13. Clear your work area and your escape path of brush, vines, and other hazards that can trip you or catch your saw.
14. Escape from the bullseye when the tree tips. 90% of accidents happen within 12 feet of the stump. Go more than 15 feet, and stay out of the bullseye until things stop falling.
15. Keep spectators away more than twice the height of the tree in the direction it will fall.
16. Don't cut alone.
17. Keep your body and the swamper's out of the line of the bar in case of a kickback.
18. Set the brake when taking over two steps or when moving through tripping hazards. Keep your trigger finger off of the throttle when you are moving.
19. DO NOT operate a chainsaw from a ladder! Operating with your feet off the ground requires special training.
20. Do not cut above your shoulders.
21. Springpoles must be shaved on the inside of the apex between the ascending and descending sides. If the apex is higher than you shoulders, stand under the springpole and cut it low on the descending side. It will release upward, away from you.Leaning and heavily loaded poles that are too small to bore cut for a hinge should be shaved on the compressed side until they fold.
22. Do not cut a tree that is holding up a lodged tree. Do not work under a lodged tree. Think about a mouse trying to steal the cheese out of a trap.
23. Instruct your swampers and helpers to NEVER approach you from behind or the sides to within the reach of your saw when you are cutting. If you pull out of a cut with the chain running, or have a severe kickback, the swamper can be killed if he is coming up behind you!
24!! Quit When You Are Tired!
1 comment:
Interesting video, but there is something else. You are seeing a glimpse into the reason for the near fatal decline of the buffalo on the American frontier. It has to do with that long fan belt.
I knew a guy, Jim, who worked with VISTA living with the Navaho people. He is mentioned in the forward of the great book on the last wild Indian in North America, "Ishi in Two Worlds," so he knows of what he speaks. Jim told me that all the stuff we hear about how the white settlers and railroads killed off the buffalo is crap. So is the "great noble savage" image of the Indians as using every part of an animal they killed. Bull hockey. Indians are people just like us and, like us, they can be wasteful in times of plenty. But that is another story.
Anyhow, as the industrial revolution was growing, manufactories in the east used water powered wheels to turn long logs as spindles. In turn, long fan belts ran from these spindles to power machines, rather like this shucker, but muuuuch larger. They used cowhide, but that stretches. Guess what does not stretch nearly as much? Buffalo hide. So, the white traders paid the Indians, in one way or another, to bring them hides. And they, the Indians, massacred huge numbers of buffalo well before white settlement became large in the west. Whites pretty much put the finish on what the Indians started, but fortunately whites also has a sensibility about preserving much that was being lost of the old west. In concert with some tribes, men like Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, and later Gifford Pinchot strove to preserve and protect. Lucky for us.
Thus endth the lesson for today.
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