blade and it slips out easily. You then use the hammer to knock the wedges out of the tree.
Good Times.
Dammit, guys, don’t get me all paranoid! I have six horrible cypresses I need to drop and not crash through my roof and I want to feel like I have a fighting chance here… Luckily the guy coming over to help is an experienced chainsaw wielding dude, but them’s still kinda tall and branchy, I’m just sayin’.
I also have to hack the crap out of two overgrown, yucky cherry trees too–I’m going to give 'em one chance to stop being all diseas-ey and actually produce cherries, then I’m gonna cut 'em all the way down and plant something that produces!
My trees are all too big and mostly not the kind of trees I want–this sucks… :smack:
Well, I am 3 for 3 on my chainsaw rescues and I learned the trick from my BIL who has been heating his house mainly with wood he chops and cuts for the last 25 years. He also attends the Boonville Woodsman fair every year for the last 15 or so. He is up there every year on the same weekend I am helping with the Clearwater Festival. I guess I should have added in a YMMV.
Yeah, I’d kinda figured this would be a real smart idea ™, and I’ve even picked out the branches on the maple tree which would be best to rig the ropes to in order that we triangulate the tops down to the ground. I’m just kinda scared of chainsaws, tell you the truth. I’m fine with a big old circular saw and table saws and suchlike, but the chainsaws give me the heebie jeebies… too many horror movies, I expect!
