Jack and Line safety

[Skeans1]

With some of the recent threads coming up with danger/hazard or line/corner trees coming up, I think it's time to start something like this up.

1. If you haven't been trained don't do it, if you have to ask the internet how to do it don't do it, I personally don't want to see anyone hurt or worse from this kind of job it's dangerous as well as technical.

2. When setting jacks or a line in first thing you do is make dang sure the tree is sound enough to take the extra stress the jack or line is going to put on it, one way is to core sample the tree.

3. Put your jack or line in with tension before your face cut goes in, this will help get the process started in the right direction to begin with.

4. Extra holding wood isn't always your friend, there's a fine fine line here between what's right and not enough especially jacking you can pop a tree right off the stump at yourself.

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff but it'd be great to have some input from others have done it professionally.

[Pine Ridge]

I agree 100 percent. You can see and learn so many useful things on the internet. But no 2 trees are exactly the same, so many variables. Hands on experience with an experienced faller in real life is the only way to learn what and what not to do, the internet can give you an idea, but is not and never will be a replacement for hands on experience cutting hazard trees.

[mike_belben]

At 50ft up on spurs I over drove a wedge into a 12" diameter top that my ground guy couldnt get going.  Same as overjacking, the whittled down hinge broke and the top stood straight up, freed from the trunk.  It twisted counterclockwise and tried to pencil dive between me and my harness.  

It woulda been a gory crush incident.   I dove to the right as a last chance to live maneuver.  It caught me in the leg a little and i free fell a foot or two into a mouthfull of bark when the lines cinched up, but by gods grace i lived to type it out.  The garage roof got wrecked pretty good.

[Skeans1]

@mike_belben
Were you using a tree jack or a bottle jack? One of the biggest issues you'll see is guys using a bottle jack is the foot can't swing with the tree causing the tree to stall and lift straight up.

[Old Greenhorn]

Being able to look things up on the internet is great, however, the catch is that the burden falls on the researcher to fully understand what he is taking in and separate the wheat from the chaff. I see too many asking questions like this and walking away with the wrong idea and taking a great risk without knowing why. I (like you) have seen many 'less than fully skilled' individuals posting their 'hold my beer' videos and having people think they know what they are doing simply because they got lucky one time and caught it on tape.
 The forces involved are HUGE when jacking a very large tree, but somewhat less when pulling from a height which is still a lot more force than most folks can imagine. I think you guys may have seen the videos I posted in another thread yesterday. If you really do the math on one of these trees with relativity close input values, you quickly see where and how much of a risk you have. But there is a BIG step between having the forces figured out and beginning to apply them, as you guys have either hinted at or directly mentioned in other posts. Simple things like species, grain structure, wood condition, hidden weak spots, stump condition (both above and below ground), overall health of the tree and many others play a big part. Many of these can be worked with, or worked around, but if they are not recognized the hazard is very high before even starting the first cut (building a jack platform just above a rotten pocket for instance).
 I can look up articles on the internet about treating certain injuries, but that doesn't mean I am going to attempt them on a human. There is too much of the ".never done this before, but I stayed in a Holiday Inn last night" attitude. I look up a lot of stuff I have never done. but I read and watch until I think I have a grasp on the technique, I work through all the math by hand and do a few tests with different numbers until it makes sense. Then I try a small 'no harm' experiment or two and work my way up. I find folks I know who have done this stuff and get questions answered for things I need confirmation on. I set up everything for a 'plan B' before I begin. I try to get an experienced person to double check both my thinking and my work. Then and only then, might I give something a try. In the majority of times, I have learned something better and/or safer during the discovery process and I never try the original idea. This is called learning.
 I may be wrong (often am), but it seems like everyone just wants somebody to give them an answer without having to take the time to learn something and cultivate a skill. Everybody is in a hurry and wants a quick fix, so they can move on.
 Once a person sees their first stump split out, violent barber chair, popped off hinge, they start to get religion. Unfortunately some don't learn from the close calls, and some don't have any close calls until the incident that takes them out.
 Skeans, give or take a word or two, I agree with everything you said, it is all good and true advice. I wonder how many will understand the importance of these things.

[mike_belben]

Just a wedge but same result.  Beat so hard it lifted vertical until hinge stretched and failed. Until then i hadnt even considered that risk.  

Im just reminding people not all trees can be jacked over.  If neither the lean nor the jack are willing to give, the hinge will. And then its coin toss non directional felling, anyones guess where she corkscrews off to. 
 

[mike_belben]

I think my biggest contribution is that feedback from the tree in complicated felling is critical.  Yes, GOL leaves a real nice buttcut to maximize footage [more like inchage] on your stave log and gives one the sense of setup security in nipping the trigger when theyre all good and reasy to bolt. It has its place and i make use of it when im pretending to be a logger.

 However you are severing all of the fibers before you get ANY feedback from the tree. In a complex tree this IMO is very dangerous.  The day you set up a GOL, nip the trigger and watch it just stand there doing nothing, with nothing but grace and mercy holding that sucker up .. You will know what im talking about.  

It is very easy to misjudge a trees weight and lean from the ground.  If a major fork rotted off and grew over decades ago, the weight balance isnt what it looks to be.  If you go in with a conventional technique and an indicator wedge like skeans always shows, while watching the trees response, it will indicate to you that youre in need of adjustment BEFORE you turn'r loose.  Youll atleast have a chance to make changes with enough wood to do so safely.  When you guess wrong on GOL its a big unwelcome surprise.  Like that time a .40 cal blew up in my hand on the 7th shot.  

Cliffnotes.. Do not GOL a complicated tree.  Its not really possible when jacking but definitely adds risk when youve got it lasso'd. Conventional cut will let you test the influence of your pulling apparatus and be more certain of a desireable outcome, or more aware of when you need to STOP AND CALL SOMEONE before its too late. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Good point Mike. I never thought about it, but I almost always tap in a wedge as I am cutting even if it's got a decent lean. The wedge tells me what is going on before my eye will see tree movement. Worst case, it sets back or stays and then I already have a wedge in place to hold it, then drive it over. Some may laugh when I tap that wedge in on an obvious tree, but I like seeing the first bit of movement as early as possible.

BTW, with respect to jacks. I think the original intent of a tree jack was to push over those huge tall and straight conifers in the PNW. Those trees are so big and straight, they will just sit there waiting for a breeze to push them over. Those jacks just act like a big wedge. Maybe somebody better versed in history can fill in here. The point is, I don't think jacks came about to push trees against the lean. I had also read somewhere that taking a tree over the hard way when it has 15° or more lean is not do-able without a cable pulling way up. 15° seems to be the point of no return because of weight and center of gravity. If you leave a thick hinge, the tree will wedge or jack straight up, if the hinge is thinner it will break or tear. I have not tried anything of decent size (over 18" DBH) that is at or over 15°, just smaller trees with little risk.
The more I do of these, the more cautious I get. Walking away gets easier every year.

[Skeans1]

@Old Greenhorn 
The tree savers were for exactly that pushing a tree against a lean, hook up 4 or 6 rams to one pack you'd be amazed what you can do. 

[Oddman]

Mike Belben hit exactly on my thoughts with the GOL method...you NEED that feedback from the tree during the back cut on many occasions, with the GOL you have lost almost all of that information and have bet most if not all of your chips on one hand. 
I prefer to keep my options open as I'm making the back cut on anything questionable.

Also I fully agree with the statement by Skeans that the first red flag, and I do mean a RED flag (as in stop proceeding and call a pro!),  is that the question is even being asked on an internet forum...I mean come on, even face-to-face this kind of information can be hard to teach, much less doing so online. And it's often got nuances more akin to an art than science and much of it has to be learned by cold hard experience.

[Skeans1]

I honestly would say GOL is a joke it shouldn't be called anything to do with logging, it should be called what it is Game Of Rec falling. There's reasons you see us cut the way we do hard learners you'll see us swing them or use a coos style back cut to keep stuff from chairing, you'll put in deeper faces with steeper undercuts to allow a slower fall without having to beat our guts sorry for the rant but there's other ways to do this correctly.

[Pine Ridge]

One trait that all good timber cutters have is the ability to "read" a tree, in other words looking it over, and making a correct anticipation of what it and all the other factors involved are going to do when they fall it according to their plan.

[Pine Ridge]

Well i'll give my opinion of the game of logging, hopefully without stepping on anyones toes or making anyone mad. I took the 5 day class almost 6 years ago, Joe Glenn was the instructor. I learned more in 5 days taking that class than i had learned in 30 years of falling timber part and full time. I borecut probably 90 percent of the trees i cut now, whether hazard trees for the county road department i work for or my weekend logging. If i do my part correctly that tree is going to fall exactly where i planned, if it doesn't i have not done something right, which i will try to pinpoint and figure out so i don't make the same mistake again. The Game of logging open face bore cut method may not work on every tree, and isn't for everybody, but it is very good knowledge to have, and i would highly recommend it to anybody, regardless of experience.

[Klicker]

I once tried to change the angle of a tree with a chain cable and comealonge  it snapped the chain so quick when it started to fall and wanted to go the other way first and last time to try that.

[Skeans1]

Well i'll give my opinion of the game of logging, hopefully without stepping on anyones toes or making anyone mad. I took the 5 day class almost 6 years ago, Joe Glenn was the instructor. I learned more in 5 days taking that class than i had learned in 30 years of falling timber part and full time. I borecut probably 90 percent of the trees i cut now, whether hazard trees for the county road department i work for or my weekend logging. If i do my part correctly that tree is going to fall exactly where i planned, if it doesn't i have not done something right, which i will try to pinpoint and figure out so i don't make the same mistake again. The Game of logging open face bore cut method may not work on every tree, and isn't for everybody, but it is very good knowledge to have, and i would highly recommend it to anybody, regardless of experience.

What they should of showed you is what is controlling your direction is the face vs the back cut, for a danger tree try a coos cut it's stress on your body as well as equipment. A bore cut can end up pretty deadly on heavy learners I've seen a good heavy strap rip out the back just like a chair, if you do this coos style cut you're no where near danger at all with feedback from the tree at all times.