From the Ground Up
Grapple Saw Material Handling What the Charts Can’t Tell You About Knuckle-Boom Cranes By Tchukki Andersen, BCMA, CTSP
The bark was rolling off everything.
bark friction for control. Even though the machine was capable of more, the wood on that particular day in that particular season was not. “You have to be aware of everything simultane- ously,” Savadyga said. “It’s constantly just staying abreast of what’s going on, and where we’re at, and what we’re trying to achieve.” One hundred and twenty miles away in Seabrook, NH, Doug Anderson of Doug’s Tree Service, LLC , had a different problem. Having recently taken de-
On a residential lot on Aquidneck Island, Rhode Island, Darren Savadyga of Achin Back Tree, LLC , was working through a multi-tree removal in late spring, and the wood was pushing back. It wasn’t because the picks were too heavy for the BIK Tree-Care Series TC-98/104 truck crane — but rather because the sap was running hard. Turgidity — the seasonal surge of moisture and hy- draulic pressure within the cambium that turns every piece into a wet bar of soap — was working against him. Each time the grapple jaws closed, the wood wanted to slip, roll, and twist in ways that a dormant-season pick never would. “The higher the turgidity, the more it just has a ten- dency to roll,” Savadyga explained, watching a large section suddenly rotate a full ninety degrees from horizontal to vertical mid-lift. The bark had given way under grapple pressure like a sock off a wet foot. “Had that been a bigger diameter pick, and it rolls like that, you could have an issue.” His adaptation was decisive. He would take small- er picks, no laterals, and nothing that depended on
The most important tool on the jobsite may be an attentive set of eyes.
ArborTIMES ™ Summer 2026 | 35
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