Trees, Trees, and More Trees

[John Griffin]

I own a tree service in North Alabama. We have a lot of removals in our area that involve a crane. We have a TMS300 that we use for removals. We also rent larger and smaller cranes occasionally to assist in tree removals where our crane won't fit or reach.

Here's today's tree removal. This River Birch was way to close to the house. People plant these when they are small 5 feet off a house. Over time, they grow much larger and become a problem.

2020-11-06_09-47-52 by Griffin93, on Flickr


2020-11-06_09-47-27 by Griffin93, on Flickr


2020-11-06_09-47-11 by Griffin93, on Flickr


2020-11-06_09-46-56 by Griffin93, on Flickr


2020-11-06_09-46-39 by Griffin93, on Flickr

 

[John Griffin]

Here's a recent picture of me on a storm damage job. I'm 6'2" and 220 lbs for a size reference.

2020-08-10_11-17-56 by Griffin93, on Flickr

Helping it down with the crane.
2020-08-10_11-22-41 by Griffin93, on Flickr

This is what we started with.
2020-08-10_11-18-14 by Griffin93, on Flickr

 

[skyking1]

looks like a nice size for most tree jobs.

 

[CM1995]

John did ya'll get any damage from the last hurricane that came through? We had high winds and lot's of trees down in Central AL.

 

[John Griffin]

We really didn't get anything from the last hurricane that came through. For a while it seemed like every time the wind blew we would have a tree on a house.

Where in central Alabama?

 

[CM1995]

Where in central Alabama?

The 'ham. There was a lot of damage in Columbiana towards Sylacauga. Alexander City and south didn't seem to have any damage. We were without power for almost a full day.

Power crews from New Brunswick Canada were all the way down in Columbiana, AL stringing lines back up.

 

[John Griffin]

This tree had a slight problem.

2018-04-06_07-50-28 by Griffin93, on Flickr

Got it all picked apart with the crane before it fell on this man's house.

2018-04-06_07-50-01 by Griffin93, on Flickr

 

[John Griffin]

I'm posting a bunch of previous jobs but I figured you guys might like seeing some of them. Here's one where we took out a bunch of pine trees, whole.

2018-05-01_07-29-21 by Griffin93, on Flickr

2018-05-01_07-29-47 by Griffin93, on Flickr

81 ft of main boom right here.
2018-05-01_07-30-10 by Griffin93, on Flickr

2018-05-01_07-30-30 by Griffin93, on Flickr

 

[John Griffin]

Sometimes trees decide to take naps on houses.

2018-05-01_07-30-54 by Griffin93, on Flickr

2018-05-01_07-31-06 by Griffin93, on Flickr

 

[John Griffin]

I have a bunch more to add later but I'll go ahead and do one more tonight. Had to set up in the driveway and reach over the house to get this maple out. The tree was completely surrounded by the brick work.

2018-06-12_02-29-26 by Griffin93, on Flickr

2018-06-12_02-30-16 by Griffin93, on Flickr

That's me hanging on the ball putting on slings. I'm actually tied in above the ball on a wired shut shackle per ANSI Z133-17. Nothing quite like floating through the air tied into the crane.

2018-06-12_02-29-01 by Griffin93, on Flickr

2018-06-12_02-29-56 by Griffin93, on Flickr

 

[John Griffin]

This one goes with the pine job above.

2019-01-29_10-51-47 by Griffin93, on Flickr

 

[John Griffin]

Its been a long time since i updated this. Flickr was how i was posting pictures and it quit working. We still have our tms300 but we got a new to us grove GMK3050-1. We keep having to turn down jobs because we cant get in and setup in tight areas. We also needed more capacity at distance. We keep having to take apart oak trees at 80ft. The old tms is down to 4k gross out the back at that distance. The gmk will do 7200 with the same boom configuration. After talking crane ops ear off and looking at several other cranes, we landed on the gmk3050. This one came from all the way in NH.




My guys had to check it out immediately.

 

[skyking1]

Congrats! Liked the part about talking @crane operator ear off

 

[John Griffin]

We took down a 58 inch dbh oak tree for its first job. Bad root rot problems unfortunately. The new gmk performed wonderful. We had to drive in through a ditch. With our tms it would have taken lots of cribbing to fill it in. The gmk was able to drive right through with the adjustable suspension.

 

[John Griffin]

A few more from the same job.

 

[crane operator]

That's great you've got it out working.

Leaving the other slab at home? Better get the jib on before you need it. Its even hyd. offset jib- those are handy to offset to pick something, and then tip it back up to set it on your bumper.

And just a heads up, watch your fingers stowing the pads on those GMK's. Everyone gets warned, and everyone still gets their fingers pinched.

 

[efnfast]

Question: When you are supporting a tree and someone is cutting, how do you know how much load to support when he cuts the tree off?

 

[John Griffin]

That's great you've got it out working.

Leaving the other slab at home? Better get the jib on before you need it. Its even hyd. offset jib- those are handy to offset to pick something, and then tip it back up to set it on your bumper.

And just a heads up, watch your fingers stowing the pads on those GMK's. Everyone gets warned, and everyone still gets their fingers pinched.

This crane has a bunch of slabs that werent on in the pictures. We had a problem with the counterweight picker. It had a bad prox switch but to replace it we had to pull the cylinder so we wanted to replace both of them while we had the cylinder out. We fixed it the other day. Each small slab is 1 mt and the thick one is 2 mt. We have clamped a 1 ton slab on for 7.6t on the crane. Well probably leave the other 4 ton off unless doing long distance heavy picks. Got to take a couple of 26 to 28 inch pines at 70 ft week after next so well put the full load on for that.





I don't plan to run the jib unless needed. We can hang it with the tms300. We dont want it hanging out as we have had problems manuvering in tight spots with the tms300 due to the jib hanging off the side.

Yeah definitely got to be careful with the pads but its nice not to have to pick them up.

 

[John Griffin]

Question: When you are supporting a tree and someone is cutting, how do you know how much load to support when he cuts the tree off?

I do a lot of the cutting personally. We use wet wood charts and measurements to determine approximately how much a pick weighs. A lot of it is experience. You dont want a piece to jump when its cut free but you also dont want it to roll off and fall. These kinds of things coupled with the unkown weights are why a lot of crane companies wont do tree work. There is a lot of crane specific cuts made when doing tree work. Theres also dead eye slings that are tied to balance pieces. We do use round loop slings for log picks too and sometimes for tops. We are only supposed to pick calculated weights to 60 percent of the load chart to allow for the pieces being heavier than calculated.

 

[Tones]

One of these gadgets would a handy thing to have in your inventory.