Fritz...none of my business but you are a man that needs a tractor and a grapple !!!

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
It takes a man’s man to drop big trees with a short bar saw, even with the extra displacement. Bravo!

Bar length and engine power are part of the personal considerations for cutting given log diameters.

A bar that's longer than the tree's diameter makes for simpler felling cuts. The sawyer can make both the face and back cuts from one side of the tree. It's easier to aim the tree's falling direction with a bar that's a good 3-4 inches longer than the trunk's diameter. This makes for a faster cut, and likely higher safety for the sawyer.

Longer bars reduce the need to bend over when bucking or limbing trees on the ground.

Longer bars weigh more. The weight can be mitigated somewhat by using lightweight bars, such as the my Stihl light 20" and 25" bars. I was given a 25" regular weight Stihl bar, and I can honestly state that it's unpleasant to use compared to the 25" light.

Longer bars are harder to control. We generally obtain more precise cuts with a shorter bar.

Longer bars require more oil output for proper lubrication. Some saws have inadequate oil pump output and oil reservoirs to operate longer bars. Better chainsaws have the ability to adjust oil output -- I put my Stihls on maximum, so there's very little bar oil left when the powerhead runs out of gas. My Stihl 400 just barely has the ability to oil a 25" bar. Anything longer would be running a bit dry. It does keep the 20" bar nice and wet. My Stihl 310 and 261 saws keep their 16" bars nice and wet, but they struggle to adequately lube a 20" bar. One must also consider the type of wood being cut. Most of the trees I deal with are dead and dry. Such wood requires more oil than a live tree that's loaded with moisture.

For a given engine size, there's only so much wood that can be cut while maintaining optimal engine speed. A smaller-engine saw will slice through an 8" log at roughly the same speed with either a 16" or a 28" bar. But this saw may be near its limits cutting a 16" log with either a 16" or 28" bar. It probably performs worse with the 28" bar, as it has the additional friction of 28" chain on the bar, plus the weight of pushing around the longer chain. I can bury the full length of my 16" bars in wood on my Stihl 310 and 261 saws, and not worry about feathering the pressure on the saw to reduce bogging down the engine. Going to a 20" bar, both these saws require a more delicate touch when the bar is fully buried.

My Stihl 400 cuts like a freight train with a fully buried 20" bar. But with the 25" bar fully buried in 25-plus-inches of wood, I have to back off on pressure to keep the engine from bogging down. Now I can reduce the issue a bit by switching from the normal "full comp" chain to what is called a "skip tooth" chain -- one that has half as many cutting heads for a given chain length. But I prefer the "full comp" chains, as I find them easier to sharpen. And I sharpen my chains every 1-2 tanks of gas, depending on how the chains are cutting.

I have considered getting a longer bar for the upcoming really big trees -- say 28" or 32". But IMO that requires a buying a bigger powerhead. A Stihl 462 probably would be OK with such bars, but this is really in the wheelhouse of a Stihl 500i. Believe me, I think a 500i would be frickin' awesome. Maybe later. Or not. For now there's a lot that I can cut with the current saw fleet.

Do you have access to a bulldozer or loader or excavator?

We put in small swales on the farm, and they retained a surprising amount of water and really helped with erosion.

We looked at a box burner which would turn 20% of the weight into biochar.

Cost about 140k, so it would only really pay if you can run it full time.

But, trench burning can still recover a decent amount of the carbon, for you soil/is supposed to be safer - but I don’t know anyone who does it, personally. We will try it the next time we have to burn off brush.

My that's a lot of work Fritz, you obviously know what you're doing though.

quote:

Originally posted by Bassamatic:
Fritz...none of my business but you are a man that needs a tractor and a grapple !!!

I imagine Fritz has one to load them in the trailer, and more importantly clean up the limbs.

After the bucket, the grapple is the most used implement I have. Thankfully I don't have anywhere near the numbers of dead standing trees Fritz has to deal with, and most are hardwood which I section and split for heat. But there are a number of Scot or Red Pine (that really don't belong in this area) that have been dying off which I cut in 10'- 12' lengths and pile up somewhere to rot. But I only had to deal with 5 this year not 100+ like Fritz has! Last month I stacked about 24-25 logs (from this years 5 I cut) to make a backstop for my range.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
Do you have access to a bulldozer or loader or excavator?
We put in small swales on the farm, and they retained a surprising amount of water and really helped with erosion.

This is ultimately what we must do. My ancestors built a couple of dams many decades ago, which really made a difference. Neighboring ranches have some swales that help with their pastures -- especially the ones used for hay production.

A nasty sinus infection from last week just zapped my strength. This weekend's work was just dealing with branch cleanup and assessing future work. The process of cutting trees #100 and #101 allowed safer entry into a 15-ish acre forested area that has been challenging to work. It's bordered by our new neighbors to the north, the seasonal creek by the west & north, and a deep gully to the east. This part of the ranch was never really maintained by our ancestors. It has many blowdowns, was hit bad by a massive snow/wind storm in 2019, and has its share of beetle trees.

I began working the eastern edge last year via our ATV, but didn't get very far. Over the 4th of July holiday, I discovered that an old snag blew over and blocked full-sized vehicle access from the east. I've slowly worked on this tree -- 28 inches in diameter, about 75 feet tall. So far I've pulled 6 pickup loads of dead branches from the area. It still needs a lot of work, but I'm making a dent and I can now get by the blowdown with the pickup. This situation is fairly common with the old snags -- they can fall in an inconvenient direction, and smash a few other good trees in the process.




My schedule may not allow much big tree felling over the next couple of months. But here's a new wonky-shaped beetle kill -- although it was looking a little iffy in the summer. 30 inches diameter at felling cut height, likely 75 feet tall. I walked around this thing a few times, analyzing the safest way to fell it. I painted a vertical strip on the trunk to mark my intended direction, which should put it in the middle of a grassy area & avoid crunching a few smaller trees.

About the only positive thing I can say about the loss of so many trees and the tremendous amount of work you’ve been doing is that you may end up with beautiful park-like stands of Ponderosas, with scattered clumps of trees; their natural state given the fire regime they evolved in. Ponderosa pine is my favorite of the conifers (Doug fir a close second), and this MPB is sure a plague that also infests LPP in the higher elevations, and Piñon pine in the lower/drier elevations. Stay safe man. Do you have a cellphone signal if you have an accident of some kind?

Got those dam beetles in Oregon. They are rampaging all over. I hate them. So many big old trees they are destroying. Can hear them when it's quiet in the summer, they are loud.

I have at least 20 trees that need to come down. Probably more.

Impressive amount of work. I wouldn’t be able to move after that. Love the saws and truck. I hope you are keeping some of that heart pine soaked with resin. Makes great firestarters. I guess most people call it fatwood nowadays.

We have the pine beetles here in Alabama too.

Pine around here is not got firewood. Too smoky and the resin clogs up fireplaces and are a fire hazard. No good for campfires either if you are going to cook over it. Unless you like pine flavored meat.

That's impressive work Fritz. My hat is off to you, you obviously know what you're doing, just by the fact that you're still ALIVE. Felling larger trees should be outlawed for amateurs like me. The only way to learn is being with someone like you, youtube is not sufficient for that kind of work.

And, since you have this problem with the beetles, I'm SURE you will need a newer, larger Stihl saw, with more power for a longer bar with a bigger oiler. It's inevitable, I can feel it !

Nice job though !

quote:

Bar length and engine power are part of the personal considerations for cutting given log diameters....

fritz: That post has a lot of great info!
Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by ruger357:
I hope you are keeping some of that heart pine soaked with resin. Makes great firestarters. I guess most people call it fatwood nowadays.

We have a bunch of the pitchy wood. The majority of the old Ponderosas with large crowns have dead branches low on the trunk that are packed with resin. The central wood on most tree trunks is solid, but not super high in resin. When I was a kid, we would harvest the pitchy branches for Grandma, who would split them up for fire starting sticks. I don't think "fatwood" is a commonly used term around here, but folks know what it means. I rarely save the pitchy branches anymore for fire starting wood. I now just collect old stumps -- from trees cut by my ancestors, but not flat to the ground.

A few years ago, I was driving around in our prior F150, looking at the middle & top of trees to find evidence of beetle infestation. There was a lot of rain that year, so the prairie grass was tall -- up to 3 feet high in places. Being a sheep dip, I ran into a old stump that was solid as nails, and snapped the steering tie rod. Ruh-roh, this caused a few repair headaches for my B-I-L and me. As a result, I significantly increased my efforts to cut old stumps to ground level. The old stumps tend to be either rotten like Styrofoam or bulletproof. Lots of fatwood in the bulletproof ones. The challenge is cutting them off. The wood is uber hard and dirty. The saw engine labors, the bar starts smoking, the chains dull quickly, and the bar channel takes it in the shorts for premature wear.

Here's the last one I cut, in early September. I think this is bar #4 on the Stihl 310. The bar's channel is pretty worn, but I continue to use it for dirty wood and stump cutting. It cuts OK as long as I keep the chains really sharp, and dress the bar regularly -- keeping the rails square & eliminating burrs on the rails. I have a new replacement bar in the basement -- probably will trash this bar early next year.






And our current stash of fire starting wood -- just needs to be split. The 5-gallon bucket is for reference size.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
About the only positive thing I can say about the loss of so many trees and the tremendous amount of work you’ve been doing is that you may end up with beautiful park-like stands of Ponderosas, with scattered clumps of trees; their natural state given the fire regime they evolved in.
Do you have a cellphone signal if you have an accident of some kind?

Our thoughts of what makes up a healthy pine forest is definitely evolving. Advice from wildland fire fighters, forestry folks, and insurance specialists are part of the change. We've always thought that thinning the excess number of saplings was good, as well as cutting the low dead branches from trunks. Now we're realizing Ponderosas need some room to be their best. Here's a current look at an area they we pulled dozens of beetle kills from in 2023. I've also cleaned up a bunch of old deadfall that was on the ground. Some of the stacked 6' trunk logs from the 2023 efforts are still visible in the lower center of this picture. A year ago we originally thought this part of the forest was decimated -- now we think it looks just fine. Picture from yesterday.




Our ancestors spent more time on the pastures than the woodlands. The pastures allowed to lease grazing rights for cattle, and thus provided income. The forest lands seemed to take a back seat -- other than wood for heating. Some of the forest land just was never maintained, as I see little if any evidence of saw marks. One section of 5+ acres became a cattle pathway, as they moved between the major east & west pastures, developing trails along the seasonal creek. I suspect when our ancestors acquired this land, these 5+ acres were a meadow with only a couple of trees. As the decades passed, new trees took over the meadow. But this area seems to be regularly hit with heavy snowstorms and microburst wind storms, which have played havoc with the smaller & densely packed trees.

A series of snow & wind storms in early 2019 was the last straw. We could barely walk this area. Trying to drive any vehicle was out of the question. Cattle just went elsewhere. And this was unfortunate for the cattle, as the grass in this area was still good in late summer, when the grass in the open pastures was brown & crispy. So I attacked this area and took a good part of 2 years here-and-there to clean it up. This pic is from January 2021. I don't have any recent pics, but we can drive vehicles through here, the grass is good, and the cattle move through here regularly.




Maybe 300 yards upstream from the 5+ acre bad blowdown area, the forest is older. Trees likely existed here for my ancestors. The 2019 winds still hit these trees hard. I have cleaned up the trees & branches on the ground a couple of years ago, but the trunks marked with yellow paint are still on my to-do list. These aren't beetle trees, but rather standing match sticks -- missing the top half of the tree. IIRC, there are another 10 or so snapped trunks to the left of this picture. As you state above, once these are out of the way, the remaining trees will have a more normal & natural spacing.



And yes, I do have pretty good cell coverage.

Over the past couple of weekends I have concentrated on removing overgrown thickets of saplings that have sprouted up directly under the big pines. The saplings range from 1/4" thick stems & a few inches tall to 3-4" diameter & up to 15' tall. They baby trees can just crowd out the woodlands, and I'm told they can starve the mature trees of water -- which makes them more susceptible to beetle attacks. I've easily culled 300-400 saplings in the past few weeks. I cut the ones under an inch in diameter with a folding hand saw, on hands & knees. I cut the larger ones with a battery EGO saw. Yes, I'm aware EGO is made by the Chinese commies -- but I didn't know that 5 years ago when I purchased the saw. And I'm as anti-China as anyone around here. EGO saws cut -- the motor, bar, chain, and batteries are good. Their downside is a bar oiling gear/pump that must be made of Cheetos & Styrofoam. EGO has replaced 3 of my saws under warranty, for bar oiling failures.

Anyway, I didn't expect to cut any large wood over the weekend, so I left the Stihls at home. But I ended up working under a dead fork of a tree. The dead side was shedding limbs, had become a hazard tree, and it needed to come down. 16" diameter and 27' tall. The right fork, marked with yellow paint.




I didn't have any felling wedges with me, nor an axe. I really needed to land 30 degrees clockwise of its lean, to keep it away from other trees and saplings. Which meant falling it straight into the day's 25-ish mph winds. I made a bigger notch than normal, to ensure that it would fall as intended without wedges. Cutting a 16" tree with a 15" bar, at the fork, with a less-precise & lower-powered saw produced a few challenges. Just for grins, I wanted to save the baby sapling the sprouted in the fork. I know the sapling will eventually have to go, but I think it's cool.




The wind really held up this snag. Not much hinge left in the cut. I didn't want to manually push the tree over, as that just begs to have the butt come back at me if something went wrong. Finally, after feathering the felling cut, the tree cracked and fell exactly on target. The bottom 10 feet of the trunk was still solid wood, but above that the trunk was rotten garbage.




EGO says the saw has the equivalent power of a 30-35cc gas saw. Maybe so. With a sharp chain, it cuts. A large and powerful saw isn't always necessary.

Well, I’ve known…since I read your post, that Ego was a ChiCom company. I’ve just got a string trimmer that I’ve had for a few years now. I have to admit that it’s a good product, but I’m glad to be aware now. Thanks.

We were hit with a big 3-day snowstorm a couple of weeks ago -- 3 feet fell at our ranch. I stayed away until yesterday, hoping that enough snow had melted to drive into the wooded areas. With smart driving I could get around pretty well, but some big drifts still remain. The areas I worked 3 and 4 weeks ago are not yet accessible, and thus the limbs and saplings on the ground will wait for another day.

On to felling beetle kills in a more open area. The larger one on the left was 18" diameter, 55' tall. The smaller one in the middle was 13" diameter, 39 feet tall. Tree numbers 104 and 105 for the year.

Stihl 261 with a 16" bar. This saw is just pleasant to use. Doesn't weigh much. Easy to start -- cold, hot, in-between. Reasonable power for a small saw, although my Stihl 400 would have been nicer for bucking the larger tree.









Left center tree -- 15" diameter, 63' tall. Tree number 106. The wind was blowing a good 15-20mph at this point, making it unpleasant outside. I felled this one with the wind, as nearby trees that had to be felled against the wind were just unsafe to attempt.

There's still too much snow to drive to the area of blowdowns and saplings. Maybe next week. I can get to the areas where the snow has melted a bit and the drifting is minimal. Still, I got the 4WD F250 stuck once -- but at least it took only a few minutes of shoveling snow to get going again. Tree #107 was a little guy -- 9 inches diameter and 25 feet tall. A nuisance tree more than anything, and I cut it with the EGO battery saw.

#108 -- 17 inches and 50 feet. Old beetle-kills with with lots of branches just suck. The limbs generally shatter when they hit the ground. The Stihl 261 is just a pleasure to cut with.





Did I mention that cleaning up branches sucks big time?




Tree #109 -- 15 inches, 46 feet. An easier tree to deal with.

I love that red Ford Truck.

The next day...3 dead trees in a clump of 25 or so. Many of the trees in this clump lean to the north, making felling order important. Tree #110 was the easiest, as there was an opening to the west and the northern lean wasn't bad. 10 inches, 44 feet. I used the EGO battery saw, as its bar is fairly skinny. Wedging a small-diameter tree with a fat bar can be a challenge. Felling #110 opened some space for #112.






****
Tree #111 had a significant lean to the north -- right into other trees. There was a better opening to the south, but there was no way I could wedge it that direction. My best hope was to split the narrow opening between 2 close trees to the north, then hope that it wouldn't be hung up too badly. The tree just wouldn't have enough mass or momentum to punch through the opening on the first try. 12 inches, 57 feet. As the tree began to fall, I powered through the hinge, in order to completely sever the stem from the base stump. I didn't want cut through any hinge while the tree was hung up, as this is a prime recipe for pinching the saw.



As I expected, the tree was hung up. At least the stem stayed on the stump.



This allowed me to pull the stem sidesways off the stump with comealong. When the stem hit the ground, the impact shook the tree enough to punch through the opening and fall to the ground. Lots of small branch shrapnel flying on this one. No big widow-maker branches, but big enough to sting. I ducked behind other trees and there were no issues.




****
Tree #112 had the hardest lean to the north. Like the others, it wasn't leaning exactly where I wanted to fell it. With #110 and #111 out of the way, there was a narrow opening to punch through. It required brushing the branches on the tree to the left, then rolling down into the hole between the left and right trees. I hit the bullseye. 16 inches, 57 feet. Lots of branch shrapnel as this one hit the tree on the left. Again, ducking behind another tree resulted in no issues with flying debris.






****
Off to a different area for tree #113. 15 inches, 51 feet. No issues other than picking up a bunch of small shattered branches in the snow. Wet gloves suck.