Bad Luck bucking...

[My Oslo heats my home]

I was working on cutting my grapple load of tree length yesterday. For the most part these are 'city' trees, and the end result is I get them from the tree company who fells them.

Long story short, I was bucking an old red oak that had some storm damage. In the upper section of the tree, about 20 ft up, there was a small void that I could not totally see (on the opposite side of where I was cutting). Come to find out it was where a limb was long before the tree was finally cut down. As I started my cut in the void the sparks started flying. Come to find out the void was full of mortar, it was filled when the old limb came off. Smoked my chain and made for a short day at the pile.
I'm usually good about walking from side to side checking for unknowns. I was in the cutting 'groove' and got lazy.

anyone else got some bucking mishaps?

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Now that one really is bad. Sorry about the chain.

 

[NH_Wood]

That's nasty! Worse here so far is buried barbed wire and nails - not fun either. Cheers!

 

[MasterMech]

Now you know why I carry a bunch of chains in the truck. One recent adventure involved trashing 7 chains in the span of about an hour. Yeesh. Was changing chains like tissues for that one. Buried metal everywhere!

 

[PapaDave]

Cutting into a yard tree for my sis-in-law at her new place (using her new saw), when I hit something but didn't notice.
She ended up getting a new chain that was better than the safety chain it came with.
Still not sure what I hit, but I know it was metal.
That's all I got.

 

[BrotherBart]

I feel your pain. Ten years ago no trees on this place were getting dead so I went off-site for the first time for free trees at a construction site five miles from here. The logs were nice and were stacked. Lots of'em. I had just put a new 20" chain on Old Yaller that morning. On the first cut into a log sitting two high on the stack I hit a chunk of concrete hidden under it and demolished the chain. Concrete be nasty stuff. Free wood started getting expensive real quick.

 

[My Oslo heats my home]

Just to add to my story a little bit. I'm rolling all today's rounds out towards the splitter and this one round, about 20" in dia, has a giant metal hook in it about halfway up. You just never know.
And to MM, I usually do have extra chains with me. Today I didn't use my own ride.

 

[Gary_602z]

Heck I can dull a chain just looking at it!

Gary

 

[Gark]

The old Homelite Zip saw long ago (saw is no more) ran into a huge construction spike (5/16 dia. 6" long). That destroyed the chain (.404) and barely put a nick in the spike.

 

[Machria]

I bucked a bunch of large 36" oak over weekend. qtr'ed it with the splitter in Vert, threw the qtrs in the truck and brought home, unloaded right onto the splitter and split it. About 1/2 way thru, something catches my eye at the end of one of the qtr's, a close look revealed a 1" thick eye bolt was screwed right thru the tree (from years ago), but was covered up with bark. My chainsaw cut had missed the eye bolt by about 1/16th of an inch, and I never saw it till split open.

The force was with me!

 

[clemsonfor]

I was trying to cut an azalea down when I was rebuilding a poarxh. I took the saw to cut it back about 12" from ground. Was not going through 1" branches and there was dust and smoke, I finally pulled the stuff to the side to see a think or mortar on the middle of all those branches. I cut about a .5-1" groove on it before I stopped. That was before the grinder. I just set the chain on the shelf. Took the grinder and actually straightened it up a few years later and hot a few more uses out of it.

 

[Heatsource]

I once found a 100+yr old metal wagon wheel inside a large black oak, it was about 10' off the ground
i think the wheel was laying on the ground, and the tree grew up thru the center of it and eventually grew all the way around it, completely hiding the wheel- until i ruined my chain on it.

 

[clemsonfor]

If it grew through it how was it 10 ft of. Ground unless it was thrown into the top o. A small tree.

That's a common misconception. Spots on trees do not grow up as a tree grows. Put a nail in a tree when its young at 2 dot off ground. In 75 years that nail will still be 2ft off the ground.

 

[granpajohn]

If it grew through it how was it 10 ft of. Ground unless it was thrown into the top o. A small tree.

That's a common misconception. Spots on trees do not grow up as a tree grows. Put a nail in a tree when its young at 2 dot off ground. In 75 years that nail will still be 2ft off the ground.

He's right of course; so clearly someone stuck that wheel in the tree for a basketball hoop.
Er...was basketball invented back then?

 

[clemsonfor]

that reads like a 9 yr old wrote my post! Darn phone, auto correct, and not proof reading.

 

[JOHN BOY]

Ive hit plenty of nails and eye hooks in trees . When cutting thru Oak and you notice the heartwood is black ! You just know there is metal in there somewhere. . The logging yards down here now have metal detectors
go all all around the logs. There tired of trashing those huge saw blades. That stinks about the concrete, ive heard stories of that as well.

 

[flhpi]

A large maple fell at a friends house and was blocking the car so I went to trim the limbs away. I just finished with the limbs and started on the larger stuff and noticed about 20 feet of steel cable that was used to tie the tree together when it was younger. It was wrapped up in the bigger limbs just waiting to jack my chain up.

In the past I have found old fence and nails but I am glad I saw the cable before the chain did.

 

[Ashful]

I was cutting a big 50 inch oak at my church when my chain went dull. Swapped chains and the second one smoked in no time flat! Both 91-link (28") full-comp chains, which hurts, when you think about the sharpening chore you have ahead.

Got the tree apart sometime later, and found one of these big steel and ceramic service wire hangers (similar to picture below) buried / grown-over inside the tree. Almost no way to see it from the outside, if you didn't know it was there.

 

[My Oslo heats my home]

I was cutting a big 50 inch oak at my church when my chain went dull. Swapped chains and the second one smoked in no time flat! Both 91-link (28") full-comp chains, which hurts, when you think about the sharpening chore you have ahead.

Got the tree apart sometime later, and found one of these big steel and ceramic service wire hangers (similar to picture below) buried / grown-over inside the tree. Almost no way to see it from the outside, if you didn't know it was there.

View attachment 111056

Ouch!

 

[firecracker_77]

Now you know why I carry a bunch of chains in the truck. One recent adventure involved trashing 7 chains in the span of about an hour. Yeesh. Was changing chains like tissues for that one. Buried metal everywhere!

Did this ruin the chains or just require an intensive sharpening?

 

[MasterMech]

Did this ruin the chains or just require an intensive sharpening?

An hours worth of grind time and I was back in business.

 

[kevin j]

Taking down about a 16 inch ash city tree on lot next door and hit stone. Up a foot, hit more stone. Ended up there was a 4 inch diameter by about 20 inches high cavity full of rounded river rocks about 1-2 inch dimensions. Only thing I can imagine is a wood pecker hole or something that kids threw stones into years back. Was inside about 4-5 inches of wood.


nails of course, lags etc all normal stuff

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Wow!!

 

[blades]

Recently 5ft dia. Box Elder, spikes ,hooks ,T post right up the middle. Yard tree in city = nightmare of the worst proportions. Dulled 8 chains in less than a hour 32" bar. Nothing totally trashed, just made for a very long day. A lot of time spent changing out blades and then sharpening them.
Nice sized hard maple ( not sugar though) last year, concrete fill about 3 ft long ,4" dia. That bugger got me in 3 different places dulling out 3 chains. Completely overgrown

 

[Freeheat]

I was cutting a big 50 inch oak at my church when my chain went dull. Swapped chains and the second one smoked in no time flat! Both 91-link (28") full-comp chains, which hurts, when you think about the sharpening chore you have ahead.

Got the tree apart sometime later, and found one of these big steel and ceramic service wire hangers (similar to picture below) buried / grown-over inside the tree. Almost no way to see it from the outside, if you didn't know it was there.

View attachment 111056

My dad has a huge oak tree in his front yard that 30 years ago had them on it. Guess if it ever comes down I'll need a metal detector!!