Giraffe line clearance trimming machine

Eric Frei

Known as the Giraffe it's basically a 75' telescopic HV insulated pole with a buzz saw on the end.

This video is 38mb WMV and around 7.45mins long.

www.palmtreeservices.com.au/video/giraffe.wmv

Or the YouTube version

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JohN Dee

LOL, look at all them cocos palms

That thing looks uber slow and unefficient, but I spose' if it reduces the risk of electrecution then it's worth it...

Hey, how does that thing stop the branches from falling across the lines and bridging?

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Eric Frei

They just cut them small.

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bigshea13

those are worthless. they leave shitty cuts all over the hood. ive seen one work first hand and they are sllloooooowwwwwww! not to mention dangerous. i can remove or trim{without an incident} faster from a bucket than a giraffe can....and keep it up all day. you still need a groundy. the only exception.....cut bigger pieces faster.....but they look like hell after. they are just for the companies trying to save a buck. they might be useful on transmission work where the trees are larger and farther back and where they are not as likely to b e seen. they d be cool to fight against a giant stump grinder.

quercus

what an incredible machine... It ables people to wreck live and viable trees in a matter of seconds...

I seriously hate these kinds of crap.

I'm still wondering why those cables in Oz and the states aren't insulated. Out here we can prune and actually touch the wires without being zapped. Some are still not insulated though, but they are easily recognizable.

Eric Frei

If it were me driving I would have given them mofo palms a little pistol whipping too!

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newguy18

It can kill all the palms it wants.

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TreeDimensional

Well, I only know a little bit about palms, but it looks like they cut them 20' to tall. Once the head is screwed up like they left them, won't they die?

Personally I would prefer to die a good looking corpse, those palms have NO chance of that happening. I may be misunderstanding, maybe that is the preamble to the final cut at ground level!

I also wonder if there is ANY cost benefit to doing it that way. There were at least two people working with the giraffe, and I would bet that there was at least a crew of two with the chipper. The cost of the giraffe vs the cost of a bucket truck, is one thing. The real cost is the comparison between proper cutting and plant survival. There is another thing that could have been utilized with that row of trees, a platform lift could have been used on the sidewalk, and no one would have been at risk of getting zapped.

There are always several ways to do a job, my vote is take the giraffe back to the manufacturer and ask for a full refund. Pad the bill with replacement trees which are MORE site appropriate.

JohN Dee

Nah TD, those cocos palms will come back. The cocos is very resiliant to harsh pruning. It's when you cut the head off that it dies.

The thing with removing unapropriate trees from around the power lines is that the company pruning them doesn't have the right to remove the tree to the ground...

But that Giraffe thing is a major POS.

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TreeDimensional

Got ya John, It looked like he ran the saw through the one head pretty hard. I will leave the palms to the resident experts. Does anyone have a photo of the main stem looking right at the end of the ??? log? I have never seen one looking at the cut end.

I looks like the deck on the truck tilts a bit to accommodate the angle for the cut. Thats great on two sides, but it lacks the ability to do a cut on the near and far side from the operator.

Two things come to mind, why would anyone plant coco palms by a sidewalk, and i bet the people who live adjacent to that tree buthery will cringe the next time the utility boys come round to prune ém again.

JohN Dee

The cocos palm looks great when it's no taller then 6' they are still babies then and that means no bloody mess, and everything is visual.

Not sure in QLD, but here in NSW, Sydney, 20-30 years ago, cocos palms were the FAD. You were a nobody unless you had cocos palms in your yard. People sold them for alot of money too and people bought them, demand for these dirty things was HUGE.

Now 20-30 years later, they all grew up dropped their crap, have hangers in them that you can only get off with extensive pulling if not cutting - mind you if by the rare chance they did drop their old dead hard split seed pod whilst you were under it, it would have the ability to penetrate your skull on impact, attracts the bats for the berries, the bats that the berries attract shit like there's no tomorrow and when it sets hard it's like a bloody weld, the berries turn orange and go all slimey and REALLY STINK in summer. The visuals are all gone, people only see a grey pole in their yard and the orange berries at the bottom.

At our old place, my dad put cocos palms all round the perimeter of our back yard and was apart of the fad, then we got an underground pool put in with the palms as the back drop

As for the photo, have a watch of some of Ekkas palm removal videos, you can see the guts of the logs and stuff in there. Its just all white yellowy fiber.

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We are what we repeatedly do... Excellence then, is not an act, but HABIT...

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Eric Frei

All those palms are slated for removal the guy told me. They are council owned although part of the units landscape.

They trimmed off the tops so bad so that the removal dudes cant clash and wires.

The advantage of the Giraffe is the reach and it can touch wires. Like in that spot a bucket truck couldn't have done it as no poking through or over wires.

The chipper guy was 1 guy. These guys also have towers but the bring the Giraffe around where the tower cant get stuff.

Yes it tilts maybe 10 degrees either way.

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xylem09

Its called a Jarraff people... Jarraff Indusries, Inc. - Models, Specs, Service & Support, Company, Resources, Pre-Owned Inventory, Contact, Gallery

Eric Frei

Yes however like a giraffe it's responsible for eating a lot of trees to a certain height.

Attached Thumbnails

 

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Therrin

Not exactly a surgical operation there.

I wonder how many times they've cut wires with that thing???