Gentle persuasion over time

Relax in southern comfort on the east bank of the Mississippi. You're just around the corner from Beale Street and Sun Records. Watch the ducks, throw back a few and tell us what's on your mind.
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JR.
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Post by JR. »

This tree definitely has separation anxiety... First it keeps grabbing my bar/chains... then it refused to release from the tree it got tangled up in.
tree-1.png
after taking a couple weeks to get the first section of trunk free (involving buying a new bar, and new chain), cutting the second lower trunk section free resulted in even more drama.... I actually got both chains stuck in the trunk at the same time... By this time the lower trunk section was just about down on the ground so I got all medieval on it.. :lol: I used my long handle axe to finish the final separation. I still had to use my come along to drag it away from #2 and down onto the ground..
tree_final.png
I am actively converting the wood to CO2, but there is enough wood to burn for days... I haven't even started cutting the big wood (lower trunk sections).

Tree #2 still looks scary (lean)... #1 was the easy one, and it sure wasn't easy. :lol: I may just leave #2 and #3 in place.

[observation] Sharp chains don't get stuck as easily as dull chains [/observation]

JR

PS: This morning I wasted my free hour to sleep late, getting the burn pile fire re-stared. Same plan for tomorrow morning, there will be enough hot embers to get it going again easily. I'll get my morning sleep-in after the election.
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terkio
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Post by terkio »

Good work.
Do you sharpen your chains, yourself ?
Why don't you use all that wood to heat part of your house.
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JR.
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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terkio wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 2:24 am Good work.
Good exercise... :lol:
Do you sharpen your chains, yourself ?
I have a sharpening file and have done that before, but my small engine whisperer has a nice grinding wheel fixture where he can sharpen a chain in about 5 minutes for a couple dollars, not worth trying to do it old school. I can really feel the difference between the old chain and the new one.
Why don't you use all that wood to heat part of your house.
I have a fireplace but haven't used it this century. It generally pulls in cold outdoor air. The fireplace even has its own blower to circulate fireplace heated air. Maybe now with my improved blower system the fireplace would heat the entire house better, but that sounds like too much work.

Speaking of heat, over a year ago I upgraded my house to a serious heat pump (mitsubishi). My house was built originally with in-wall resistance heaters. Now every month my utility tells me that my energy consumption is 10-15% lower than energy efficient homes near me. That bill is supposed to shame (nudge) energy wasters to use less, but pretty much tells me.. "don't worry, you're good". :lol:

This winter will be even better than last winter. I installed a blower pulling air from my main room where the big heat pump is regulating the temperature, exhausting heated/cooled air into my bedroom closet. My back bedroom has a time of day thermostat to control baseboard heaters back there to manage overnight temperatures in winter. Now I have the blower motor fed from a fraction of the voltage going to the baseboard heaters.

My first 1kW baseboard heater could not hold temperature in the bedroom on the coldest nights by itself, so I upgraded to 1.5kW. Now with the big heat pump I don't even close the bedroom door at night. I wired the 1kW and 1.5kW heaters in series so now they only make 500W at full power. The smart time of day thermostat modulates the power using PWM to 5 levels. Now when the 500W heater is on, it also turns on the blower as needed to manage bedroom temp. I suspect the blower pulling warm air is doing most of the night time heating and only as needed.

Overnight temps are down in the low 40s outside and I don't hear the heat working at night, yet.

JR
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terkio
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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Very good heating system you have.
I have water central heating, the boiler runs on gas from Poutine, I guess.
I have a fire place to burn wood, but it has not been used for ages. Unsafe, there have been bees nests in the chimney and no maintenance.
Today I worked on the cherry tree stump.
I am trying the burning method.
I could not make a fire over it because of a tree too close with low branches over it. I made a fire at another place to make a lot of embers, dumped used engine oil over the stump, then transferred loads of embers over the stump. I'll see the result tomorrow.
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terkio
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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This stump burning was a failure. About no burning.
The holes I drilled are too small. I need much larger and deeper.
Meanwhile getting drills large enough, I keep going burning wood over the stump, I have plenty of wood I want to get rid off.
This fire radiates a lot of heat from embers, but heat doesn't go down blocked by ashes. The stump is from a tree I fell 16 months ago, so it's wood is far from dry, it just doesn't want to burn.
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JR.
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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I've had mixed success with burning stumps... So little success that I'm not even trying on my ten odd stumps.

I still pour the left over dregs from beer brewing and that is helping rot a couple stumps.

JR
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terkio
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Post by terkio »

Extracting large stumps is a lot of hard work.
There is much BS on internet and snake oil about this. Apart from the grinding machine and the good old way digging, sawing, prying...nothing really works.
Such hard work, I have seen in Sweden a field where it was clear large stumps had been blasted with explosives.
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JR.
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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terkio wrote: Fri Nov 06, 2020 9:04 pm Extracting large stumps is a lot of hard work.
I dug out my huge pecan tree stump when that tree died and fell a couple years ago. It was far more work than I expected, because of roots growing out from underneath it. I found that my long handle axe and come-along winch was useful, but still a lot of work.

There is much BS on internet and snake oil about this. Apart from the grinding machine and the good old way digging, sawing, prying...nothing really works.
I am still waiting to finish cutting down a few more trees so I can hire a commercial stump grinder cost effectively. In my experience stumps can be rather different. Some refuse to die, and some were already half dead, or more. The dead ones are easier to rot but big ones can take years.
Such hard work, I have seen in Sweden a field where it was clear large stumps had been blasted with explosives.
That would work too, but might cause some unintended consequential damage to nearby buildings. I enjoyed blowing up stuff with fire crackers as a kid, not quite ready go big that way. :lol:

JR
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terkio
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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I enjoyed making bombs with chemicals I will not reveal here, that made so much trouble we had, the police all upset in the neighborhood.
So we stopped this dangerous activity soon enough ( nobody got hurt ) when scared by a very big explosion, I could feel the shock wave at the back of my neck, running away 50 yards,from it.
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JR.
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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I got loud explosions out of my system from army basic training, but as a kid I blew up my share of stuff with cherry bombs/ash cans we would buy on summer vacations down south.

Our property was on the edge of a reservoir water shed so we could safely fire small arms (.22 cal) towards that woods. The police would often visit looking for firecrackers, as we would hide the empty .22 shells under out feet. Alternately they would come looking for rifle fire, when we were blowing off firecrackers. Mostly harmless but I recall one time when I was putting cherry bombs under metal spray paint caps, to see how high up they would go, until one turned into shrapnel... end of that game. :lol:

===

Just out in the yard and tree #3 of my last three still looks too big to mess with. Tree #2 is leaning bad, but most of the lean is at the bottom, so I am thinking the higher up I make the cut, and higher I attach my steering line the better my chances. I might even attach two lines to keep it from hitting the power line/store next door.

JR
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