Blower leaks oil

[ThomasPowers]

Gee we it was T shirt weather Tuesday in the shop even with the 2 10'x10' doors open as well as the open gables.

[Frosty]

On 3/3/2022 at 10:21 AM, Yanni Rockitz said:

How about that football game last night.  What's that critter in back -- one'a them wild woods cows?  ;-) 

Football? Uh, nope don't watch, didn't know it was on even. About the only televised sport I can hack is curling. Yes, that's a high bush meese browsing some slash. The white birch looking thing in front of it is the well casing, a friend of Deb's painted it as a surprise present for me. 

Moose come to the sound of a chain saw and eat the buds on the slash. The one in the pic is one of the locals, I'm thinking maybe 5th or 6th generation. The pic was taken in 2000. We have a cow with twin yearling calves hanging here right now. Another two years and one of these calves will have the net generation to live locally. 

I don't know which Duralube I used, I didn't know there was more than one kind. It is the engine friction minimizing flavor is about all I remember. I'd have to look I may have some left, I don't know. That gallon of bar oil has lasted me probably 7-8 years before the accident in 09 and I'm not stable enough on my feet to fire one up since. 

Yes, oil of any kind gets thick in winter, especially if it's below zero. I don't know about Stihl bar oil but I expect it's top shelf. The Oregon bar oil I have is what was available when I needed some. The Duralube is stiff so I imagine it stiffens the bar oil some but I add so little I doubt it's noticeable. Both are supposed to remain fluid in sub zero temps and my Stihl saws have pumps to lubricate the bar so I've never had a dry bar.

I fill a small, maybe 12oz. water bottle with bar oil to carry with me in the woods instead of the jug or walking back and forth. I have a bright yellow and distress orange shoulder bag I keep a gallon of mixed fuel, bar lube, tools, a couple three sharp chains, chain file, thermos of ice tea or hot coffee and something to eat.

It sounds like a lot but the shoulder bag loaded weighs less than a gallon of oil, not counting the gallon of fuel that is. And I usually carried the bag on my left side to balance the saw in my right. When I was cutting I hung it on a high branch. One, to keep it out of the way, Two, to make it easy to find and Three, to flag my location in case someone needed to find me in.

A gallon of mixed gas and the squirt bottle of bar oil was plenty for several hours of cutting and I was cutting to fill our wood shed, not a paycheck. 

My favorite way to cut wood was to fell it with an excavator with thumb. I pushed the tree over then lifted the roots out of the ground, bounced it in the root hole to get as much dirt off the roots as reasonably possible. Then I swung the tree around and stacked it with the others. Carrying one with the excavator doesn't work unless you're on cleared ground it holds the tree balanced crosswise so I swung them and stacked them. 

When I had a good pile I'd reposition the excavator, pick and stack the trees a boom length in the direction I wanted to go. Once in the shop yard I can carry them and spread the pile to buck up. With a little practice you can strip the branches with the bucket and claw like stripping fresh thyme. If the excavator couldn't strip a branch it was large enough to be worth cutting up for fire wood.

If I had a helper to buck we felled bucked and stacked 5 cord in about 3 hours without beating ourselves up working. I rented a splitter and did the whole pile, usually in 5-6 hours and stacked it in the shed another day. 

If I'd owned an excavator I would've made an attachment to use the bucket and thumb to split and stack it. 

It sounds like a lot of work but diesel fuel is doing most of it.

I don't do any cutting anymore, though I don't mind running the splitter, stability isn't as much of an issue.

The dead of winter is the best time to cut wood, the sap is down so it dries much more quickly and frozen green wood splits easily by hand. I prefer a 3/4 boy's double bitted ax for splitting frozen birch. I have a maul and wedges but they were gifts. The full adult single bitted axe is good for thawed birch. 

The splitter rental is cheap for the work it'll do, 6-7 cord in an easy day. We burn about that much in an average winter but we only supplement the furnace in the house.

No, the shop isn't finished, no insulation and a barrel stove for inadequate heat. I was nearly killed by a great white . . . birch before I got it finished. At least I got the roof on and closed up. I don't do much out there in winter, these old bones don't handle working cold so well anymore. I'm hoping to get the power connected and wired maybe this summer, maybe next. Lights and power would be nice, right now I run an extension cord so I can use power tools or lights. 

I strongly discommend catching a tree with your head, I haven't had a good round toit in years. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

[Yanni Rockitz]

So THAT was what the accident was. A tree. Oof…  I’ve ‘heard’ you refer to it several times, but never knew what actually happened. Brutal.
I did tree work professionally for my brother’s tree business here in New England back in the day and it deeply impressed upon me the value of hardhats, safety glasses, earplugs, leather gloves and proper boots. Even with all the right stuff, there’s still serious danger. He has a “Wall of Shame” with all the destroyed safety equipment:  Fractured safety glasses, cut ropes, blown kevlar chaps, a boot with a saw cut, a hardhat with a chainsaw cut an inch deep in the front visor… Whenever a new guy on the crew gripes about safety gear, he shows them that wall and explains things like chainsaw kickback and widowmakers. I can’t tell you how many times dead branches have come flying down out of a tree and slammed off my hardhat, or impaled into the ground next to me. I’m sorry to hear about your injury — and glad you’re still with us! 

I know it’s off the “leaky blowers” topic, but just curious — what species of wood do you heat with up in Alaska? Birch, obviously. Any other hardwoods, or do you burn softwoods… I’m sure there’s a wide variety of timber, but I was under the impression that Alaska was pretty thin on hardwood species. Any issues with creosote fires in the chimneys?

Time to head out back and see how the oils are holding up in the cold. The ideal blend of cold-weather ‘stickiness’ to the gear teeth, like we get from bar oil and “liquidity(?)”, like we may get from a light machine oil or 3-in-1 is what I’m after. I think I will fire up the little pot Nelly stove and warm up the Smithy for some hammer time.
 

[ThomasPowers]

We burn various conifers out here in NM: cedars, pinon pine, also salt cedar---burns hot but stinks!  About the only hardwood out here is cotton wood.  We clean the wood stove chimney EVERY YEAR!    Made my wife happy this year by building a rube goldberg device to put the shop vac outside and then run the hose with a PVC pipe in the middle to reach the woodstove---no soot in the house!

[George N. M.]

Thomas, if you are considering cottonwood a hardwood you have forgotten what oak and maple were like in Ohio.  Cottonwood is a poplar and related to aspen.  I would say that the only things we have in the west that approach hardwood are some of the small species like Mountain Mahogany.  Old growth cedar and pinion can be pretty hard too.

When I lived in Cheyenne in the late '80s the landlord had the big cottonwoods in the yard trimmed and there were some old, dead large branches that the guys cut to fireplace length for me.  They had probably been air drying for 25 years.  They burned beautifully but left a lot of light, fluffy ash. Also, they had a slightly bitter aroma which was odd if you are used to burning pine.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

The tree I was felling kicked back and swatted me into another one, hard hat didn't help. It was a serious leaner but I didn't want to drop it where it wanted to go or I would've had to clear half a dozen more in a small stand. So I put a rope on it and snubbed it off to the pickup. NO, I didn't pull it with the truck, I only wanted it to roll maybe 10' so I pulled by hand and snubbed it off. 

I brushed around the tree and to a good spot to take cover if something went wrong. I do NOT want to trip if I have to run for it. I notched it to roll a LITTLE and go with the pull rope. I should say I planned to, I don't actually remember cutting the tree, I'm surprised I remember snubbing the pull line.

Anyway, I came to my "senses" about 20 days later in intensive care and got to go home a few days before Christmas. I got hit 09/28/09 and went home 12/23/09. Been recovering since. It's how I came by my signoff here, Iforge gang helped Deb keep her sanity through it all. Iforge wasn't the only groups, I was and am greatly humbled by how many people were praying for me. It worked.

Alaska has a lot of dense forest but not a lot of variety, south east has more varieties of hardwood and some really impressive conifers. Around here birch is the main firewood with spruce as the other main fuel. We went through a major spruce bark beetle kill off so dry spruce is less expensive. Cotton wood is a poor heat wood it makes poor heat / lb. and lots of ash.

I've burned Tag alder and it's a good heat wood though hardly worth cutting FOR firewood. When I brush I hate to cut it stack and leave it to rot so I'll cut it barrel stove length for thee shop. Makes a fast hot fire and does a good job with the stack robber on the shop stove. It makes really nice cook stove or parlor stove wood.

Up north there's balsam to go with the spruce and birch. Balsam smoke smells nice.

I used to peal birch before feeding the stove to avoid creosote but the Jotul is a 3 burn zone wood gas stove and once warmed up doesn't emit smoke. I've never seen a stove burn so clean, we haven't had the stack swept in 2 years and that's just part of the inspection. We had a stack fire about 15 years ago and the pipe we replaced it with is all triple wall guaranteed to never burn through no matter what. The space between the inner and second wall is an air gap and between the second and third is lined with 2,000f ceramic refractory. You can lay your hand on the stack a little way above the stove. 

Thomas: Regarding a fan, we have a heat powered fan on the stove. At about 100f it starts to turn and at about 300f it moves a goodly flow. Not that you want to make your stove THAT hot and the top plate is the only place on ours that does. What it does is move air without plugging it in.

There are a number of different makes.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[Yanni Rockitz]

Wow - what a story. You did a number of things right, like clearing away tripping hazards and planning escape paths... Trees can store tremendous kinetic energy, especially under load. We used to watch safety videos every year for the OSHA requirements and some of the worst accidents were always people trying to pull the tree in the direction it doesn’t want to fall. If it’s more than a few degrees to one direction, it has to go that way within about a 30° sweep to either side of its lean. That rule gets more strict the bigger the tree gets and/or the more it’s leaning. Little, springy trees can be pulled in the other direction, sometimes, but only so far. Whenever I do tree work these days, if it’s leaning much at all, I go that way within a few degrees. If I can’t, I climb it and take it down in pieces, or I leave it alone.

You must’ve taken an unbelievably deadly hit from that thing… Truly amazing you survived it. Thank you for sharing the story. That will very possibly save someone else’s life, who reads it and remembers the danger of a leaning tree.

For those who may not know — especially young men who fancy themselves the next Paul Bunyan — rule number one is SAFETY GEAR. Hardhat, eyes, ears, preferably kevlar-lined chainsaw chaps and boots. Rule 2: Never do tree work from a ladder. My personal rule number three, just because I have seen it so many times is never tie a tree to a vehicle — of any kind. I can’t tell you how many bumpers I have seen torn off, or trucks yanked into the air and smashed back down on their noses… ATVs, tractors, etc. — if you care about your vehicle, never tie it to a tree. The list goes on and on, obviously... This is one of the reasons I never mess with high-voltage electricity. I know I am not trained enough about it and I know it could kill the xxxx out of me, so I don’t fuss with it.

Thanks for the story, Frosty. I will remember that one!

I never realized hardwoods were so rare out west. It really makes me appreciate all our Oak, Maple, Cherry, Hickory, Ash, Beech, Apple, Walnut, etc., here in the east. Minding the woodstove is a pleasing chore. Here’s to warmth and tales of survival!

[Glenn]

A hardwood tree that is 80 feet tall and 24 inches would weigh around 20,000 pounds (9,072 kg).  A pine tree that is 50 feet tall and has a diameter of 12 inches will weigh around 2,000 pounds (907 kg). These numbers are rough as there are many variables to consider.

That 24 inch, 80 foot tall hardwood at 20,000 pounds has a 4 to 1 weight advantage over the 5,000 pound truck.  Add lean, the advantage of leverage when falling, and given the truck tires have less than half a sheet of paper contact with the ground, the truck looses.

[Yanni Rockitz]

EXAAACTLY. Big dumptrucks and huge excavators get thrown around and slammed over by tees, sometimes. Proper tree falling is done by harnessing gravity, with little to no man-made augmentation. The only thing that should be attached to the tree is a tagline that is not wrapped around anything else, getting pulled by one person a sufficient distance away — just to get it started in a safe direction that is on, or very close to it’s natural lean. Once it starts to go, they need to drop that rope and get farther out of the drop zone, fast. 

[Glenn]

Cutting trees using a bucket of rocks

If you have not read it, then read it before you cut another tree. 

[Yanni Rockitz]

Lol — I found it with a little scrolling, no problem. Great story. I particularly like the part about the photographers — SO true — and the no animals thing is definitely among the golden rules.
 

Now Glenn — I’m a huge fan of all those articles and stories. That said, I’m definitely NOT on board with the blanket, the come-along, or the bucket of rocks thing. I suppose they might(?) serve the purposes described, if all wnt according to plan, but I have never found any need for such additions and I am 100% certain that the bucket and the come-along introduce definite dangers to the crew and the good people of Gotham city.

One of the basic safety rules is to remove anything from the impact zone that could shatter and send pieces flying. A plastic bucket full of rocks definitely qualifies as something I would never want anywhere near the line where 3 tons of wood is about to impact the ground.  I have seen soft pine tree branches fly 100 feet and smash the neighbors window, so I can only imagine what a rock might do. Goodnight Grannie. If a gust of wind hits your tree at the wrong moment and the pull rope parts with the bucket still attached, with the tree going the wrong way — now an unstoppable force is dragging a bucket full of potentially deadly projectiles across the ground (where the crew is) at high velocity. I’m picturing the bucket either hitting someone like an 80mph wrecking ball, or catching on something and the rocks propelling outward from it like grape shot. Hmm… yeah — I’ll pass. ;-)
 

Having spent hundreds of duty cycles on both ends of tree falling — both at the tree with the saw and out on the tag line — I will say that for us, the thought of a come-along means we need to take more weight off the other side of the tree, or take it down to a point where the lean is more favorable. I would never rely on a come-along as the only pull line. I’ve seen those things explode. They don’t crank fast enough when it counts, unless you front-load the line, which puts the tree under pressure — which is highly dangerous to the Sawyer. Ask Frosty. 
 

For my crew, the visual indicators that the tree is starting to fall are the widening of the cut behind the saw — and the man on the tag line can both feel it in the line and see the whole enormous tree moving as it comes. Maybe the bucket ‘o rocks gives the safety guy something to watch, but to me it sounds like a procedure invented by a mad Blacksmith with a subconscious deathwish and a surplus of buckets.  
 

Great story, though. Every other part of it is spot on, like sending ALL bystanders into the next zip code. 

[ThomasPowers]

Yes I know that there are softwoods harder than some hardwoods; I should have used deciduous and conifer.

I've  seen dead straight kiln dried black walnut boards  come out of the gang saw curving into a beautiful bow---limb wood where one side is compressed and the other stretched and black walnut is $$$ enough that large limbs get lumbered as well as trunks.

[Frosty]

Those are way too general a weight numbers Glenn. What kind of hardwood and what kind of conifer? Maple is denser and heavier than poplar or birch and pine can be denser than many hardwoods. Heck curly maple is denser than sugar maple. Calculating weight by height might work for conifers but hardwoods tend to branch, there are oaks that are wider than they are tall with branches larger than your 24". Check out images of, "Robin Hood's meeting oak," or "The Great Oak of Sherwood." 

I only wanted to pull it maybe 10-15' to the side to miss the stand and I used pretty light line, nothing that'd drag a pickup without breaking. It was snubbed to the tie down hooks on the truck's front end. I drove service trucks and wreckers in the day, I don't attach anything to bumpers. Well, OKAY I'll tie a canoe or similar to the bumpers if they won't cut the line.

By leaning it was a good 35 - 40* and the root mat was jumping when the wind blew or I would've left it. I really liked how it looked against a backdrop of straight mature white birch. It made a perfect slash across them and branched maybe 30' from the roots, a giant wishbone. It was like a work of art but it was going to come down sooner than later and I wanted some say where it landed. (such are plans)

I figure it loaded the line like a spring as it fell (hit about where I wanted by the way) but when it bounced the line jerked it back and round. Being basically two trees above 30' made it a bouncer. It came to rest almost 180* from the direction it was leaning.  It had to have hit me like a Louisville slugger, busted me up pretty badly besides the TBI. 

I don't or should say didn't wear chaps. On the job we mostly brushed the trail left by our track mounted drill and chaps were nothing but trip hazards strapped to you. Every once in a while someone from the office would spend a day on a location so they could say they had time on the ground. They'd wear all the safety gear they could get on and sometimes have to wait for us to clear a path so they could walk to the location.

I'm a BIG proponent of PPE but if it's a dangerous encumberance it is no longer safety gear. Whatever you do you have to use your eyes, ears and brain. l No equipment can keep you safe, Safety is YOUR job and no two situations are the same. Still, no matter how careful you are things can get out of hand too far or fast to do anything about.

We didn't brush in front of the drill rig, we drove it over anything it would push down and there was no way to drive the same path back with everything made of wood pointing at you.  Our track drill was a CME 75 on a TF 110 Nodwell and it wasn't impressed by much growing out of the ground. It'd push down trees large enough to high center on the trunk.

I've never touched myself with a moving chain though there was one incident when one of the guys on the drill crew dropped a modest tree on me that drove me to my knees and the saw. I managed to punch the chain brake fast enough it only scraped me through coveralls and jeans. Still drew blood though.

That fellow was known for not looking at what he was cutting or where it was going. I was keeping a couple hundred feet ahead of him so there was always lots of brush and trees between us. When I'd hear his saw approaching clear space I'd move another couple hundred feet. I missed him moving closer, my bad.

I spent the next couple hours dropping small tag alder on him from the edges of his cleared ground. He was so observant he never saw me in my ORANGE coveralls, even followed one back and looked around from maybe 15 feet away the saw was idling in my hands. So I dropped another on him before he got back to where he was brushing.

Another of his traits was to walk through the brush with the saw revved up, full throttle was the only position he knew.

People are cultivating some varieties of maple here but they don't grow wild that I know of. Pine is also cultivated but not natural. I planted a Ponderosa seedling I got free at the state fair one year and it grew probably 25' in the next 8 years. Then a moose ate the buds one spring and that was that. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[Glenn]

The point was to get some rough numbers for the trees weight, to point out that those things are heavy.  This may help refine the numbers a bit.

https://www.uaex.uada.edu/environment-nature/forestry/FSA-5021 weight of hardwoods.pdf

Yannie:   Each tree, each situation, and the experience of each crew is different.  Thanks for your reply.

[Yanni Rockitz]

Definitely — full agreement on that. Nothing but respect! Every tree and every setting provide unique considerations and anyone — including me — who makes sweeping statements about having to always do something this way or that way is inherently suspect, in my opinion. I know a tremendous amount about free work, but I am FAR from the most qualified or knowledgeable person in my area and I have no clue at all about how the really huge timber out west is handled. 
 

There are lots of pulleys lowering devices and friction devices that can be greatly beneficial in specific situations, though most of those are for rigging pieces down out of trees. No other industry has ever impressed me so much with its inherent complexity and danger and the sheer number of unqualified people who attempt it at great danger to themselves and everyone around them. I just wanted to point out a few of the most common hazards that vehicle tie-offs, come-alongs and entanglements can present to the untrained. There is always some yahoo who thinks he’s qualified to take down a tree, who doesn’t know enough to look at the way it’s leaning, judge distances to nearby buildings accurately, consider the wind,  examine the tree for rot and funguses, etc. — never mind make a proper notch to the correct depth and a proper back cut that will do what is needed to drop it in the desired direction. 
 

Full honesty: I almost never wear chaps anymore. Like Frosty said, there is a point where you get good enough that you understand what the saw is going to do and where to stop cutting or reposition yourself while remaining well within your safety parameters. So much of that has to do with body position and it is always a best guess, with dangers lurking in the unknown. His description of the two stemmed tree being a “bouncer“ is a perfect example of the extreme danger a falling tree can create, when it corkscrews or kicks in a direction that is unexpected because of the way it hits the ground, the way branches either bend and bounce back or break unexpectedly, etc. that’s just stuff that people without a great amount of training and experience are never going to know and even the pros get wrong, sometimes. It’s like going hunting in grizzly country… we accept a certain amount of extreme danger as part of the deal, but we are well advised to be extremely cautious. 
 

I like that info on the weights of different hardwoods. I’m going to keep that article bookmarked for future reference. 
 

Pretty far off the subject of blowers leaking oil, eh? Lol.    All good — someone will bring us back around. I like hearing everybody’s experiences. 

[Glenn]

I like the cautions you presented, thank you.  Keeping everyone safe is most important.  Knowing or recognizing that fellow that is dangerous to himself and others is most critical.  Having the courage to stop everything until he leaves does not make you popular, but does get you home for dinner in one piece. 

I have been up trees, but now leave that to hired help.

I am a ground animal.  If you can drop that tree from the ground, it is coming down.  Otherwise let the hired help do what he was paid to do.  Either way, as soon as the tree hits the ground, it is time to get some serious cutting done.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I saw a video of a guy dropping a very large pine tree (I think it was pine). He had to drop it between two buildings with about a foot clearance on each side of the trunk. He did it using wedges to control the direction of the fall. Very impressive and he really knew what he was doing. Something I would never attempt, my use of wedges is to keep the bar & chain from being pinched.

[Anachronist58]

On 3/8/2022 at 2:47 PM, Yanni Rockitz said:

Pretty far off the subject of blowers leaking oil, eh? Lol.    All good — someone will bring us back around. I like hearing everybody’s experiences. 

I fear that unless the OP returns with an update on his blower, all may be lost...

I put my pole spike into my opposite foot below the ankle a couple of years ago, so I do not think I will be revealing any of my tree stories to Mr. Yanni.

I can not come close to the shanti of Captain Ahab of the Great White Birch...

Robert Taylor

[Frosty]

Tree Chanties? We have to compose TREE CHANTIES NOW!  I should then make you listen to ME sing! It'd serve you right.

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

On 3/8/2022 at 9:24 PM, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said:

I saw a video of a guy dropping a very large pine tree

I think I saw that; the one I saw ended with the logger raising his arms in triumph and dropping to his knees in relief!

On 3/6/2022 at 4:54 PM, Glenn said:

Cutting trees using a bucket of rocks

If you have not read it, then read it before you cut another tree. 

The forum software still is keeping me from accessing the Articles and Blueprints section.

[Glenn]

 

[Yanni Rockitz]

I don't know about you fellaz, but I for one want to hear Frosty sing the Ballad of the Great White Birch Tree.  ;-)  

JHCC -- Not sure what the forum software is, but that link from Glenn to his bucket'o'rocks story works fine for me in the Chrome browser on a Windows PC. Not sure what you're using...?

Anachronist -- OUCH -- you stabbed a climbing spur into your other foot?!? I can see how a climber could do that... I hate those things -- you think they're stuck solidly into the tree, you move, they pop out and send a jolt of terror through you. Anyone who has done tree work long enough has some scary stories. I had a branch grab my glove one time and try to drag me into the chipper -- thank GOD for the reverse bar. I've had squirrely come running at me in the middle of full-throttle cuts waaay high up in a tree, run right over my arm, head, etc. - lol.

My brother was cutting a huge oak (like four feet around the trunk) that broke in a storm and was resting on its limbs on the lawn, but was still connected where it snapped about twelve feet up the trunk, so many tons of oak were still well above head level. When the limb he cut settled, the ensuing twist broke the trunk section free, whereupon it fell twelve feet to a retaining wall, which made it corkscrew and roll violently, slamming my brother ten feet to one side into the ground and planting a 5" thick branch two feet into the ground, one inch from his face. I thought it killed him for a few horrifying seconds. Three inches difference, he would've been a headless dead man. Ever since then, he doesn't do big, sketchy storm damage like that anymore -- tells the people to call someone with a crane.

Needless to say, enough experiences like that and I now make sure the valve is all the way off when I turn off my propane forge. Life's too short to gittin' all 'blow'd up'    

[JHCC]

9 minutes ago, Yanni Rockitz said:

Ballad of the Great White Birch Tree

This can be heard in its entirety HERE.

[Yanni Rockitz]

[JHCC]

Glenn, I get this:

3 hours ago, Glenn said: