Safe and Fast Cutting 12/3/22

A half-dozen years ago we had a dying 45 ft high maple tree removed. The process that involved cutters wearing climbing spurs scaling the tree with ropes. They cut off branches as they worked their way up the tree, lowering them to the ground on other ropes – a potentially dangerous, physically demanding, and time consuming process.

In late September, a neighbor had two 35 ft insect infested oak trees removed by a top-down mechanical process that was much safer, less demanding on the workers and faster. A remote controlled “grapple saw” on the end of a crane arm was used to remove branches leaving a 25 ft trunk post.

A grapple saw can be seen in action in the following YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cUwY4I3Wzw

The trunk post (with a few small branches on it) was cut down in a more traditional matter – a cable to a come-along was attached high on the trunk post and anchored in the direction the cutters wanted it to fall; a wedge was cut out of the trunk in that direction; the trunk as cut almost fully through to the area where the wedge was removed; and metal wedges were driven into that cut as the come along cable was tightened. The trunk post fell in a slow and controlled manner exactly where they intended it to.

From there it was a matter of cutting up the stump post into small pieces, grinding up the smallest and hauling away the larger ones. A few days later, the stump was removed using a 3 ft diameter larger grinder wheel on a trailer. The entire process took about 8 hours.