A lumberjack, I am not...

The more you look, the worse it gets

Usually, I don't like posting about my mistakes unless I feel like someone can learn from it. This one isn't really one of those. It could have been completely avoided. It SHOULD have been completely avoided but I thought I was smarter than gravity.

The weather was beautiful, the sun was out and it was a perfect day to do some trail work. I was wanting to open up some of the trails to make it easier to drive the tractor and even the truck down them. Right now, it is a tight fit in some areas. I had decided a few large Poplar trees needed to come out. Many of the large Poplar trees at the Estate are aging out and have started to die off, so I wasn't too upset about removing these.

I was going to start with an easy one. It was on the edge of the trail and was only leaning very slightly to the wrong side of the way I wanted it to fall. No worries, I have redirected trees worse than this one. I start cutting and make sure the notch is facing the direction I want the tree to fall. As I start the felling cut and the tree starts to lean, I see it twist and roll just slightly, then as I look up I see it is going to get hung up in the tree next to it. Sure enough, it does. It wants to roll out but it's just hung enough that it can't. I tried to push it and roll it from the ground but it is too heavy. Time for the tractor!

I bring the tractor around and hook up the chain. I just need to pull it out a little ways from the stump and it should roll on its own and land in the trail like I want. NOPE! It was stuck on the stump and wasn't going to move. The old Ford 8n didn't have enough umph or enough traction to get it to come off the stump.

I grabbed the saw and cut away more of the base of the tree until there was a very narrow point left on the stump. I gave it a good kick and sure enough, it slid off and landed on the ground. AHA! Now I can pull it with the tractor. I set the saw down next to the stump but on the side with all the other trees I was trying to avoid thinking that there is no way it will fall this way. It would have to get thru all these other trees to get here.

The Tree That Took Out My Chainsaw

On the tractor, I pulled a little at a time to try to get it to roll out of the other tree. Each time it seemed like it wanted to come out it just needed a little more pulling. Just as it looked like it would do what I wanted, the branch my tree was caught on broke and the tree rolled the opposite way. It rolled so quickly that all I could do was watch. I watched as the tree crashed thru the other trees and landed trunk first right on my running chainsaw. This was bad!

I immediately got off the tractor and ran to see what happened. First thing I noticed was the chainsaw wasn't running anymore. The second thing I noticed was the airbox cover had broken off and was laying 2 ft from the saw. Then, I saw the sparkplug was broken off, that was why it wasn't running. At first, I figured I would need a new spark plug and a new air filter. Then, I looked closer. The air filter adapter was crushed, the stud that held the air filter on was bent and even the choke lever was badly bent. This was going to be a bigger repair than I thought and it meant I was done using the chainsaw for the day.

I knew better than to leave the saw there. I knew there was always a chance the tree would hit it, but I thought I was in control. In reality, when you are removing a stuck tree, you are not in control. You gave that up with you got the tree you were cutting hung up in another tree. I should have moved the saw far away from the stump, no matter what. In my stupidity, I paid the price with my saw.

Broken Intake Insulator

Broken Air Filter Adaptor

Cracked Housing

Broken Spark Plug

After everything is over and done, I am happy that no one was hurt. I can repair or replace the saw. When I got home, I took inventory of what was damaged and looked up the parts online. The total is about $70 in parts. I did crack the aluminum housing, which can't be replaced. The crack isn't in an area that will make the saw unsafe to use, but will make bolting down some of the repair parts a bit more difficult. I will order the parts and repair my saw. I will also finally do the work to get my auction find Stihl saw up and running so I have a spare. This particular incident won't happen again, but who knows what I will do next.