Dangerous Tree Comes Down

[Chris-PA]

I was cutting a triple trunked ash one time. The three trunks were each different sizes, so I worked my way up from the smallest. The first came off uneventfully. Just as the second was dropping, the largest (about 12") that I had not touched at all just broke off and fell over. It did not look punky at all, so I had not tapped on it to check it out.

 

[treeslayer2003]

easy bro, I think he really wants advice. if look back all the hubbub weren't the op.

 

[twochains]

Clint, his avatar is a ploy used to pry information from our super secret playbook. . . And I'll be damned if it isn't working!

I want to see this ash-hydra too. opcorn:

something about his avatar pic is mesmerizing ain't it...soothing to the brain! Makes me wish there was a beach down in Little Rock! Whoot! I said "someone" would give advice...I don't do that...just giving him an idea of what to provide in order to maybe get some sound advice.

 

[Metals406]

easy bro, I think he really wants advice. if look back all the hubbub weren't the op.

All good on my end. . . I have a hunch Bushmans is good folks.

 

[northmanlogging]

I made it to page 5 before I got bored with the whole east-west, hard-soft wood fight... If I missed something important BFD...

We were cutting some dead ash today and came across this guy. It had a horizontal crack about 5 foot up the tree.
We were not sure how far the crack came through the tree so it was decided to cut the wedge above the crack. We didn't want the tree to break in half once it started to move. A strong lean to the left didn't help matters.
In hindsight I think we should have cut it down at the base like normal. This is an example of how things can go wrong when cutting a tree. I'm just glad he got it on the ground without getting hurt. Trees are so unpredictable! It pinched down on it's own wedge before it could come out.
I wish I had come across this particular situation in all my time here on AS.



It filled up the truck!

For the record this video both scared the **** out of me and made me feel better about chairing an alder this morning.

You are NEVER obligated to cut down a tree that you are uncomfortable about. That's like a Prime Directive.

I walk away from many trees, sometimes I come back later with more equipment other times I never return, unfortunately for me I'm the owner of my little logging show, so if there is any kind of danger/snag/iffy tree or situation, I'm the guy that must deal with it or no one can work in that area until the situation has been dealt with. This means a whole bunch of pucker factor and a few less years on the ole ticker for me, but everyone goes home at the end of the day.

I guess the main thing I was looking for was this:

"That tree looks dangerous"
"Nah I'm gonna cut it anyways"
" You see the crack going horizontally through the trunk about 4 foot up the tree?"
"No problem"
"Here is some advice on how to cut that tree and maybe escape with your life, I learned it on AS. First thing you want to do is walk away"
"Screw that I'm cutting it down"
"Ok then the next thing I learned on AS is..........don't do a sloping back cut"
"That's it? That's all you learned? Well here goes.............

You get my point? Someone is going to cut down a dangerous tree once in awhile. Me? Probably not but damn would I like to be able to give advice on how it might be done in a manner that is less likely to take a life or mangle someone.

Even a slight chance at improving a situation is better than no chance!

Any input is good input. Many minds are better than one.

Cheers and happy new year to everyone!

Ok here goes, and no I don't care if somebody else answered before me...

First off never run a saw over a height that you are comfortable with, from the video dude could barely hold the damn thing up, He would have been safer making a waist high cut, rather then holding it a neck level.

When in doubt put a wrapper on it, chains and binders are my preferred, I suppose a heavy duty (3" or better) nylon tie down would do, I just wouldn't trust it.

He made his face cut way to deep, but we all knew that right... 1/3 diameter is a good rule of thumb, as a starting point anyways, you can always go deeper if needed or make it a little shallower if you need to stick a wedge in a smalllish tree. But whatever you do clean the god's damned face out, a dutchmen is there to help steer a tree when needed (as in damnit I gunned it wrong) leaving the whole thing in is asking for some serious **** to hit the fan.

As far as over or undercut for the notch... whatever your comfortable with, its firewood not production timber.

Now the meat and taters, the face and gun cuts are important don't get me wrong, they direct the tree, but the back cut is possibly the most important cut, it should be level and just a touch above the gun cut, Slopping back cuts are called farmer/hack cuts for a gods damned reason, not just because they are ugly but because they are very dangerous. Anyway... on a leaner you have a number of options to help prevent chairing, none are perfect, the GOL bore and strap type, and the Coos bay (triangle or T whatever), I personally the prefer the triangle Coos, its quicker and allows me to steer the tree a bit if needed, and frankly I haven't had much luck with the GOL its to ******* easy to leave to little hold wood and pinch your saw, or leave to much and chair the bastard anyway. Next and possibly the most important, once that top starts moving either get the **** out and stay out or keep cutting until the tree commits to fall, then run like Hel. If that tree stalls cause you where to busy dicking about talking to earl or playing pocket pool that is the moment that it will chair.

One last thing before I go, be very careful using wedges in dead standing timber, smacking them can and will lead to the top busting out and aiming for your scrawny neck. That being said sometimes you need a wedge in a snag, use it (Hel use em anyway), just be aware of the danger from beating on them.

You got it on the ground and had the balls to ask how to do it better, I call that a win, kinda, well sorta anyway... like the seahawks...

Hope this helps,

 

[Hedgerow]

All good on my end. . . I have a hunch Bushmans is good folks.

Yup...
Just a guy tryin to do stuff the right way..
And stuff...

 

[bitzer]

I'm impressed the ash didn't chair. Especially when the face wasn't poped out. A face can always be knocked out. Just takes a little doing. I'm too ******* tired to read this whole thing tonight. Had to chime in tho! Always love a good technique fight. Bottom line nothing the cutter did was necessary. Cut the tree-fine. But nothing justified his actions other than fear. I cut super ugly dead snags and loaded up **** all the time. Sometimes its necessary to get em out of my strip so the rest of my work can be safer. Coming at that tree and trees like them with a plan of action and a cool head are about the only way to handle em. I do it everyday and make my decisions in seconds, because I have too. I am just really impressed that it didn't chair. Luckier then ******* really.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Originally it was done with one cut off the stump because they had cross cut saws and or felled it with an axe. To take the time and energy to make a second cut once on the ground would mean a significant expenditure of energy.

I'm going to go Missouri on this and say I'd have to have someone who is expert in cross cut sawing show me a sloping back cut is more efficient.

I have a hard time believing cutting non-horizontal with a cross cut saw is very efficient -- that's not the way the teeth are designed to cut. Removing wood in a sloped direction is something you do chopping with an axe.

The more I've thought of this, the following sequence seems much more reasonable:

(1) Saw the horizontal portion of a conventional face cut
(2) Chop out the top portion of the face cut, perhaps taller than we do now to make skidding easier
(3) Saw the horizontal back cut to fell the tree
(4) Tree lands with the face cut towards the ground -- the direction you need it to make skidding easier
(5) Hook the team so they can twitch the log away from the stump (and you normally twitch to start any heavy load animals are pulling), and they're hooked to the butt end so they can keep on pulling.

The sloping back cut just seems like it's less efficient because you would be using the wrong tool for the job (saw instead of ax), one the wrong side (you always have to roll the log first before skidding), and with less ability to use wedges to help fell the tree.

 

[rms61moparman]

I'm going to go Missouri on this and say I'd have to have someone who is expert in cross cut sawing show me a sloping back cut is more efficient.

I have a hard time believing cutting non-horizontal with a cross cut saw is very efficient -- that's not the way the teeth are designed to cut. Removing wood in a sloped direction is something you do chopping with an axe.

The more I've thought of this, the following sequence seems much more reasonable:

(1) Saw the horizontal portion of a conventional face cut
(2) Chop out the top portion of the face cut, perhaps taller than we do now to make skidding easier
(3) Saw the horizontal back cut to fell the tree
(4) Tree lands with the face cut towards the ground -- the direction you need it to make skidding easier
(5) Hook the team so they can twitch the log away from the stump (and you normally twitch to start any heavy load animals are pulling), and they're hooked to the butt end so they can keep on pulling.

The sloping back cut just seems like it's less efficient because you would be using the wrong tool for the job (saw instead of ax), one the wrong side (you always have to roll the log first before skidding), and with less ability to use wedges to help fell the tree.

1) No one said the sloping back cut was more efficient than a horizontal back cut.
What was said was felling the tree with a sloping back cut was more efficient than felling it with a horizontal cut and then making another cut to get the slope.
There can be no possible disagreement with that statement. Making one cut is ALWAYS more efficient than making two cuts.
2) The saw is dumb. It doesn't know if you are using it horizontally or at an angle unless the angle is so steep that you are in essence using a crosscut saw for a rip saw.
3) I find it difficult to believe that you have ever skidded a log anywhere with a log chain. It is constantly rolling from one side to the other and invariably if there is only one sloping side, that side like the butter on dropped toast WILL find its way to the bottom.
If there is a slope on each side it is virtually impossible to not have a thin (blunt) point which will break away much easier when it meets a solid obstruction than a solid vertical butt, or a slope on the bottom.
4) It almost seems as if some here are being intentionally obtuse.
5) I'm beginning to understand how Christopher Columbus must have felt.



Mike

 

[flyboy553]

5) I'm beginning to understand how Christopher Columbus must have felt.
Mike

I had NO idea that Columbus was a logger!

Ted

 

[twochains]

And to think I was obtuse in thinking Columbus was just another European syphilic along with some Spanish explorers (DeSota) who came here spreading their wealth of small pox and syphilis to the indigenous peoples of the the North American continent...who knew. I can hear it now..."These skin lesions I bring you are Angel Kisses, we bring wealth and knowledge". LOL!

I skid logs for years with horses and have never found any such use for a sloped butt end of a log. A good horse will get himself unhung off a stump...not to mention that the guy holding the lines should try to avoid stumps on the pull anyway.

 

[Dalmatian90]

1) No one said the sloping back cut was more efficient than a horizontal back cut.
What was said was felling the tree with a sloping back cut was more efficient than felling it with a horizontal cut and then making another cut to get the slope.
There can be no possible disagreement with that statement. Making one cut is ALWAYS more efficient than making two cuts.
2) The saw is dumb. It doesn't know if you are using it horizontally or at an angle unless the angle is so steep that you are in essence using a crosscut saw for a rip saw.
3) I find it difficult to believe that you have ever skidded a log anywhere with a log chain. It is constantly rolling from one side to the other and invariably if there is only one sloping side, that side like the butter on dropped toast WILL find its way to the bottom.
If there is a slope on each side it is virtually impossible to not have a thin (blunt) point which will break away much easier when it meets a solid obstruction than a solid vertical butt, or a slope on the bottom.
4) It almost seems as if some here are being intentionally obtuse.
5) I'm beginning to understand how Christopher Columbus must have felt.



Mike

Not being intentionally obtuse, I'm just not getting this whole "sloping back cut was to make it easier to skid trees on hilly land" argument -- and it's getting weaker the more folks talk about it.

If you've made a face cut that which is "sloped" along the face of the log, and you make a sloping back cut...

And this is true:

I find it difficult to believe that you have ever skidded a log anywhere with a log chain. It is constantly rolling from one side to the other and invariably if there is only one sloping side, that side like the butter on dropped toast WILL find its way to the bottom.

You're still left with two sides of the log that aren't sloped, albeit they have fairly small profiles. But still you'll have two flat areas that will want to dig in as that log is rolling.

Have I skidded with chains? Yes, not often and not far behind tractors and trucks. The tractor having a 3 point hitch to lift the butt.

What do you guys do with the next log up the trunk to skid it?

Cut slopes on both sides of the log as well?

 

[michael.kitko]

That one wasn't nearly as bad as one of the ones we dropped that was hanging over my house. It seems as though all the trees here in CT like to lean over houses. The tree that we dropped had to swing 45 degrees to miss the house and its base was only 30 feet from the garage, leaned over 70 feet and it was 115 foot tall. We anchored the base to keep it from moving and used a rope anchored at the top of another tree to swing it. Ours hung up too just like that one. I am glad yours came out well like ours did. Nice video.

Sent from my CAT B15 smartphone.

 

[northmanlogging]

All this talk of slopping back cuts is making me nauseous. Sloping back cuts are just lazy, do nothing to prevent chairing if anything make chairing easier, are slower since your cutting mostly with the grain, make wedging useless. And I really don't care if that's how its done in your parts of the the planet, that just means no one knows how to fall a tree, and everyone is fallowing the leader and not paying attention to physics.

The higher/lower from the face cut you start the more likely you are to have a chair, just saying.

 

[paccity]

i can't believe that it's still being argued over. most know how i stand on this. and some of you should know better.

 

[woodchuck357]

Chris and his crews imported syphilis to Europe, they picked it up FROM the natives. They also took lumber back, so I guess he WAS a logger! Sorta

 

[northmanlogging]

I'm not even sure that is true with folks who are expert with the ax or two-man saw, both how to use them and how to keep them sharp and aligned. Forest Service has done some tests in wildland areas clearing snags after a tornado and the crews using hand tools can almost keep up with the chainsaw crew -- like accomplishing 95% as much over two weeks.

I'd love to understand more about the transition to chainsaws, but I suspect some of it was allowing folks with less skill to do the same job as quickly, and some of it (eventually) was to allow one man to do what had taken two men on a cross cut to do as quickly.

I'm calling ******** on this one, 1 chainsaw vs 8 hand cutters maybe, any of you jokers ever try undercutting with a hand saw? There is a reason that hand sawing went the way of the dodo back in the 50's, chainsaws are faster safer and more efficient period, and they've only gotten better since then.

And it had nothing to do with skill, any joker can drag a piece of metal back and forth, especially when someone is yarding on the other end of it. And up until the 80's falling crews where still a two man job in big timber, single jacking didn't come around until second growth logging became common.

 

[bitzer]

Bushman- I was way too tired last night to get into any serious discussion. This is how I would have cut that tree. About waist high or wherever it was the easiest to keep an eye on the top. With the crack in the tree running front to back it plays a small part in how you fall the tree. If the crack was running the other way then it gets a little trickier. Face the tree as normal and make sure it is wide open. Even put a little snipe on top or bottom (basically another chip out opposite either your conventional or Humboldt face). I would then start my back cut standing behind the tree with the tip near the hinge. Basically your bar would point to the lay as you work your way toward the middle of the tree. When you get to about the middle I would do the same on the opposite side. The tree would most likely go well before you get back to match your other cut. I'm sure the tree had a little side lean with the forward lean as well. Typically cut the lean side of the back cut first. You really have to watch where your tip is at when doing this type of back cut. Its really easy to get pinched. As long as you keep it forward to back it should be fine. Its really hard to say without being there. I may even bore the heart from the face a little. Maybe a different style of back cut. Its hard to say. You do need to bust the face out and get it good and wide open though. An axe or maybe a little reaming with the saw will do it. He is really lucky the tree didn't chair. Ash barber chair very easily. The deep face cut might be why. If he sawed past most of the compression wood all that would be holding it would be the tension wood. Sloping back cuts are not useful in anyway. I would not bore the back cut on a tree like this ever. As long as you have a wide open face and you remove the majority of the compression wood however possible you've got it handled. Just make sure you've got a great escape route and get the hell out when it starts to go. Knowing how to work with what you've got and knowing how to work with your mistakes makes a good timber faller.

 

[Chris-PA]

There is a reason that hand sawing went the way of the dodo back in the 50's

Yes, it's called gasoline. It makes all sorts of things much easier.

 

[bitzer]

I'm calling ******** on this one, 1 chainsaw vs 8 hand cutters maybe, any of you jokers ever try undercutting with a hand saw? There is a reason that hand sawing went the way of the dodo back in the 50's, chainsaws are faster safer and more efficient period, and they've only gotten better since then.

And it had nothing to do with skill, any joker can drag a piece of metal back and forth, especially when someone is yarding on the other end of it. And up until the 80's falling crews where still a two man job in big timber, single jacking didn't come around until second growth logging became common.

I could easily out cut 8 guys with crosscuts and double bits.... If we could hop in a time machine and I'd go against the boys who really knew how to run their equipment then maybe. Think about it. I can dump a 30" red oak in less than a minute when its favorable to the lay. With wedging maybe add another minute. I bet it would take two guys at least 10 minutes with double bits and cross cuts to do the same. You are absolutely right Northman. That is total BS.