Ten Years of Hard Use, Exposure and Neglect -- What Worked and What Didn’t

[Boston]

could you hook some chains under it and raise it with air bladders enough to get it off the bottom then drag it to shore and go crane from there ? The salvage guys use air all the time and they might rent you the stuff

Anyway ya thanks for the info and great thread. Cheers and best of luck with the salvage plan
B

[Bob Smalser]

I've talked to the local Naval shipyard salvage experts about the 50-tonner. Besides being 2/3 buried in three to four feet of mud and humus (complicating misery-whip sawing), there is only two feet of water or so above it. Not enough room for bladders to be effective, even when the waterlevel raises another two feet after the rains begin.

And a chainsaw necessary to cut it will have to have at least a 32" bar. I haven't found an air or hydraulic powered saw sufficiently powerful. Fabricating a snorkel for a conventional saw is probably a better possibility.

[srimes]

Originally Posted by Bob Smalser

And a chainsaw necessary to cut it will have to have at least a 32" bar. I haven't found an air or hydraulic powered saw sufficiently powerful.

You'd have to make it (or have it made). Lots of powerful air and hydraulic motors out there. Take off the gas engine and mount the motor in it's place.

I don't know how well a 2-stroke would run with a snorkel. Seems like the change in intake restriction and exhaust backpressure would mess up the carb tuning.

[Boston]

how about a semi-submersible barge, it could help distribute the weight better than bladders would. Say something 16' x 16' plywood and 2x6 designed kinda like a fat catamaran, position is so its over the log and flood it down, hook up the chokers and then pump it out. A couple of them might do the trick. 16x8x2= nearly 8 tons of water. hmmm 150 tons eh I suppose that is a lot of plywood and framing. If you had higher water, say 3+ you might go 16x8x4 on the pontoons and get more lift out of it. Just throwing out some ideas. The wider you go tho the more stress on the connecting beams, maybe you could rent some steel from the local yard or something.

One question I've been wondering about for a while is whats the drying process on something like that, must be one long slow process if you want anything finish out of the deal.


oh and that chain saw snorkel, the quarry industry uses an open chain design where the chain itself doesn't always ride in a guide like on a typical chain saw, the Egyptians came up with it long long time ago, they would impregnate a copper cable with silica and attach two wooden handles to each end. Then simply chisel a straight groove to start the blade and have at it with the hand chain. The also used a wood wedges soaked in water trick but thats not going to help us on this one. If its water loged enough the wood should be pretty soft, biggest problem might be pinching the blade. You could set up a smaller barge, same configuration and run a chain between rollers powered by whatever. long enough chain and a few other gismo's and you might just have a pretty slick way to slice and dice without getting your feet wet.

anyway just throwing out some ideas
best of luck with it
B

oh hey
how about just a platform of similar dimensions 16x8 each side connected with a cross beam over the log, Use the bladders under it so you end up with lots more bladders spread out over a wider area

[thudpucker]

Bob lives in the Dream part of Washington State. I lived in Seattle for a long time, but had to look up Seabeck.
I probably went by his place dozens of times and never noticed the turnoff.
He has'nt mentioned all the Oysters.....
Too bad I missed you Bob.