When it won't fall.

[luvmexfood]

Had a white oak today. Looked at tree from several angles. Slight uphill lean and possibly a little down hill heavy on the crown. Put my face cut in on the uphill side. Made my hindge and started the backcut. Set wedges and tightened as I went. Got the tree fully cut except for the hinge and it would not fall. Six wedges, two different sets of wedges directly on top of each, other all drove in to the hilt. Good two inch gap on the back cut and tree still would not fall. Finally attacked from the side with another wedge and tree started to the opposide side of that wedge then came over opposite the face cut and over the six wedges. Anything I could have done differently? No breeze, vines or external forces to interfere with tree falling.

[Ianab]

Bet the slope of the ground fooled you about how much lean the tree actually had?

[Maine logger88]

I had a big ole pine about 44" dbh in a spot I couldn't get the skidder into to push I cut out a chunk to set a 20 ton bottle Jack in with a 4" square of 5/8 plate to set on top and jacked it over. It worked well but I only tryed it that once

[CCC4]

I am going to guess that there was a misjudgement in lean. It is easy to do when there isn't much lean and on a slope. I get fooled sometimes depending on the way the wind has hit the face of the slope as the timber grew. A lot of times when a slight lean and a lot of head scratching occurs, I look at the limb mass and use it as a guidence...not fool proof but just a few limbs can be all it takes to put the tree to direction.

Also, with that many wedges, maybe your hinge was a little too thick, and combined with possibly mis-reading the lean a bit the tree was just in a stall.

Stay safe man

[Straightgrain]

It happens; my now deceased mentor used to say "sometimes, trees just do what they want".
I would add particularly oaks; very unpredictable with the hollow spots.

I'm wondering if you used a Humbolt Face for the wedge; very difficult for me but that's all I use.

I'm a novice around here but for whatever it's worth....when in doubt, I use a plunge cut; it gives me the utmost control of the tree, especially with the hinge.

Feeling the resistance on the wedges gave you some advanced notice?

[sandsawmill14]

Bet the slope of the ground fooled you about how much lean the tree actually had?

x2 its easy to do for me at least

[longtime lurker]

There's a point in there somewhere when we all get that "uh oh... not going to plan" feeling on occasion. Knowing what to do then is where experience comes into play. Doesn't matter how we got there, the question is "what do we do now?"

I've never felled a white oak, so take this with extreme caution because it may well behave different to what I regularly encounter.

There's a couple things that you can do, depending on when you get the bad feeling. First option would be to consider opening your face up. If you're using a humbolt turn it into an open face, for a conventional face put a lower floor in it with another horizontal cut below the first. The object is to lengthen the amount of hinge you have so that there's less chance of fibre rupture under heavy wedging, a full width siswheel in effect.
Give it a bit more wedge and see what happens.

There's a few more tricks but... After typing them out I deleted because it's in the "don't try this at home folks" category that I'd rather not see someone with no experience try because they seen it on the net. :D PM me if you're interested.

Never be afraid to admit defeat and shift higher up the tree and let it go in a different direction. It's often quicker to do that then spend time pounding on wedges, and unless there's some reason it must fall a certain way, safer too.

[treeslayer2003]

There's a point in there somewhere when we all get that "uh oh... not going to plan" feeling on occasion. Knowing what to do then is where experience comes into play. Doesn't matter how we got there, the question is "what do we do now?"

I've never felled a white oak, so take this with extreme caution because it may well behave different to what I regularly encounter.

There's a couple things that you can do, depending on when you get the bad feeling. First option would be to consider opening your face up. If you're using a humbolt turn it into an open face, for a conventional face put a lower floor in it with another horizontal cut below the first. The object is to lengthen the amount of hinge you have so that there's less chance of fibre rupture under heavy wedging, a full width siswheel in effect.
Give it a bit more wedge and see what happens.

There's a few more tricks but... After typing them out I deleted because it's in the "don't try this at home folks" category that I'd rather not see someone with no experience try because they seen it on the net. :D PM me if you're interested.

Never be afraid to admit defeat and shift higher up the tree and let it go in a different direction. It's often quicker to do that then spend time pounding on wedges, and unless there's some reason it must fall a certain way, safer too.

block or box face. yes it works well in white oak. they can be tricky and some are chair prone but the fundamentals still apply. i think he misjudged it a bit on that slope, it happens.

[drobertson]

Hinge came to my mind right off the bat, but still hate to hear it, and it is a pain in the rear,

[Hilltop366]

An old line-man I had met once carried a piece of string with a washer tied on it in his pocket for setting power poles, said it was the handiest tool ever.

I have thought of this a few times when a tree wants to go the opposite way I was thinking.

[cutterboy]

When the tree leans just a little it's easy to misjudge, especially if the ground is not flat. I always carry a length of string with a weight tied to it. A nut or bolt will do for the weight. When you're not sure about the lean of a tree, back off 100 feet or so. Hold the string up. The weight on the bottom will keep the string straight up and down. Then line the string up with the trunk of the tree. You know the string is straight up and down so if the trunk goes off a bit to the right you know it's leaning right. Off to the left you know it's leaning left, etc.
    I use this method when I'm not sure of the lean and sometimes I'm surprised at the direction the tree is really leaning.     Happy sawing, Cutter

[luvmexfood]

Thanks guys for all the imput. I think I was pretty close on guessing the lean. It was slight and I may have been wrong. What I really think fowled me up was underestimating the canopy. My facecut may not have been deep enough but hindsight is 20/20.

Wasn't real sure about the moving up the tree a little and starting over. Didn't know if that was a good ideal or not. Hindge was actually pretty good or at least I think it was. A lot of the trees here will have a lean one way then a slight crook and the canopy heavy on the other side. If they seem to balance each other out is it safe to assume the tree will have a tendenancy to go to the downhill slope? Level ground here is hard to find.

Thought about going and getting a bottle jack but didn't want to have to cut an opening for it and lose any length plus it would have to come in to the shop to get it.

Really couldn't have opened the face anymore since I had set my hindge using bore cuts from each side.

[gww]

I don't even know all the cuts you guys talk about.  I never even worried much about cutting a wedge to get a hinge when cutting fire wood cause I didn't mind the bottom half of the log splitting.  I did have one the other day that I did cut a wedge in on the side I thought it would fall and it fell the oposite way.  I was all the way through it before it fell at all and to this day I don't know how I kept it from pinching the saw.  I misjudge quite often the actual fall path but not usually to the opisite direction.  I hang quite a few in other trees also.  Just makes for lots more work.  That last little bit before the cut starts widining or pinching is always nerve racking for me and many times if it hasn't started when I think it should have I stop for a bit and then finness it a bit more. 
gww

[luvmexfood]

One more question just popped into my mind. If you decide to do the start over route should you remove any previously placed wedges or just leave them in place?

[thecfarm]

I guess the first post of mine got lost.
I have pounded 6 inch wooden wedges into a white pine that was more than 3 feet across. My Father and me was cutting here and we wanted the tree to fall another way to save some trees. I bet I pounded on them things for an hour. That was about 17 years ago,seem like we had about 10 wedges across the stump. After we got it down,my Father said,next time we will just let it fall the way it wants to. Next time more wedges or use a jack. Don't cut the hinge more,that's how you lose control of the tree. I've misjudged a few too.

[4x4American]

Sometimes when I can't get one to go, I tickle the undercut side of the hinge wood with the saw and lots of times that'll do it.

[thenorthman]

So I don't know poo from shine-ola with anykind of oak...

but for the those pain backleaners, never ever stick a wedge close to the hinge, puts all that pressure right where you don't want it, rather then lifting up and over all the tension goes into the hold wood, usually popping it..

What you can do is continue to stack wedges, stacking 2 is fairly straight forward, 3 not so much, so when I do need to stack more then 2 I'll cut out a sliver of face wood, and use it as a sort of extra wedge. You can keep cutting larger and larger chunks as needed, just remember to always leave a little room for another wedge.

Eventually it will go over as long as the hold wood holds, I've never needed more than a stack of about 3 wedges (2 real wedges and a thick ish chunk of face wood 2-3 stacks as such).

A good 20 ton or better bottle jack will make a chore like this so much easier.

As for judging the lean... forget the string its just more crud to carry. use yer axe handle, either palm the head and sight along the handle, or pinch the handle a few inches above the head so the weight holds it straight.

Stem lean will usually override limb weight... usually... and belly lean will overide top lean... usually

[treeslayer2003]

So I don't know poo from shine-ola with anykind of oak...

but for the those pain backleaners, never ever stick a wedge close to the hinge, puts all that pressure right where you don't want it, rather then lifting up and over all the tension goes into the hold wood, usually popping it..

What you can do is continue to stack wedges, stacking 2 is fairly straight forward, 3 not so much, so when I do need to stack more then 2 I'll cut out a sliver of face wood, and use it as a sort of extra wedge. You can keep cutting larger and larger chunks as needed, just remember to always leave a little room for another wedge.

Eventually it will go over as long as the hold wood holds, I've never needed more than a stack of about 3 wedges (2 real wedges and a thick ish chunk of face wood 2-3 stacks as such).

A good 20 ton or better bottle jack will make a chore like this so much easier.

As for judging the lean... forget the string its just more crud to carry. use yer axe handle, either palm the head and sight along the handle, or pinch the handle a few inches above the head so the weight holds it straight.

Stem lean will usually override limb weight... usually... and belly lean will overide top lean... usually

when stacking, i find that a wedge on each side of the stack helps keep them from slipping. they are generally almost glued together afterward lol.

[treeslayer2003]

Thanks guys for all the imput. I think I was pretty close on guessing the lean. It was slight and I may have been wrong. What I really think fowled me up was underestimating the canopy. My facecut may not have been deep enough but hindsight is 20/20.



Really couldn't have opened the face anymore since I had set my hindge using bore cuts from each side.

ah ha, that is a reason why i would rather back them up then bore.

on you question about starting over.........i don't think much of it.......only reason i can see is if the saw is pinched to bad to get a wedge in.

[longtime lurker]

One more question just popped into my mind. If you decide to do the start over route should you remove any previously placed wedges or just leave them in place?

Leave them in. Shift up the tree by one diameter ( depends on the size of the tree obviously, but you need enough room that it's not going to split down into the old face or backcut) and let it go. By now we know which way it wants to go so aren't going to be needing a whole heap of wedges anyway.

Unless I need a tree to go in a certain direction I'm pretty quick to either bring up a big yellow wedge or go again higher up if it sits back. Time's money, and for the sake of saving a foot or two of log I can have that tree and the next one on the ground in the same amount of time or less then I'd have been swinging a sledgehammer.

[lumberjack48]

  If i miss read the lean, and when i did i would i kick myself in the butt. I would say to myself, my father taught me better, i was really hard on myself.
  But when it did happen, when making the back cut i could feel right away i was wrong. I would pull the saw out of the back cut, then put a notch in the back cut. Now i'd make the new back cut where i make the first notch. Take a good look at the tree, you sill have reasonable control of the tree. If the lean or heavy side is on the right hand side of the tree, and you want it to go that way. Start making your back cut from the left hand side, being real careful not to get your saw pinched, in the right hand side of the cut. Start making the back cut, nice and easy does it, as soon as it starts falling the way you want it saw it off the stump.
Now if you want it to fall it more to the left, do the same as above, make the back cut from the left hand side. But now when making the back cut, being real careful not to pinch the bar in the right hand side of the back cut when trying to get all the hinge sawed off on the right hand side of the back cut. Now sawing nice and easy, feathering your throttle, looking up watching the top of the tree, the hinge wood thats left will start to pull the tree to the left. Now still looking up, watch the top pull over, when it gets right where you want it to lay, hit the throttle and saw it off the stump.
If the trees leaning to the left, do the same as above from the right hand side of the tree. Never, Never saw from the down side or heavy side of a tree. It will get your saw for sure and maybe you.   
  This is all easily done when doing it, but its hard to put on paper.

[John Mc]

I tend to use my axe for a plumb bob. Since the handle isn't straight, and the head is not symetrical, hand head end down, point the cutting edge at the tree, and hold the end of the handle between my thumb and forefinger. I generally put the forefinger towards the tree, and thumb towards me, which keeps my grip from inadvertently tipping the axe left or right (which give a false lean indication).

For hardwoods with the leaves still on, I don't pay a lot of attention to the trunk unless there is something really unusual going on. It's not so much the lean of the trunk itself you need to assess as where the center of gravity is in relation to the stump. There is a lot of weight in the leaves and limbs of the crown (there's weight in the trunk, too, but if it's close enough to being straight up that you need a plumb bob, then most of the trunk weight is very close to the center of gravity anyway, and won't have a huge effect). I look at the crown and try to estimate where the center of the crown weight is. Line up the top of the axe handle I'm holding with that center, and sight where the axe head is hanging. If it hangs to the left of the stump the tree is weighted to the left. If it hangs to the right, it's weighted to the right.  If there is something really "googly" going on with the trunk - a huge limb hanging off to one side that I didn't really include in my crown assessment, for example - I'll mentally adjust for that.  This has worked well for me. Particularly in hardwoods where you may have a long trunk, and most of the crown weight up high.