Dent's terminology...

[DeanBrown3D]

I was reading up on DDD's timber falling book and I have a question on his terminology. Re: falling of trees with leans. What is the difference between side lean and head lean? He has two sections on falling leaning trees - those with light side leans and heavy head leans, and those with heavy side and head leans.

Thanks for any help

Dean

 

[Onelick]

Head lean is the same as forward lean.

 

[DeanBrown3D]

Forward lean is by definition the same direction you want to fall, I take it?

 

[clearance]

This is the way the tree leans, not always the way you want to fall it, if it is leaning the way you want it to go, this is called favorable lean.

 

[John Ellison]

Most all trees lean in two directions. The heaviest or main lean is called the head lean. If you stand right at the base of the tree on the opposite side or 180 deg. from the head lean and look up, usually the tree will have a slight or lessor lean to the right or left. This is the side lean. Sometimes there is very little or no side lean. To me there can be two different side leans. The natural one is what I described above. Lets say it has a slight side lean to the left. If you face it at 45 deg. to the right of the head lean it will have a side lean to the right.
What I am saying is that the side lean will change depending on where you put the notch.

 

[DeanBrown3D]

Ok, what's the difference between that, and saying that there is only one lean, and its somewhere between the two you have just described (and closer to the head lean, as its bigger)?

Still confused sorry!

 

[John Ellison]

No difference, I think
But you need to figure out the head lean and also the side lean so you will know which directions that you can easily fall it without a lot of work. {wedging}
For most trees if the head lean is toward 12 oclock and it has a slight left hand side lean, then it can be fell in any direction from 9 oclock to 2 oclock easily and without much if any wedging. This is a general statement.
For myself when I started cutting the hardest part was correctly figuring the lean. Still misjudge them now and then.

 

[DeanBrown3D]

Hm, I can then argue that the physical lean is not 12 oclock, but 11:30 oclock

Are we saying that the head lean is the component of the total physical lean in my desired falling direction, and that the side lean is the orthogonal component of that phyiscal lean to one side or another?

 

[John Ellison]

You took the words right out of my mouth. No actually I dont understand what you said.
I think the head lean is obvious. The side lean changes relative to where your face is.

 

[clearance]

Dean, don't start talking like the Tree Spyder now.

 

[DeanBrown3D]

No idea who the Tree Spyder is!

No, I've got a tree to do for my neighbor tomorrow, which is why I'm on here now frantically researching this. Its a double V-shaped tree. One of the legs is leaning right where I want it to fall, the other one right in the opposite direction. I want them both to fall the same way. I considered tying the front one to the back one and notching them both, and then falling the front one so it pulls over the second one when its almost down, but I don't trust my directional falling too much

There

 

[DeanBrown3D]

You took the words right out of my mouth. No actually I dont understand what you said.
I think the head lean is obvious. The side lean changes relative to where your face is.

Let me rephrase that. The head lean is the total lean multiplied by the cosine of the angle between desired fall and main lean direction. The side lean is then just the corresponding sine.

 

[clearance]

The Tree Spyder is an intelligent, fantastically articulate man who expresses his scientific, atomic engineer level knowledge in much the same manner as a barrister, meanwhile thoroughly confounding lesser mortals such as myself. The tree of which you speak makes me cringe, site unseen. If the tree forks low to the ground it can split as it falls, each stem going in a different way. I have seen this happen, sometimes they don't bust till they hit the ground but what is there to damage? If its not to big, I would just fall the good one first and then pull the other one over with a truck, if they are as you say, not side leaning. Or you could chain them together and pull them both but I can't advise not having seen it. If its your nieghbor it is a little different than someone who lives an hour away, you really do not want to be in the newspaper, seen that too.

 

[DeanBrown3D]

Tree is around 18-20" across on both legs, at 5'. It splits maybe 1 foot off the ground. I forget now maybe its completely split. (Its in a forest but he wants them falled towards his stone road. No big deal IMO if they dont do that way).

Trees are ~100 feet tall, and I would guess the angle between them is around 10 degrees, 5 degrees each away from vertical. I don't think I can fall them easily both in the same direction. There is a slight side lean, maybe a degree or two. It does not look like falling one will affect the other, but that is something I will have to look at tomorrow more carefully - thanks for the heads up.

Dean

 

[Newfie]

What kind of tree? Something to be wary of with a double leader like that is that the tops of the two can intertwine, especially white pines, making it d@mn near inpossible to get them down separately.

Be Careful. Don't be afraid to be afraid and walk away. No tree is worth your life if you are unsure of how exactly to proceed.

 

[DeanBrown3D]

I will walk away if I think its dangerous (I do that quite a lot lol!)

Um, I think its either a maple or oak, probably a maple.

 

[tek9tim]

I've always been told (and it makes sense looking at most I've seen and cut) that if you've got a twin top, to not try to fall the tree in the direction that would have one stem on top of another, but rather 90 degrees either way, so that the stems would land next to each other. It makes sense that if (like you say) they each lean out 5 degrees away from each other, that they more or less balance each other out, and you would be able to pick one side or the other to drop them both at once. I'm certainly no arborist, but I've also climbed up into the crotches of maples (big, broad ones with 4-5 stems) before and droped each stem individually. That was more of a no-brainer in the times I've done that, and I also have a winch on my truck to yard 'em around after they're down.

 

[DeanBrown3D]

The tree is down

They were separate trees, after taking a better look, touching near the ground. Anyway I felled them in 180 degrees opposite directions, and they went perfectly. Land owner is very happy!

Thanks all,

Dean

 

[clearance]

Good for you Dean, way to go.

 

[Newfie]

Cool,another new experience under your belt.