Meet The Producers of Your Wood - Falling a Big Fir

[BobSmalser]

Joe Emel. 47.  From an old logging and pioneer family here…French Canadian and Scandinavian origins.  High Climber.  Arborist.  Good friend.   Son Joey on a full academic ride at Univ Idaho in Forestry…with a minor in Wetlands Science, perhaps because of my humble counsel.



Danger tree… developing root rot and too close to the house.  52” Diameter at Breast Height (DBH)…180’ tall…already limbed and topped and a soft bed prepared for falling...without limbs (removed for safety), that tree will hit very hard.



Face Cut…People and dogs out of the house and moved to a safe distance…



Back Cut and Driving Wedges…that’s a falling axe for wedging the tree down in helper Billy’s hands…



Finishing Hinge and the 30-ton bole tips.



Falling!  (I was too close and the camera shook.)  Boom!



Bucking and Trimming… notice the hinge was cut fatter on the side away from the house? Think thru how the tree was wedged down (not cut down completely)...and how the hinge broke in stages and you'll understand why.



Loading for the Trip to the Mill



The tree was a disappointment…and it went to the commercial mill at the request of the owner.  Construction wood.  Sun-grown, rough (big knots) 100 year old second growth….4-6 rings per inch on inside and 8 rings per inch on outside.  Dimensional structural lumber from the lower logs and beams from the rough upper logs. No Number 1 stock in it.

Wasn’t a forest tree….the coastal strip was logged beginning in 1850 from the water…that’s Hood Canal in the background…and the subsequent full-sun and full-wind trees are wide-ringed, pitch-pocketed and rough.  Note the discoloration in the lower right log on the truck...poria root rot (Phenillus weirri) and the crown was dying...and in another 30 years a hollow and very dangerous tree.

The second one we did later in the day...slightly smaller but much better...I'm moving the mill to...and will post pics in the future of milling the logs for 85-year-old Earl Johnson on shares.  If you've never made boards starting from a standing tree, you may find it interesting.
 
Copyright 2003.  Bob Smalser, Sprague Pond Environmental Services, Camp Union, Washington.

[Frank Hagan]

That is interesting.  I would have thought that an old tree like that, with the diameter, would have nice tight rings and make some great looking vertical grain douglas fir boards.  

I have some 30+ year old rough cut 2 x 4 and 4 x 6 timbers from an old patio cover my father built, out of "construction grade" douglas fir.  It looks great ... tight grain, absolutely beautiful.  I suspect now it would be milled differently and sold as vertical grain fir.  The problem with it is that it has blemishes, fastener holes, where nails used to be.  They are unsightly, and I'm filling the holes with epoxy.  I'm using it for things like laminated centerboards and rudders, but it has to be painted because of the black marks left by the nails.

[Barry Pyeatt]

We've  had a number of old Fir and Western Red Cedar removed from properties that we owned over the years.  Some to build structures in their place and some because they were a danger to existing structures.  Several of them were considered old growth forest and truly monarchs in their own right.   It was amazing that as big as they were that there really wasn't much really high quality lumber from any of them.  Most all of the fir was construction grade and very useable and worth quite a lot at the time.  The Western Red Cedar was quite good quality and was primarily used as siding, a large portion of it clear.  I know we built a lot of really projects from some of the material that we kept and we resided a home and a couple of commercial buildings we had with the Cedar.
Facinating to watch them bring them down.  Most of them came down pretty easy as they left the limbs on them until they were down.  
But there isn't much old growth left and it is rare to see it logged in this part of the world any more.

[thebob]

Almost wish there was a sound track, although you just cannot reproduce the sound, and shake, of a big butt hitting the ground.

Beautifull saw work, you can tell by the even breaking along the hinge it was perfectly predicted.

Can't wait to see the boards being milled, excellent post.

[MikeStevenson]

Very interesting. Peter and Susie have lots of really bad Monterey Pines on their property which need to come down. They're growing in a sort of gully and are over-tall and look like tall weeds: stringy, thin, and prone to snapping off half-way up the tree. Some of these look like they might be fun to drop ourselves, as there's not really anything around them to hurt. Your pics give me some ideas, and a look at how able a good person can be. I don't think I'd have considered it possible to aim the tree that close to the house and expect it to drop right.

I wish I could remember more of the time my father Peter and a Great-Uncle dropped a tall redwood which was starting to impinge on a barn. My G-Uncle's family had 200 acres of virgin redwoods in the Boulder Creek area. It was an amazingly dark forest and very spooky when you're eight or nine. The tree they brought down was not an old growth redwood, but probably dated to around the 1890's, which would have made the tree around 75 years or so. Very impressive to both me as a little kid, and Peter (who had some idea what was going on!)

On a related note, and seeing as how you're an arborist, would you mind a redwood-related question?

Mike

[BobSmalser]

I'm the biologist...Joe's the arborist...although I know a little bit about silviculture and converting wood to lumber.

We don't have any natural redwoods here but I'll give it a stab.

[MikeStevenson]

We have a pair of 40' or so redwoods which are probably about fifteen years old. They seem ok, but one seems to be turning brown at the top ten feet or so. I mention it as you post said something about the crown dying on the tree you dropped. It made think perhaps ours are not so hot after all.

Mike

[BobSmalser]

See if you can match up your symptoms with what's in these...may be a disease...may just be browning because of some soil deficiency...try some treespike fertilizer spikes next spring and in following springs and decide in a couple years if there's no improvement or adjacent trees become infected.

http://botanicalgarden.be...s/newsletter_fall2001.pdf

http://cekern.ucdavis.edu..._Trees_in_Kern_County.htm

http://dmoz.org/Science/A...estry/Pests_and_Diseases/

http://www.rense.com/general29/dosp.htm

If it is a disease, your chances of curing it are pretty small...then the course of action is to take it down while it's still sound.

[MikeStevenson]

Thanks for the info. I'll read up and see what fits.

Mike