Felling "Maple" trees - Special techniques?

[Bushler]

About barberchairing...the worst thing you can do is stop cutting. With todays direct drive saws and high chain speed, sharp etc., you can outcut most barberchairs.

I fall a lot of western red alder and it will almost always pop and try to rip if it has much lean.

same with tan oak. I've seen guys leave the tree too early and watched the tan oak start to barber chair, then pull a root and really make a mess.

I'm probably going to get scolded for this, but I normaly (with exceptions) don't leave the stump until the tree is cut past the barberchair point and well on its way to the ground.

 

[2dogs]

About barberchairing...the worst thing you can do is stop cutting. With todays direct drive saws and high chain speed, sharp etc., you can outcut most barberchairs.

I fall a lot of western red alder and it will almost always pop and try to rip if it has much lean.

same with tan oak. I've seen guys leave the tree too early and watched the tan oak start to barber chair, then pull a root and really make a mess.

I'm probably going to get scolded for this, but I normaly (with exceptions) don't leave the stump until the tree is cut past the barberchair point and well on its way to the ground.

Wow I consider tan oak to be a stable tree with good manners. They will roll the rootball out of the ground when it is windy but I have never seen one barberchair. That is a good one for the memory bank.

 

[slowp]

About barberchairing...the worst thing you can do is stop cutting. With todays direct drive saws and high chain speed, sharp etc., you can outcut most barberchairs.

I fall a lot of western red alder and it will almost always pop and try to rip if it has much lean.

same with tan oak. I've seen guys leave the tree too early and watched the tan oak start to barber chair, then pull a root and really make a mess.

I'm probably going to get scolded for this, but I normaly (with exceptions) don't leave the stump until the tree is cut past the barberchair point and well on its way to the ground.

I cut a lot of bent over alder last winter. I found it to pop at various speeds in different locations. Maybe I could get money for a grant to see if it was my imagination or really did change with location. Alder is yet another reason for a long bar, and strong coffee.

 

[Bushler]

Watch red alder for black knots, indicators of defect.

My first single jack cutting contract work was a stand of tan oak. Eons ago...back when Christ was just a Corporal...and tan oak first came into demand.

We relogged a bunch of the Lobster Creek drainage, Champion (then U.S. Plywood) ground. It was big oak, and heavy leaners. It took me a while to get the hang of it.

One memorable windy day I had to cut a ugly one, I was nervous about it, and when it started popping and ripping I jerked the saw out and turned to run and fell down. The oak ripped up about 30-40 ft., then bent over itself and balanced! Half the barber chaired top was stickout out one way, the the top part was sticking out the other...perpendicular to the ground, and swaying in the wind.

I couldn't decide which side of the stem the top was going to fall down on, and kept darting back and forth from one side of the tree to the other, in complete terror.

I finally just turned my back on it and walked away. The other two cutters watced the whole thing, and thought it was funny.

 

[2dogs]

I do have to say that tan oak is the only tree that put me in the hospital. I January 1982 our local river flooded and among other things knocked out the power so I couldn't work. I stocked up on fire wood from the down trees and then volunteeered for the Red Cross removing trees from a neighborhood. The river had risen 25' and flooded the hood, the water had been 5' deep in places, the left over mud was 3' deep. A whole tan oak with 3 trunks and a complete rootball was deposited in someone's front yard right next to an old growth redwood stump about 6' tall. I was cutting off one of the 16" dia trunks with my trusty Mac 120 (I think that was the model) when the tree popped and split and rotated in my direction. The trunk spun and hit the top of the saw and my right thigh. I felt a heavy blow but it didn't hurt much so I scrambled down. I ended up in the ER for x-rays. Nothing but a huge bruise. Still I was on crutches for a few weeks.