Tree felling tutorials?

[John Mc]

You generally want to shoot for about 10% of a trees DBH (diameter at breast height) for the hinge thickness, though it can vary a bit from species to species. So if that 22" was DBH, you wanted to be shooting for about 2 1/4" thick hinge. If it has much side lean, tap a wedge in just behind the hinge on the side to which it's leaning to help support the hinge. I don't often have to do that - it's needs a significant side lean before that is necessary - on the other hand, I haven't cut much Cottonwood.

I didn't realize people used Cottonwood for construction. I thought it was too weak for structural stuff.

[alan gage]

You generally want to shoot for about 10% of a trees DBH (diameter at breast height) for the hinge thickness, though it can vary a bit from species to species. So if that 22" was DBH, you wanted to be shooting for about 2 1/4" thick hinge. If it has much side lean, tap a wedge in just behind the hinge on the side to which it's leaning to help support the hinge. I don't often have to do that - it's needs a significant side lean before that is necessary - on the other hand, I haven't cut much Cottonwood.

I didn't realize people used Cottonwood for construction. I thought it was too weak for structural stuff.

Thanks. Sounds like my hinge was as little skinny. Will be more careful about that from now on. 
I'm new to milling as well and have never used cottonwood for framing. Done a lot of reading on the subject and some people says it's great and others say it isn't. Sounds like it has a tendency to get squirelly as it dries. I guess I'll find out. Doesn't seem to be a problem finding span charts and strength ratings to figure out how to size the boards/beams. It's pretty much all hardwood here so cottonwood is about the only thing available in quantity that I can cut myself and have any hope of driving a nail into. 
Alan

[Skeans1]

If it was me I wouldn't plunge I'd chase the back cut always felt like there's more control, if boring yes you can set thickness of a hinge but you can't watch how the tree is starting to move. To do this start on your high side walk the tip to the low side if oversize of your bar length this allows you to see what's actually happening with the tree and when. Cheap easy fast trick for watching a tree put a bobber wedge in the back cut.

[alan gage]

Decided to drop a few more of the cottonwoods before calling that job quits. The only ones left were the tougher ones with back lean (over the road and into other trees) and side lean. First tree was pretty easy and went fine. Second tree had side lean but I thought I could manage it with hinge placement and leaving a thicker hinge on the non-leaning side. I could tell the tree was fairly rotten as I started cutting it and as a result the hinge broke right away and the tree fell where it wanted to. Thankfully it ricocheted off another tree and missed crushing the sapling we were trying to avoid by 2 feet. 

The third tree was a back leaner. I climbed a ladder to hook a cable as high as I could but since the tree was so tall it was relatively low on the tree but the best I could do. I gave the tree a hard tug before making any cuts to be sure I had good traction and that I was able to shake it pretty hard. Cut the notch and it was extremely rotten. Cut another notch a couple feet higher and it was a little better. Back cut with wedges and left a really thick hinge figuring it was pretty rotten. Tried to pull it over and while the top of the tree shook and swayed it didn't come down and my helper said she didn't see the kerf open at all. Cut the hinge as thin as I was comfortable with (about 2" on an 18" tree) and gave it another try - still no luck. 

Got out a few more wedges and started driving them in. It was working but once they were about 3/4 of the way in I no longer wanted to be standing next to a tree with a potentially rotten hinge so went back to the truck for another pull. This time it came down. Inspected the hinge and found the heartwood completely rotten so the only thing holding it was about 1 1/4" of sapwood on either side. There were still a few more trees I wanted to take down with back lean but after looking them over again decided I wasn't comfortable considering this one that just gave me so much trouble had the least lean of all of them. 

More lessons learned. Much more respect for rotten wood and tall back-leaners are hard to pull over with a low-hooked cable. 

Alan

[mike_belben]

Yeah leverage definitely in the trees favor.  I gaff up for setting high line on really critical stuff.  Its a pain but cheaper than flattening a house. 

[MonsterMaul91]

Husqvarna had some great felling tutorials several years ago when I worked for them. I was fortunate to get to work with the 7-time Lumberjack champion Ron Hartill on a few safety seminars and learned an awful lot from him. Any video on YouTube affiliated with Husqvarna or Stihl would be worth watching. Center/ bore cut and understanding of the "hinge" and backstrap will be important.

[Skeans1]

The best tutorial I was ever given was pounding wedges and bucking for an older faller this will teach you more then anything video can or will. Call me old school for this but the school of hard knocks is worth it's weight in gold.

[John Mc]

Husqvarna had some great felling tutorials several years ago when I worked for them. ... Any video on YouTube affiliated with Husqvarna or Stihl would be worth watching.

See reply #7 in this thread.

[maple flats]

Maybe I missed it, but I highly recommend you go to a Game Of Logging (GOL) training, it will teach you a lot about using a chainsaw and felling trees. When I took it (sessions 1 & 2) I had been felling trees for 30 years. I learned a lot of safer ways to do the job.

Several years ago, I had a farmer friend who was cutting a hedge row tree, he notched it properly and then started the back cut, when the tree fell it landed directly on his 2 yr old 120 HP tractor and broke it in two. That cost him a whole bunch to get the tractor moved and then repaired. He never took the GOL training.

[mike_belben]

what went wrong that his aim was that far off, and how would a GOL style trigger have changed this error?  


If anything my issue is GOL doesnt give you any feedback on the trees commitment to your plan until you turn it loose.  

 

[John Mc]

If anything my issue is GOL doesnt give you any feedback on the trees commitment to your plan until you turn it loose.

That's kind of the point of GOL is that the tree does not start moving until you cut the back strap. You aren't hanging around the stump as the tree starts to move in order to finish your cut. Your hinge has already been set to the proper thickness. If there is any doubt as to which way the tree wants to move, tap in a wedge before cutting the holding strap. If cutting the strap doesn't start it going, a couple of whacks on the hinge will usually start a close one on it's way, and yo can get out as soon as it starts to move.

[mike_belben]

I use it often but have stopped doing GOL (hillbillies call it "match sawn") on any tree that is fully vertical and looks like it could go any way i want.  The more unsure i am about its commitment to a direction the more reluctant i am to choose GOL on that tree.  I would rather undermine the stump with a deep notch and slowly shift the lean by conventional backcut wedging while the hinge is very thick and stable. 

The tree can LOOK completely unbiased but that doesnt mean its gotna balanced weight.  A major fork may have snapped off 30 years ago and you dont notice the nub 70 feet up.  

thing that made me use it less:

If i notch a really vertical tree to fall north and setup a GOL trigger,  but its actually weighted to the south (which is common due to sun) then i snip the trigger and it just sits on the wedges.  Now what?  Before long i have every wedge i own in the kerf until it looks like a busted  yellow smile.. And it still aint going.  Now what?  I cant leave a widowmaker up, i cant be safe anywhere near it, i cant climb it now.  

Maybe the hinge is too thick.. Whittle whittle.  Pound pound pound.  Whittle whittle.  Now im standing next to a pretty dangerous tree.  If the hinge gets too thin and we pound too hard itll lift the entire tree, tear one tab off and fly to the side or rotate off the stump.  Ive had it happen twice.  One bounced off my dozer onto my quad.  Coulda killed someone.   Note the missing major limb that i didnt see.




If using a conventional chase cut, with an indicator wedge like skeans is always advocating, you find out really quickly from the tree itself, where shes going.   This information is absolutely critical, early in the cut, if you want to adjust your setup while there is still wood left to do so.  Maybe you want to go way deeper in the notch to push the hinge line back into the heartwood and undermine the butt so it takes a lot less wedge lift.  Maybe you want to leave a ton more hinge meat in order to stay attached throughout the major wedging that you'll need to do in order to turn her the other way.  


i do like GOL for the rot feedback from probing the heartwood,  but IMHO it should not be used on uncommitted trees because it mutes the trees feedback until you free it. Thats felling by luck, which can run out.   i hate hearing about good people getting hurt.

[John Mc]

If your tree is anything other than perfectly balanced, pushing the hinge back to undermine the butt is pointless. for moderate degrees of lean, a 60 foot high tree will have it's top shifted about 1 foot for each degree of lean. It doesn't take much for the lean to put the center of gravity outside of the stump of the tree: take a perfectly balanced tree 24" at the stump (= 12" radius). Give it just 1 degree of back lean and the CG right at the back edge of that stump. Undercut that notch as far as you want, and the tree is still going backwards unless something other than gravity affects it (wind, a wedge, a rope). Further, by deepening the notch, you shorten the lever against which your wedge is lifting, which means you need more force on the wedge to tip the tree, not less.

[Skeans1]

Typically on a back leaners to get a leg up you'd back cut first then put a wedge or wedges in fairly tight before a face is put in like you would when jacking. With boring and back strapping you can't do this because you're not setting a hinge right off the bat you typically have to continue cutting well feeling the trees movement. 

[luvmexfood]

I have had a couple of trees that would not fall. Wedge and double wedge did't matter. Finally had to take out all the wedges nip the hinge a little and let it go over backwards. Not my favorite thing to do.

[mike_belben]

If your tree is anything other than perfectly balanced, pushing the hinge back to undermine the butt is pointless.

[...]

Further, by deepening the notch, you shorten the lever against which your wedge is lifting, which means you need more force on the wedge to tip the tree, not less.

Nothing personal john, but i think youre mistaken about the basic premise of the leverage analogy. 

Note that the same wedge tips the deeper cut hinge to a greater angle which means the top moves further off center from one wedge than if using the shallow notch.  

If this was a wheelbarrow youd know pretty fast that a 50/50 bias takes less effort than a 30/70 to lift the handles.
  If you dont believe me, put jackstands or a wood block under the rear bumper of your car trailer next time you unhitch.  Youll feel the difference.  Shallow notches are harder to wedge over. 

[John Mc]

Mike -

If it weren't for the fact that we are talking about leaning trees, and the tree were perfectly balanced over the center of the stump, I would agree with you: in this case, the fact that you had unloaded some of the weight that the wedge is lifting is a significant factor.

If the tree is back leaning, you no longer have 50% of the weight on the other side of your fulcrum. In fact, you may have almost all of the weight behind your fulcrum. The analogy would be like trying to jack up the back end of your car by clamping your front wheels to the ground and putting your jack under the driver's door. For a tree with even a few degrees of back lean, cutting the distance from your hinge to the back of the tree in half cut's your leverage in half, but due to the back lean of the tree you have not unloaded 50% of the weight. Depending on the degree of the lean, you may only have unloaded a fraction of the weight.

[mike_belben]

Mike -

If it weren't for the fact that we are talking about leaning trees

Maybe i got lost somewhere.  Im not talking about leaners. I said in post 36 
 "I use it often but have stopped doing GOL (hillbillies call it "match sawn") on any tree that is fully vertical and looks like it could go any way i want.  The more unsure i am about its commitment to a direction the more reluctant i am to choose GOL on that tree."


I am fine with GOL on a tree that looks pretty committed to a certain direction. If its got a bunch of front lean i bore cut in a set of steps to form a lock so it cant chair.
Nasty backleaners i try to avoid.  .. Id rather swing to the side than attempt jacking up with wedges to switch from north to south.  If its a must i just gaff up and set a line. 

[alan gage]

Thanks guys for the interesting conversation. 

Alan

[John Mc]

Maybe i got lost somewhere. Im not talking about leaners.

And my point was that - at least on the size trees I'm cutting - as little as one degree of lean or imbalance can put the balance point outside of the stump. The GOL technique is designed to give control even when you aren't 100% sure which way it's going from the start, and to let you get away from the stump as soon as the tree starts moving. That's the point of setting up the hinge first and leaving the holding/support strap as the last thing you cut.

I'm not saying it's the only way to fell a tree. If what your doing works for you, and what I'm doing works for me, and we're both still around to talk about it, that's great.

[mike_belben]

Fair enough.  Lets hope we all stick around to split hairs for a long time to come!