Found a Widow Maker

[xzcVAbc5]

I vote, along with several other posters, for a long cable. A very long cable. Attach one end to the widowmaker. Attach the other end to a garbage truck in the next city over. Go away to a third city, and use google maps satelite view to check every six months or so for an updated image showing the widowmaker gone.

xtn

Don't forget safety glasses and a tetanus shot. You can never be too safe.

 

[FTG-05]

It's been raining all morning and now the fog has moved in. So no action today unless it clears up a bit.

I do have a snatch block and long cables. Fortunately, there is both a small trail for me to drive down pulling on the cable and several stout trees to serve as anchors.

Another option is to just fire up my Stihl MS 440 Magnum with a 25" bar and cut the tree down about a foot above the oringal cut, except reverse it so it goes the way it wants to go. Might do that. I won't do anything unless there's little to no wind.

And who knows, nature may have already solved it for me!

Thanks for the help, I appreciate it!

 

[CobyRupert]

Might work. Or you might end up with two bars pinched.
(Depending on the size of the tree, it's strength and how deep your new notch & other existing cuts are.)
That is: Can you make a new notch on the same side of the tree that pinched your bar last time without pinching the bar again, because now there's less holding wood (in tension) on the side that already has a notch.

Think of the hinge (that you leave between the notch and the back cut as exactly that, a hinge). You've already cut the "hold down strap" side of the tree/hinge that goes into tension when you make a notch.

 

[jrclark]

I vote, along with several other posters, for a long cable. A very long cable. Attach one end to the widowmaker. Attach the other end to a garbage truck in the next city over. Go away to a third city, and use google maps satelite view to check every six months or so for an updated image showing the widowmaker gone. xtn

This one gave me a good laugh

Am I the only one who has actually taken a saw to leaner? Done it more times than I'd like to admit, but still wasn't that bad to accomplish. Just need one spotter and several exit strategies.

 

[Parkanzky]

I have to do it more often than I'd like on my property. I am _VERY_ careful not to ever be directly in line (in front of or behind) where I'm cutting, so that if it drops or barber-chairs I'm not directly in the way. I try to have multiple escape routes planned and I take off at the slightest movement of the tree.

I had a funny pinch earlier this past fall. There was a dead pine standing perfectly straight with no branches. It was probably only 8" diameter and about 20-25' tall. I cut a shallow notch, then made my felling cut. I cut and cut and it never started falling. It was soft wood, so before I knew it I had cut all the way into the top of my notch and I felt a little "thunk" as the tree dropped a fraction of an inch and pinched my bar. I shut the saw off and stepped back. I had cut all the way through but the tree was standing perfectly straight with my saw (just a couple weeks old MS 261:irked: ) pinched in the cut perfectly parallel to the ground. I thought about it for a minute and decided that because it was a small tree and not that tall, I'd approach carefully, grasp the powerhead of the saw and twist it slightly. The tree started to fall in slow motion and freed the saw. I took a couple steps back (135 degrees from the direction of the fall) and as the tree got to about 10 degrees from vertical it fell into a pile a few feet in front of me. It hadn't realized it, but it was so rotten that it couldn't support its own weight.

Once I changed my underpants, I was checking out the remains of the tree. No section bigger than 6' was left. They were so rotten, I could kick them in half. I walked over to the stump, and pulled it out of the ground with no resistance! I could crumble most of the tree with my bare hands.

 

[FTG-05]

It's down. Took about one minute after I fired up the MS 440. In the pic below, you can see the original cut and how it's opposite from the 2nd cut that brought down the tree.

Had three other widow makers today. Two of them I pushed over since they had already broke the 45 plane. The other I pulled from the bottom and brought it down. Another tree was so rotten, I just got my FEL under the root ball and lifted up and down it went.

I gotta a lot of dead standing trees on my property. Fortunately, I have an Englander 30-NC that would just love to have them!!!

 

[Walkin Horse]

Has anybody ever dropped one on a powerline?

 

[dusty3030]

Has anybody ever dropped one on a powerline?

Almost

 

[square1]

Has anybody ever dropped one on a powerline?

No! why? what'd you hear? :worried::worried:

 

[Walkin Horse]

Almost don't count. I want to hear about sparks and twisted cables and pissed nieghbors and bad mood linemen.