Ford 8N vs 35' cedar

douglloyd

Member
Guess who won? But as you can see, I had help. :) And 12v DC to 110v AC inverters sure are handy.

This tree was mostly dead last fall, but was still standing until this last week. A sawzall makes for quick limbing, and an inverter lets me run small tools just about anywhere. Our 12v 52 8N has a GM 10 Si alternator, so the inverter works best if the engine is left running at idle. Short DC cables are best. There are not a lot of permanent mounting spots near the battery on an N, so I strap it to the left running board.

Also, hyster poles are great for skidding/hauling the trunk sections. With it, we were able to yank the stump section around until it pulled out. Then after cutting it off short to reduce the weight, we could hoist the root ball all the way to the burn pile, no pulled muscles or injuries.

Doug in east TN
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Nice! Necessity is certainly the mother of invention. Also known as "run what ya' brung" (safely, of course!).

I used my disc harrow as wheelie bars (to prevent a flipover) when I took out some old peach trees some years ago. Chain was attached to the drawbar on the tractor (low).

yootoob video link

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Doug,

Good ideas there!

Like if a tree is lying down, pulling it back and forth sideways to tear the roots.

And the inverter . . . I've keep thinking that a sawzall on the biggest roots would facilitate stump pulling especially when you don't have any tree height for pulling leverage.

T
 
Thanks Y'all!

I use that sawzall to limb the top and side branches first, as long as the tree holds steady. I don't fool with the bottom limbs propping up the tree until I've gotten my paths to safety cleared out first. Then I use an old 20" Poulan that I somehow have not managed to kill yet on the big stuff.

Chainsaws are necessary but kinda clumsy. An electric recip saw is handy and light - can be turned on and off, set aside, dropped, whatever. And if you forget to pay attention and manage to get the big saw stuck in a cut, you can free it with the sawzall. And, you can use a cheap sawzall to grub around down in the dirt around roots, unlike having to worry about dulling a chainsaw blade.

Can't give cedar away around here - they grow like weeds. Can't have 'em near an apple orchard either or you get rust. I know people used to make lifetime fenceposts out of the straight stuff, but not so much anymore with treated posts at our co-op.

Here are some snaps of the last bunch of cedar we cleared out.


thanks again,
Doug in east TN - Spring is here!
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beautiful setting you've got there, doug :)

and amen on the sawzall thing. i've done a lot of cutting with one lately myself.
 
Anything but firewood as cedar's strongest point is wasted that way. I could use some of those as posts for a new garden I've laid out; a friend said he'd lend me his 3 point auger.

Here's another thing I've done with red cedar. The telephone pole replacement crew gave me three full length red cedar poles that I used for this and that in situations where wetness was a factor.
Unbeknownst to most people around here, the ancient sun bleached white poles that they replace are YELLOW cedar . . . great for guitars or any fine woodwork.

Here's what i did with a couple of the long poles.
I used them to form a varmint seal along the ground and made pipe pockets to lag bolt to the logs to support my steel garden posts.
The last time I used an old cedar log along that side of the garden it lasted 35 years so these logs will be there forever.
I wasn't crazy about using them for this but I thought I might be waiting forever for a use for them.

I used 11' (creosoted ends) off of each cedar log to build a tractor bridge as well.

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