Precission Felling with Laser

Good afternoon Gents,

I would like to share and pass on a few tip's that we have used that may be usefull to some of you.

I am really an arborist OR tree surgeon (whatever you prefer) as my background has mainly been in tree preservation. However contrary to the belief of some! many arborists are very qualified in heavy technicle removals ie; precise felling.

A couple of years ago we had an exceptionaly tight situation with no other alternative that was feasable. The night befor I laid awake worrying about getting this one right. O'h yes I rely on the saws built-in sights a lot but at a 150' out we still had very little wiggle room, I needed this one to be spot on.
I recalled watching my uncles use a "Gunning Stick", having no time to make one, I came up with the following idea.

Whilst loading the gear the next morning I also took from my workshop a 4' ruler, a "T" square, and a cheap laser thing.
After setting up this tree I placed the 4' ruler square into the back of the wedge\sink\gob\pie\etc. found the center point and laid the "T" square at 90° from center, I then butted the laser sight along this line...... PERFECT.
It did take us a good 10mins. to locate the little red dot 180feet out from the stump. I have just taken this pic to give you an idea on how to set it up.


The rope above and below the felling cut is a safety, as we must fell this tree across a low stump and a small ravine (creek), we needed to minimize and control butt bounce due to close power pole/bridge/cabin.

All right then let's see how well it worked! Maybe it did not work so well and you don't want to show us the damageopcorn:

red vs green laser

The red light is harder to see in daylight, the green light laser is easier to see in daylight. A square with the tables on it, I'm impressed.

The McGiverablity of arborists is one of the main reason I love this job. Nice sight, Rigger. Alot of other variables are also at play, but darn good start. Nice butt hitch as well. As far as "precision with a laser", Im more partial to percussion with dynamite

Here you go "frashdog",

The pic does not show all of the facts so I will try to explain. As I said befor we had to drop this out over a small ravine and creek as well as a low stump, antisipating that it would snap, it was imperative that we controlled the butt end. Removing the power pole made no sense as the butt would have had to of caught the corner of the cabin first anyway.
The stump is actually dead in line with the top half of the tree that is out over the creek, as the pic shows it hit the small stump as intended, even if the stump had not been there we still had to antispate the break and prevent the butt end becomming uncontrolled and kicking to the right into the cabin and pole and even a small bridge behind that, there is also a cabin on the left just out of frame.
The butt end was less than 6' and behind the corner of the cabin (pic #1), the clients also stipulated that the three cedars over the creek were not to be harmed.<BR>
The butt end did jump about 6' into the air and rolled toward the cabin but the rope done it's job, with about 18" to spare.

Nice work, rigger! I've used a t square to get a 100% accurate 90 degree sight line..and lengthened it with anything long and straight. Also used two 8 foot poles as gunning sights once, when we felled the 146 foot fir through a 12 foot gap (at 70 feet away) here's the old thread: http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=5336&highlight=146+foot+fir

I also have snubbed the butt a few times to limit forward movement or bounce. I just felled 66 feet of a 1700 board foot fir and snubbed the butt to keep it from scooting into a fence, which it just did, but no damage--old fence anyhow. Did you do something to assure the line stayed on the stump? I usually cut a notch for the line....and use wraps that will give a bit, or a friction device like a portawrap to guard against rope breakage from the shock load.

That behemoth looks to be well over 4000 bf?

Nice to see that 2100 still going strong!

another stupid question

Would an open face, with a slower descent, have worked on a Pine this size?

OK, I realize that weaker softwoods don't have that much strength to hold throughout a 90 degree plus fall. Just asking if it might have helped a little.

I am suspicious of the strength of that rope, not just the butt swell of the stump, being inadequate on most trees of this size where there could be a decent butt log thrust upwards. I would think a choker cable from the bottom log anchored to something away from the cabin might have been more secure.

In any case, wow, what a great cutter. Nice nice job.
If someone has a more visible laser, this could be a nice teaching technique too.

next thing you know stihl is going to have GREEN LASER SIGHT built into their saws


and everyone will buy them and rejoice

Very cool Rigger, interesting stuff, and you too RB. It is a blast to fall trees full length, I used a half sheet of plywood in the undercut before to sight with once, falling a big hemlock between a house and a trailer. It brings a different meaning to "money shot" when the potential for mayhem is there. Remember that sports thing years ago, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat?

smokechase II,

We are drifting away from the original purpose of this post (useing a laser sight as and added aid on rare occaisions), but I will try to answer, my job is to get trees down safely and efficiently, not to spend time taking pics. Hence my inability to provide pics that would cover every aspect and angle of every job.
However, you ask if an open face would of helped in a slower decent? first I am not quite sure what you mean by an open face most probably you are refering to a wider opening, I have seen some really extreme ones done by so called experts.
I am of the opinion that the size of the face cut (opening) is more to determin the angle at which time the section (above the cut) detatches from the stump cut, and has little if any bearing on decent rate.
I agree face size is criticle in any felling cut including heavy topping and sectioning down, it is that which determins the angle at which point the two pieces detatch. This very criticle cut is very much missused and even more missunderstood throughout the tree industry.
Very often while topping out these big Ponderosa Pines we will only have a face opening of 1.5" on a 18" cut, other times we will incorperate a conventional AND a humbolt to make a very wide face cut, then as it leaves the cut it's at least 90° to the trunk..... get a good two handed grip and you can pretty much stab that 40' top head first into the ground less than 30' from the base of the tree at 100' up. Sorry... I am getting carried away here.
In this case we wanted a little forward action away from the stump, that way when it snapped momentum was still forward and not limp allowing the butt section to gain to much sideway's gain. OK. the base bulge, with that forward momentum there was no way the rope was going to come off that base even if it had kicked up 10' as I "V" notched the back of the stump and placed the rope in it.
Rope size?... H'mmm that's a pretty heavy duty rope, as it's a three strand I don't use it for any criticle heavy stuff like roping whole trees, and I as sure as heck ain't going to use my $11 a foot multi's on any shock load, no we just needed some side control on this one. Yes I guess a steel choker would have worked, but would not of been so easy to have worked with or in determining exact amount of slack & give, there was absolutely nothing else to use as an anchor.

Thank you all for your comments they are appreciated.

Open face stuff

Topping using a wide face is a different issue.
The open face stuff I was referring too is similar to what you describe for the "stabbing it into the ground" that is possible while topping.

Open face, aka bird’s mouth on the west coast, is a production small tree technique from Scandinavia. It can definitely slow a trees fall, in smaller timber. It gets a fair bit of use on the east coast in smaller and mid-sized hardwoods also. Where it does control the fall longer and slow down the drop.

My question was would it work on a weaker softwood in a larger tree like yours. I don't know and was hoping rbtree would comment on that. His post from dropping a doug fir in the Seattle area about 4 years ago is just almost as impressive as your accuracy here. But that open face was used on a doug fir.
I'm not hoping for no breakage in that draw, just less power on any butt movement.

Your photo shows the most accurate tree dropping pic I've seen on this site and I've gone through most of the archives.
Your accuracy, does speak to a laser as a "I need to try that" tool.

nice job!!

Very nice lay!

Jerry Beranek shared another gunning tip with me a few years ago. Use two tape measures. Hook the ends on each corner of the face and cross them at the same foot mark. Even if there's sag in the tape it will be the same for both. You could use string, cord, cable, throwline...anything.

Of course...using your setup has the highest "cool factor"

Cool post. I use that type butt rig sometimes, each time I'm glad I took the extra few minutes. Other times I skip it or forget it, and big bounces or unexpected rolls surprise me.

Now thats a cool story! Love the pictures.

Not related to sighting, but using a laser too is this little baby:



A "Disto". I have one for measuring stuff at work, but I've taken it outside a few times. Mine is an older model.

Works just like those ultrasonic tape measures should. Put the laser dot on the object you are measuring to, press a button, and the distance in mm is displayed. Unfortunately they are not cheap mine was about AUS$500.

There are also forrestry-specific models (from another company???) that have a built-in clinometer and calculate tree height etc.

WOW:jawdrop: I can't imagine. I've never come close to something like that. Yet I've had to stop cutting to let some of the adrenaline overdose soak in. That must have felt awsome, or was that just another tree?

When I read the thread title, I thought it was going to refer to a laser cutting unit.

In the tree care class I'm teaching at Rogue CC - community ed - we discussed pruning tools and why they would not advance to something like laser cutting units.

That's because a laser arborist cutting tool would be a weapons grade piece of equipment - probably illegal to own. Even if they were manufactured, we know that no arborists would be able to own something like that.

So that's why the thread caught my attention.

Nice job on leveling that tree notch seen in the first photo. Was that part free-hand?

M.D. Vaden said:

In the tree care class I'm teaching at Rogue CC - community ed - we discussed pruning tools and why they would not advance to something like laser cutting units.

That's because a laser arborist cutting tool would be a weapons grade piece of equipment - probably illegal to own.

Click to expand...

Not to mention the battery pack!

Oh, ok, you have a chainsaw head powered generator to run the laser! NOW everybody is happy! :biggrinbounce2:

frashdog said:

WOW:jawdrop: I can't imagine. I've never come close to something like that. Yet I've had to stop cutting to let some of the adrenaline overdose soak in. That must have felt awsome, or was that just another tree?

Click to expand...

You're not too wound up are ya?