New Thesis:
#1) Spending 206 words prior to just touching base on 36 words that claim to eventually explain shallow faces is inefficient.
Old thesis:
#2) Placing the fulcrum for optimum efficiency is important and not just from the standpoint of barber chair risk.
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Don't forget to include the short stubby's in there somewhere, sometime.
In the interest of efficiency I held this to 67 words.
Ok Smokechase, I found a little time here,I shut down work early today to get ready for an early am 2 day road trip tomorrow.I wrote this post here in a way that everyone can understand which to me is efficiency. A bit long but efficient enough so people understand it and I don't have to repeat myself.
I originally posted that I figured I've cut 2 million trees to show I'm not new to tree falling. I know from experience from logging treelength pulpwood and treelength sawlogs roughly how many trees are in a cord, so I averaged from there.
By showing I am not new to logging I had the confident attitude to admit that it took a city guy arborist from Arbormaster Training to teach me some physics of tree falling that I already was doing but didn't understand what exactly made it work ,only through many years of falling experience it worked for me but I never had to think about what I was doing to make it work. Understand? Then he taught some very efficient and safe felling techniques.
Now when I left logging and started a tree service I'm falling trees around wires and houses, new learning curve here. Trees in an urban environment can be leaning in many different directions and are more bushy [more lower limbs]. You can't afford for it to fall side ways here[property damage]. I learned to climb with the split tail &blakes ,am a good footlocker now [50 yrs young]. But alot of times I fell my urban trees if there is room.
Hingewood: the heart & soul of tree felling. Why 1/4 notch, I always use a 90 degree V notch [when the tree with slight forward lean is felled and on the ground the notch is almost closed tight and the hinge in MOST cases is still holding.
When I make the 1st notch cut I hold the saw against the tree and gunsight my saw's TOP COVER'S sight mark to where the tree must fall, then I proceed to cut straight down almost verticle and verticle if I'm cutting into the flare.Now my tree is squared up to where it should fall.I check the area on the side of the trunk where the 2 cuts will meet[apex] making sure there is no weak spots like borer holes, unsound wood and even peel the outer layer of bark to check for healthy lime green colored chlorophyll to see if the sapwood is moist and healthy. I then make the bottom notch cut and look down through the verticle cut to watch for the sawchain so I don't cut through the apex. Now I have a 90 degree V notch at 1/4 diameter. I check the gunsight of the apex with a 2ft carpenter square to see if the tree is aimed right , if not I can adjust the notch and still be no more then 1/3.Yes on the curvature there is more strong sapwood at 1/4 then 1/3. But at 1/8 the narrower notch apex is weaker in side stability then the added sapwood advantage would give . Cut as low to the flare or ground as you can thats where all the strongest fiber and extra width for stability is.Sapwood is much stronger then dorment heartwood ,only exception that I know of from my part of the world is DED waterlogged dead elm[tremendous heartwood strength] or river birch. To prove this idea when you see pulled fibers sticking out of a stump how often is it in the sapwood area? Part of the root flare would be ripped right out of the ground with the sapwood. Another example,when you have 2 codominate stems growing out of 1 stump and there is a tight split between them and you notch both at once and backcut both at once, both stems have side lean,but there is no or very little sapwood in the crack, when the trees start to fall 1 or both will fall sideways [ how many of you have had that happen?] Now you learn to cut above the split and cut each stem individually. Proof again sapwood is important on each corner of the notch.
Another beauty of 1/4 notchs is the extra room in the backcut to make a plunge cut to setup your hingewood thickness [after you make your notch first of course] then cut the backcut back away from the hingewood and not cut right out but leave a small strap of uncutwood at the back of the tree to keep the tree from falling. Now all your cuts are made and the tree is not commited to fall.This is a excellent technique for heavy forward leaners or backleaners or trees too unsafe to fall while standing next to it. You can cut the strap from 16 ft. away with a polesaw and then the tree proceeds to fall over with you in a safe location.If your bar/chain is not long enough to plunge backcut ,it doesn't matter because the plungecuts from both sides don't have to match the fiber will still break allowing the tree to fall over.
Ever have a tree sit back and you can't get the wedge in ,no problem.At the back of the tree make a plungecut a 1/2" below the closed backcut , you can cut right clean through the middle of the notchs apex, then drive your wedge through the plungecut and the 1/2" of wood easily breaks and lifts the tree.
Tapered hingewood: while cutting the backcut leave extra hingewood at the opposite side of the lean on a side leaner but thinner then normal inside the lean side. Keep your backcut and notch apex on the same level of each other, this way you can judge your hingewood thickness better.
Now after all this and the tree still won't go down then place a pull line in the top of the tree with a Bigshot slingshot ,throwline and bag . With a prusik and Masdam rope puller anchored to a nearby tree pull the treeover. I wouldn't recommend this for logging though.LOL.
Willard:greenchainsaw:
