treemuncher
Bronze Member
I'm curious as to what the maximum size tree that anyone else has consumed with a mulcher?????
I worked some ditches in Arkansas a few years back. I had to take out several 3', 4' and a 5' diameter trees on the contract. Those were cypress and were easy on the excavator mounted mulcher due to the soft nature of cypress. I could not find any buyers and no time for other disposal methods so I mulched them all down to satisfy contractual requirements. Somewhere in my files is a movie of the 5' cypress coming down with cutter only, no chain saw used. I'll bet there was less than 12" left in the void that I cut out of that one before I was able to push it over in the desired direction.
Last year, while working a pipeline construction job, I had to take out a large red oak that I documented. It was 64" (5'4" - the height of my ex wife!) at the saw cut and within 10' of the white line of the county road. I had to saw cut and winch it over for safety reasons. 1:30 PM start time with 109 degree heat index while running a chain saw- it was not a fun time and when the first 30k lb strap snapped during winching operations, then the stress set in. Eventually, a Komatsu tool carrier was hooked to my Barko to help me get enough traction to pull the heavily overhung tree away from the county road. Everything came down safely.
The tree was so massive that I could not push it or pull it with a 40k lb machine. I had to eat my way through the top in order to get to the back side of it and call in more help from the tool carrier when it started to slide back down towards the road. That machine had it's back tires 3' in the air trying to move the log without any progress. Eventually, working together, we got it up onto the flat and I digested everything, including the above grade stump. See pics below...
I worked some ditches in Arkansas a few years back. I had to take out several 3', 4' and a 5' diameter trees on the contract. Those were cypress and were easy on the excavator mounted mulcher due to the soft nature of cypress. I could not find any buyers and no time for other disposal methods so I mulched them all down to satisfy contractual requirements. Somewhere in my files is a movie of the 5' cypress coming down with cutter only, no chain saw used. I'll bet there was less than 12" left in the void that I cut out of that one before I was able to push it over in the desired direction.
Last year, while working a pipeline construction job, I had to take out a large red oak that I documented. It was 64" (5'4" - the height of my ex wife!) at the saw cut and within 10' of the white line of the county road. I had to saw cut and winch it over for safety reasons. 1:30 PM start time with 109 degree heat index while running a chain saw- it was not a fun time and when the first 30k lb strap snapped during winching operations, then the stress set in. Eventually, a Komatsu tool carrier was hooked to my Barko to help me get enough traction to pull the heavily overhung tree away from the county road. Everything came down safely.
The tree was so massive that I could not push it or pull it with a 40k lb machine. I had to eat my way through the top in order to get to the back side of it and call in more help from the tool carrier when it started to slide back down towards the road. That machine had it's back tires 3' in the air trying to move the log without any progress. Eventually, working together, we got it up onto the flat and I digested everything, including the above grade stump. See pics below...
