What is the most bonehead mishaps you have seen in logging?

RobbyRob · January 04, 2012, 09:08:04 AM

I know someone who's crew member went astray and cut down like 25 trees on someone else's land. Owner was *pithed not to mention a local judge who set the bail at 250,000 cash.
The dude sat in jail for 8 months waiting for trial.

semologger · January 04, 2012, 07:57:19 PM

I use a 221 hydroax with a shear head. would use the head in the front to haul gas oil jugs and chainsaw out for toping. well after lunch went back to cutting. opened my head up and droveing to a tree seen plastic parts come out. After a few minutes of bad words heard for miles. Headed back up the the landing and had to explain to dad what happened. good thing the saw was old and we needed a new one.
also one of my employes put a saw down behind the skidder one time and i didnt know it. Good thing the ground was wet. Dug it out of the ground and started right back up. Nothing broke some how.

justincase · January 04, 2012, 09:04:32 PM

This past Friday I was excited to hit the woods with my new husky 555 I mean brand new. Cut a hemlock starting limbing and chain came off damaging drivers on the chain. Luckily had another chain put it on and continued finishing first twitch. Set saw down and couldn't restart it. Grabbed old saw continued cutting and grabbed new saw and started first pull. Helped pull cable for 2nd twitch grabbed new saw and wouldn't start. I was fuming mad. Grabbed old saw continued cutting so on and so forth. Happened five times throughout the day and finally I said last twitch and was gonna head to saw shop. New saw started first pull cut a good size hardwood and it hung in another tree. Saw wouldn't restart so my brother went to skidder to get other saw. I sat down regained my composure gave new saw one pull it started, I cut through hinge of tree to get it to fall and tree slid back and crushed my new saw four tanks of gas and it was fully broken in. $300 repair bill and oh by the way the ignition was bad. I shoulda stayed home.
ps. anybody wanna buy a 555 husky for $900

beenthere · January 04, 2012, 09:33:32 PM

That is a real bummer. Not that that saw didn't deserve it, but the outcome is much too painful to your pocketbook.

Maine372 · January 05, 2012, 06:36:34 PM

i didnt witness it but was told the story.

crew was taking a s7 hough apart to redo center pins. put blocking under the front of the back half. just as soon as they pulled to two frames apart the back tipped backwards. apparently it was weighted behind the axle more than in front.

same crew was hauling up an icy hill with an f600 single drive axle and pin down dolly wheels. guy took a run for it on bare rubber and got stuck half way. proceeded to put the tire chains on the dolly wheels...... and drive out! not sure how that works but there were witnesses.

Randy88 · January 05, 2012, 07:51:47 PM

I witnessed this one personally, still laugh every time I think of it, there was a repair shop doing work on a dump truck trying to remove the box hinge pins in back, they were not taking grease and in order to get them out the idiot had raised the box on the truck to full up extension, it had a multistage cylinder that mounted on the front of the box or as I call them the end dump style hoist. When he had it up he then proceeded to pound out both hinge pins, one at a time and worked back and forth between the two, he had hoped to remove the harder to get out one first which he almost had pounded out before I stopped him to ask him a question, the question I asked him was this. If your sitting on a three legged stool and someone pounds out one leg what will happen to the stool and you sitting on it, the answer he gave was this, any idiot would know the stool would fall over and I'd fall off.............................. to which he proceeded to go back pounding out the hinge pin, well I told him to wait one minute so I could leave the building he had the truck in and the hoist up at the time and I had no more than got back into my truck and was backing out when apparently he got the hinge pin out because the shop wall slowed the tipping over of the box and hoist, but just momentarily but then the wall supports gave way and the whole thing fell outside as it brought down the rafters as they too fell onto the truck.

Some things in life are really scary, especially when they walk upright, vote and also reproduce. He is in business to serve others and it was a customers truck and his own shop building.

snowstorm · January 05, 2012, 07:59:44 PM

as the story goes there was a chip truck on the dumper when something on the dumper broke. it all came to the ground rather quickly. i saw the picture the trailer broke bent a lot truck is junk even bent all the wheels motor broken came out down looked pretty bad. happened a few days ago

midwestlogger · January 13, 2012, 11:34:07 PM

Working on very soft landing and skidder would give the truck a push to get started. The ol boy that hauled for us would sit in the truck till skidder came out with a hitch . If u came out and load was bound down he was ready. Skidder pushed, truck fired, skidder driver got off to unhook chokers and hurd one heck of a noise ! Driver came screaming out of woods with britches half down just in time to see the old truck hitting the work truck rolling it half way over then smashing it in to a tree. Everything was a total wreck ! The ol truck had a pull cable to kill the engine . After engine would die he pushed the cable back in . And said that he always left the truck in gear till that happend!!!

sawmillsi · January 14, 2012, 03:04:52 AM

i was sitting in my 'office' (read shipping container) in the field in png a few years back.

we were clearing a block for agricultural uses.

the cutting crew were nearby felling a tree and straight after the chainsaw stopped i heard a whistling noise, a very familier noise.

then a tree landed about 10 feet from the container (a good sized tree, about 4 foot diameter and about 60 feet to the first branch).

after i cleaned out my shorts and gathered myself i went outside to see how close i was to getting squashed and there was nobody in sight. even the camp cook had gone bush.

whe they came back we have a discussion about directional felling techniques...

last year, a mate of mine working with a local tree cutting company (triming trees to close to the power lines) doing stop and go told me that he saw the chipping crew leave their leaf blower in the bandit 18" chipper, then run it through accidently. the cummings 220hp motor didn't even slow for a moment and the fully fueled leaf blower turned the chipper into a massive flame thrower. haha

sawguy21 · January 14, 2012, 12:26:24 PM

Some of these are downright hilarious in the telling after the fact but the pucker meter would have been pinned at the time.

donny hochstetler · January 14, 2012, 11:18:38 PM

heard of a guy that hauled chips, one day his wife decided she wanted to spend some quality time with her hubby, so she goes along, soon gets tired, climbs into the bunk, for a little nap 8) trucker gets to the mill, backs up to the dumper, n, decides to play alittle trick on mommy, n, just let her sleep, well, when this thing got to stand up, she rolled around in the bunk, long story short, she woke up real fast, :D :D story goes that there marriage never was the same after this happened :D :D :D

Dave VH · January 20, 2012, 10:28:03 PM

My Dad (great salesman, lousy with tools of any kind), had a sears chainsaw that he would rarely use. My mom added up the emergency room visits associated with that chainsaw to over 200 times the price of the saw, 4 seperate ocasions. His business partner stole the saw, (at my mothers request) and to this day only the partner knows what happened to it. When I moved out, I walked out to my truck and found every powertool, and ladder from the house in the bed. My mother didn't trust my father with anything if I wasn't there to supervise. That was 15 years ago, and he still isn't allowed any tools, and I run a construction company, my family still laughs about it.

WH_Conley · January 20, 2012, 11:21:07 PM

What does he play with?

jd540b · January 22, 2012, 01:50:06 PM

A week after I bought my shear, while clearing a piece of land-was almost done and had one lonely birch tree to cut. I sheared the tree and figured since it was small I'd save skidding and carry it back to where I was piling the trees when......wow LIGHTNING! Hmmm where did that come from.....well I carried it right under the powerline I'd been crossing with the skidder for 3 weeks. What an idiot! Now my kids call my shear "sparky"........

celliott · January 22, 2012, 02:30:22 PM

Quote from: John Mc on January 01, 2012, 09:48:59 AM
Saw a YouTube video of a guy using his skidder to pull down trees that weren't leaning the way he wanted to go. Space was limited, so he was operating in the fall zone. His technique was to hook up and drive in the direction he wanted the tree to fall. Then, as it started to go, he'd turn 90 degrees and drive like hell to get out of the path.

Worked out pretty well for him... at least for 3 out of the 4 trees he took down in the video. The last one could have made him a candidate for the Darwin awards. He survived, but the skidder was heavily damaged.

Wish I could find that clip now.

This one John?
Don't think they realize how dangerous what they are doing is....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3F2SkNArTE

beenthere · January 22, 2012, 03:01:06 PM

For certain I wouldn't ask the cameraman to make a video for me.

The rest may have been just for show. Call it "reality". ;)

shelbycharger400 · January 22, 2012, 06:03:56 PM

i tell ya what...after words were said,

only one would be walkin out of the woods. smiley_hanged

John Mc · January 22, 2012, 06:06:08 PM

That's not the one I saw, but roughly the same idea.

The one I saw the guy had the cable tied up high, and started maybe 30 feet from the stump. He just started driving. Once the tree started coming down (straight at him), he would turn 90° to get out of the path. The skidder was moving along at a pretty good clip. On the last tree, he didn't make it out of the way. Since he was further out from the stump, the tree was moving pretty good when it hit the skidder. Did some significant damage, if I recall.

thecfarm · January 23, 2012, 08:17:15 AM

I think that is pretty stupid and than some.

clww · January 24, 2012, 10:45:43 AM

No, I would not have him working for me. Playing with too much fire there! Somebody is going to get burned up.

MJD · February 24, 2012, 05:01:53 PM

Well the only ones ive seen were mine, always worked alone. I was taking my skid steer to a landing to pile logs, it was a real small landing. I parked the pick-up and trailer on the road which was slightly down hill, calked the back tires( thats the stupid part)and started backing the skid steer off the trailer when the back tires of the pick-up came off the ground and were rolling the truck and trailer jack knife in the road with me still in the skid steer. A good thing no damage except pride. #2 felled a couple ash trees and were topping them, I noticed a 6 maybe 7" springpole and started taking the presure off but failed to see how it was wedged in a few trees, the next thing i know i get wacked in the hip and fly for 10 feet, picked up the saw and called it a good day, I didnt die. Im sure I will think off a few more.MD

Woodchuck53 · February 24, 2012, 10:33:29 PM

WOW. Very infomative guys. I cut alone all the time and use cable's to pull suspect trees away from house, power lines and other things. I hope I have used good judgement on these things as I feel I am still learning. Thanks for the read and lessons learned.

The only thing I can add to the list is a friend gave me a new Homelite XL12 a few years ago because he new I had a spare saw I take to the woods with me. It seems after a hunt he and his dad are going to cut a load of camp wood and had two saws working. He decided to help his dad and sat his down on a stump. Yep they took aim on the stump and got it. I had a lot of spare parts for my saw. His wife wouldn't let him buy another. Stay safe. Chuck

WDH · February 24, 2012, 11:06:42 PM

I was with one of my field Foresters one day to go see one of his contract logging jobs cutting timber on our Company land. We were instituting some new environmental and safety standards, so everyone was a little on edge, as I, the Boss, was going to the woods to check things out. When we got there, my Forester told me that, "You might not like what you see." So we got there, wood was being cut, skidded, de-limbed, and loaded. We heard a shout and saw that the fellerbuncher was smoking. A minute later, it was on fire. The operator tried to put the fire out with the water tank on the machine that was there for exactly that purpose. It was empty.

They called for the skidder to come over and spray out the fire using the skidder's water tank. The skidder got there, but its water tank was also empty. Now the fire is really getting going. As this was going on, at the landing, the loader operator was loading a truck. There was a guy topping and de-limbing trees on the deck. The loader operator swung a log around and it smacked the saw-man on the side of the head, and he was down with a head injury. Called 911. By now the $250,000 fellerbuncher is burning up. Plus, now the woods are on fire. Called the Forestry Commission. They dispatched a fire-plow tractor to come and plow out the fire. The Ambulance comes and takes the saw-man to the hospital. The fellerbuncher, it totally burned up. The Forestry Commission got the woods fire contained.

We left the site and as we were driving out, I turned and said, "You were right."

True story.

MJD · February 25, 2012, 07:35:20 AM

This one came to mind, same site as the spring pole, 2years later. Site is a huge swamp, with very nice soft maple/ash, big stuff(cut/skid a load a day with 1/2 mile skid) it was mid january and I needed to get a couple tracks in the swamp to get it froze in, I got almost to the lake where I needed to clear all trees with somthing in them from this point when the front tires broke through then the back and sat right down on the belly pan

well its only getting deeper the more I tried to get out, so I pulled the cable and hooked it to the base of a tree and pulled that tree over onto the skidder (440c), so now I got a tree on the skidder stuck in the swamp. After cleaning that tree up the 2nd tree held in the ground and was able to winch myself out.

MJD · February 25, 2012, 08:04:30 AM

This Boneheaded one is pulling trees away from mink buildings, the mink farm wanted to clear for more sheds, I got to log the whole woods in exchange for removing the trees leaning over the buildings where they wanted to add mink sheds( most leaners were cottonwood), had 2 trees left to pull so backed the skidder to a 16" cottonwood stood on the arch to get the cable up as high as I could, pulled away and put some tension on the tree. Started to notch the tree and o cr*p its rotten on the bottom, before I even got the notch done the bottom broke loose and crushed the fence and landed on the building. The farm owner was ok with it as the fence was coming down and the building was empty and was going to be re-tined anyway. The last tree I paid to be topped($500) because it was 40" and it could of reached more than one building. Still made out real good as the woods held nice oak and walnut.