Dangerous barber chair felling ash infected with emerald ash borer

[kdjacob2000]

Before I post a few measurements of the cut, and maybe take a few more pix, I managed to take down 10 large-ish (16-24" DBH) ash trees over the past two days. I only had the barberchair problem with one, but this discussion definitely heightened my awareness of dead ash as a species to be super careful about.

I am cutting these trees for two reasons: firewood, and for my woodshop. Southern New England ash is usually snow-white (with darker heartwood at times), very long-grained, and a pleasure to work in the shop, with both power and hand tools. I love it, and I'll be long dead before these trees come back, if they ever do. That's how devastating emerald ash borer has been to this neck of the woods.

I'm eating up all the great technical advice in this thread. I wish I could meet some of you, stand next to you, and watch you work. Maybe you'd even let me take the saw and try something new standing over my shoulder.

 

[CJ1]

I

Before I post a few measurements of the cut, and maybe take a few more pix, I managed to take down 10 large-ish (16-24" DBH) ash trees over the past two days. I only had the barberchair problem with one, but this discussion definitely heightened my awareness of dead ash as a species to be super careful about.

I am cutting these trees for two reasons: firewood, and for my woodshop. Southern New England ash is usually snow-white (with darker heartwood at times), very long-grained, and a pleasure to work in the shop, with both power and hand tools. I love it, and I'll be long dead before these trees come back, if they ever do. That's how devastating emerald ash borer has been to this neck of the woods.

I'm eating up all the great technical advice in this thread. I wish I could meet some of you, stand next to you, and watch you work. Maybe you'd even let me take the saw and try something new standing over my shoulder.

I'd love to meet up and discuss falling! I was taught by IMHO 2 of the best. Lynn Forstner and Leroy Diamon. Both are gone now, Lynn to a logging accident and Leroy to cancer but both thought me more than I could ever explain. In so many ways. Experience has done the rest. I even learned from this thread that the face cut I use is called a Humboldt wedge! All I know is it gives me a safer cut and more log to sell. I am old now but never stop learning. If I can help someone to cut safely by describing something then I will happily do it!! Sorry if that bothers some. Since Jesus was brought up, pride comes before a fall!! I still remove problem trees and cut for our band mill when I have time and do the occasional job for a log home mill.

 

[northmanlogging]

So, one of the issues I have with certain taught practices this 70-80% of the width via the length of the face cut. (its difficult to say, let alone describe)

Is pure bull ****, trees are very rarely round. that head on look does a couple of things goofy one, it requires to you make a judgement while not controlling the saw, (to do it accurately you have to stop and let go and take a look) or essentially guessing from an angle that you can not physically see what you are aiming for. As well as being a completely arbitrary standard that has limited uses based on trunk shape as a whole. it might work if you only fall perfectly straight perfectly round timber, which is rare at best. It leads to a whole lot of guess work for lining up cuts too for that matter.

You're whole lot better off using the depth of the face cut in direct relation to direction of fall, this gives you far more accurate idea of how much hold wood, and how much back wood you will have to work with. rather then going off one side, that could be flat or even convex, in which case you would have a dangerously small face cut (as the original photos show) or possibly with an absurdly oblong trunk you could have a dangerously deep face cut just as well.

FYI, conventional wisdom says 30% depth vs Dia, though loggers will tell you deeper is better, and in many cases it is, however, you have to temper face depth with how much room is there for wedges, degree of lean, brittleness of wood etc etc, all that said, 30% will do most of what you need, upwards of 50% is still pretty ok most of the time, in reality, much much deeper for broken off stobs is fine too.

Even seen guys take as much as 70-80% of DIA to fall live tall timber, 30" dia. tree and there was barely room for a saw bar and the tip of one wedge... I was worried lol, houses on both sides of it.

 

[CJ1]

Here is a over 36" pine that had over 90' of usable log in it. Hated to cut it but it was to be removed either way. The homeowner was a tree climber and did not want to cut it because of the height of the tree. It was by Hartwick pines if that helps with why it was so big. Cj

 

[GrizG]

Excellent points. Tomorrow, I'll go out and make some measurements, and more photos if necessary, and get back to you. I'm hoping I wasn't as far off as 60% of DBH instead of 80%. We'll see...

I’m curious to know too… it’s tricky judging things from photos as this thread has made obvious!

 

[Gologit]

I read this entire thread. I wish I hadn't. Lots of well meaning advice here. Some of it was good advice, some of it was really bad advice, and some of it was just downright stupid advice. Too many of you are putting too much faith in your training and not enough of you are using common sense. The tree and the stump will tell you everything you did wrong, if you just take the time to study it a little and use your damn head.
You're looking for the "if I do this, the tree will do that" results that your GOL course seems to guarantee. That doesn't work and it never will. Falling is constantly correcting yourself as you work your way through the tree. There is no one single method that will eliminate barber chairs.
I like the H Pattern Coos Bay cut but not everybody does.
'Chairs don't always move straight back. They can slab out on either side of the tree from the face or the back cut and they can split and slab in any direction. Sometimes they'll run up the tree a ways, break out and come right straight down on you. Sometimes they're noisy. Sometimes they're deadly silent.
I won't try to talk you out of whatever method works the best for you. You wouldn't listen anyway. Besides, if you can't figure out what you're doing wrong from the results you're getting you're probably too thick between the ears to be playing with saws.
Just remember...the tree is indifferent. It doesn't care if it kills you or not.

 

[CDElliott]

Many folks here with far more experience than me, but the face cut looks way too shallow. 10% or less?


Still available from Bailey's. I bought it from them several years ago – only place I was able to find it at the time.

https://www.baileysonline.com/professional-timber-falling-book-by-douglas-dent.html

I found it on Abebooks for 40.00. It sure has gone up over the years!

 

[JimR]

If you have any trees that you would like to retain in the landscape I would strongly suggest that you start treating them now. EAB is in your area and once the trees start showing signs of infection it is generally to late to treat them.

I was told that the blight has done a lot of damage to them and the best solution is to remove the damaged trees now. The affected trees are all 6 inch and larger. My smaller Ash seem to be okay. We have had several seasons of wet and very dry periods which supposedly causes this blight from what I have been told and read. The larger branches are dying off and there are bunches of new ones trying to grow out of the base of the damaged branches. My understand in ng is that some of the trees may survive this, most won't.

 

[Pudsy]

The smaller-diameter trunk was cut first, and I was not thinking about it at all when I made my post.

Thanks for clearing that up!

 

[CJ1]

I read this entire thread. I wish I hadn't. Lots of well meaning advice here. Some of it was good advice, some of it was really bad advice, and some of it was just downright stupid advice. Too many of you are putting too much faith in your training and not enough of you are using common sense. The tree and the stump will tell you everything you did wrong, if you just take the time to study it a little and use your damn head.
You're looking for the "if I do this, the tree will do that" results that your GOL course seems to guarantee. That doesn't work and it never will. Falling is constantly correcting yourself as you work your way through the tree. There is no one single method that will eliminate barber chairs.
I like the H Pattern Coos Bay cut but not everybody does.
'Chairs don't always move straight back. They can slab out on either side of the tree from the face or the back cut and they can split and slab in any direction. Sometimes they'll run up the tree a ways, break out and come right straight down on you. Sometimes they're noisy. Sometimes they're deadly silent.
I won't try to talk you out of whatever method works the best for you. You wouldn't listen anyway. Besides, if you can't figure out what you're doing wrong from the results you're getting you're probably too thick between the ears to be playing with saws.
Just remember...the tree is indifferent. It doesn't care if it kills you or not.

I need to get more experience with the H pattern coos. Normally when I use this cut all I care about is getting the tree down without splitting it. As you stated what matters is the cutter is alive in the end. This is not a game. Cj

 

[GrizG]

This thread reminds me of what happens at my fine woodworking club… An inquiry is made about an issue and many alternatives are offered up to the point of confounding the inquirer’s dilemma! I’ve taught classes and given presentations at woodworking shows on hand cut dovetails. I netted out what the myriad techniques have in common… the core principles to keep in mind. If you get those few things right nothing else really matters nor does the specific process you use to get there.

Often times the solutions offered up for felling involve different techniques, different tools, and different skill levels. That is fine… making the knowledge accessible to others in a useful form is often the problem.

The OP in this thread, from what I’ve gathered, was already using an open face cut and a plunge cut to establish the hinge but was still having some barber chairs. From looking at his stump photos and his responses he was on the right track but was looking to refine the process.

While the process in GOL 1 is not the solution to everything it does offer a proven solution for barber chair prevention and is well documented. The YouTube video on how to fell a tre that appears on the Husqvarna channel gives a very detailed explanation of the process. Yes, it is true that there are other techniques, but are they as well documented in a way accessible to all? While I’ve had the opportunity to be around and cut with highly skilled arborists and loggers, and have taken formal training, and have had good interactions with saw shops, not everyone has access to those experiences. That is not to say I know everything, or that I am a one trick pony (e.g., GOL 1 only), it does help me point folks to readily accessible resources that could help them remotely… and hopefully not confuse them! That is what I hope for when I ask questions…

 

[GrizG]

Before I post a few measurements of the cut, and maybe take a few more pix, I managed to take down 10 large-ish (16-24" DBH) ash trees over the past two days. I only had the barberchair problem with one, but this discussion definitely heightened my awareness of dead ash as a species to be super careful about.

I am cutting these trees for two reasons: firewood, and for my woodshop. Southern New England ash is usually snow-white (with darker heartwood at times), very long-grained, and a pleasure to work in the shop, with both power and hand tools. I love it, and I'll be long dead before these trees come back, if they ever do. That's how devastating emerald ash borer has been to this neck of the woods.

I'm eating up all the great technical advice in this thread. I wish I could meet some of you, stand next to you, and watch you work. Maybe you'd even let me take the saw and try something new standing over my shoulder.

Take a good hard look at the ash you plan to mill. I milled 6 logs with the intent of making flooring. I found that three had deteriorated to the point I wasn’t willing to put any more resources into them. I also had to abandon the project as all the ash in the area was dead and the chances of finding more good logs locally was slim. The deteriorated boards became kindling… a friend with a tree service is saving oak for me.

 

[WIslxer]

TLDR whole thread. Two words if it hasn't been said already: bore cut.

 

[slowp]

Scary things happen while bucking too. The mill had shut down and everybody was out cutting firewood. This blowdown was flat on the ground and laid off mill workers were working on it when I went by in the morning. When I came back by later, they were gone and the tree was like this. Blowdown needs a bit of studying before cutting sometimes. Cutting off the root wad might have been the way to go instead of top down.

 

[kdjacob2000]

As promised, here are some measurements on the stump that allowed me to calculate the face cut angle, and the hinge width as a percentage of DBH.

The face cut target is 20° and the the hinge width target is 80%.

Without claiming that game of logging is always the correct way to take down a barber-chair prone recently-dead ash tree -- or hopefully without risking being called an ashgol -- I think it's fair to say that at least I cut close to the target and close to my intent.

Also included are two shots that show that if there was any lean it was minimal (look at the angle of the barber chair) and that the smaller trunk probably was not a factor in the felling of the larger trunk.

Curious to know if this stimulates any more thoughts.

Otherwise, this has been really fun and information and I thank you all.

 

[windblown]

It

As promised, here are some measurements on the stump that allowed me to calculate the face cut angle, and the hinge width as a percentage of DBH.

The face cut target is 20° and the the hinge width target is 80%.

Without claiming that game of logging is always the correct way to take down a barber-chair prone recently-dead ash tree -- or hopefully without risking being called an ashgol -- I think it's fair to say that at least I cut close to the target and close to my intent.

Also included are two shots that show that if there was any lean it was minimal (look at the angle of the barber chair) and that the smaller trunk probably was not a factor in the felling of the larger trunk.

Curious to know if this stimulates any more thoughts.

Otherwise, this has been really fun and information and I thank you all.

All I see as a casual wood cutter is an extremely shallow face cut, which has already been mentioned. It was deep enough to create a decent hinge width but far too shallow given the nature of the trunk shape and tree type to be of much use. Studying "rules" for tree felling is great but applying the "right rule" to the wrong tree can have unexpected results. Your tree obviously didn't read the GOT book.

 

[JimR]

Scary things happen while bucking too. The mill had shut down and everybody was out cutting firewood. This blowdown was flat on the ground and laid off mill workers were working on it when I went by in the morning. When I came back by later, they were gone and the tree was like this. Blowdown needs a bit of studying before cutting sometimes. Cutting off the root wad might have been the way to go instead of top down.
View attachment 976579

That is a good way to get hurt cutting an uprooted tree. I always cut the root ball off first.

 

[Westboastfaller]

10 percent hinge is just a guideline. One Faller that was on here told me he had an ash barber chair at 1/2" hinge. Dog in and always be fast on the last 2-3" Cut all the sapwood first as it gives you 2 ways to reduce B/C. It will help speed up the back cut plus you are eliminating the live fibres that may be knot clear and more prone to splitting.++.

 

[slowp]

That is a good way to get hurt cutting an uprooted tree. I always cut the root ball off first.

I don't ALWAYS nothing when dealing with blowdown. I take time and ponder each one because the tension varies greatly in them. That's the point of my post--ponder first, cut later.

 

[Zaedock]

Good to see quite a few Mass folks here. Lots of good advice too.

I typically bore cut my ash. EAB has wrecked havoc in my area, West of Worcester, and it has been the safest for me.
One thing that stood out in that Husky video is "Every foot counts" on your distance when cutting the trigger.

I have some small ash that are wicked leaners that need to come down.
Ponder First, Cut Later is what I'll certainly be doing.