Giving the tree and/or some limbs a tug with a truck or similar reveals something about its condition. No guarantees but I'd rather go in cutting if it withstands a good hard pull beforehand.
Hinge Thickness For Falling Large Diameter Trees?
- Thread starter SteveSr
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It's at that height because it's just a bit higher than the limb on the left.
A perfect and easy place to toss a throw line and then to pull up the bull rope. Then running bowline the bull line and pull it up.
How would you set a pull line lower than that location?
I have been clearing trees on our woodlot since 1972. That tree for me is a no brainer. It has a good lean to it. Notch it and drop it. I surely wouldn't worry about how many inches of hinge to leave. That tree is coming down by its own shear weight. I would back cut that until i see a gap opening up then get out of the way. I wouldn't waste my time putting a rope or a cable on it. I have cut down dozens of standing dead timber. Not once have I ever seen branches fall off of a tree from chainsaw vibrations. They do fall off when hitting other trees on the way down. This is just my .02 cents worth. The front two rows of this pile was last weeks dead Ash trees loaded with dead branches. Of which no branches fell off by themselves. As of this afternoon the front pile is stacked full all the way to the big Maple on the left. That canopy in the rear is 20 feet long.
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Too many ifs to give advice based upon a picture, but I can tell you dead trees can be particularly dangerous, especially those that have been dead for a while. I have experienced 30” oaks that are sound at the top and bottom but rotten in the core in the middle without outward signs visible from the ground. I have had large trees fold back at the slightest movement - one dropping its top within a few feet of me which could have hit and killed me if I had chosen to cut from that side.
Ron
Ron
I have done a few big dead oaks. Bang on them first while looking up, and or shake it as said. Plunge to check for hollow. If hollow, thicker hinge. Face cut, bore and leave trigger. Thin hinge assuming you're going with the lean. If not going with the lean...that gets complicated. Bar long enough to reach thru so you don't have to spend time dancing around the tree and can hopefully stay on the safest side. Tension side with less limbs. Also you can be a little further away when you trigger it.
@weimedog might have something to add.
@weimedog might have something to add.
48" is absolutely massive
Come on now! I did a 50" dead ash (30 years before EAB) when I was a 20 y/old , bar 24"/Homie . That was with my Dad's homie SXL .
It was a dual top. I cut one notch and bore cut each side. Whole tree split. 1/2 fell. Did the same with the rest.
That tree would fall into the field, dead stuff up top be careful of.
Yeah but you're just tougher than I am
About 15 years ago when I was 48 a nice lady wanted a huge Ash taken out of her horse pen, no gates, no entry with vehicle.
This tree was 4ft across and had to split most with a sledge and wedge then throw over the fence.
Middle of summer but the river was only 50 yards away so I dove in several times to cool off.
But this wasn't nothing compared to walking to school in a blizzard uphill both ways
SteveSr
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Well, the day arrived with some surprising and not forecast light rain and drizzle. Luckily most of it had passed by the time we got to the work site.
Initial assessment of possibly falling this tree acreoss the field (aka sewer line easement) could have possible thrown debris into a neighboring parking lot on the far side of the easement so that was a no go. We finally decided that the best falling direction was along the ROW.
We had a volunteer with a tree access device (air cannon) and we put a regular bull rope over some of the higher, smaller limbs and managed to break and pull a few of them down. We noticed that it didn't take much force to start the tree twisting a bit.
We set the griphoist in the lower crotch about half way up and proceeded to put some tension on the tree. The tree didn't budge with 2000 lbs pull.
We then took to the lower trunk with an axe to try to determine just how much sound wood remained in the trunk. There seemed to be a fair amount of sound wood on the side toward the intended falling direction so I decide to put a face cut in it to see hat we had going on in the location of the hinge.
The results of the face cut were not promising. This is a red oak tree and as you can see there is very little sound fiber (red wood) at the apex of the hinge. The rest of the face cut although not rotten was punky wood and not good fiber.
That was a 56" tree before we started removing the bark. For a normal face cut the minimum hinge width should be about 45". Due to the decayed outer layers of the tree we were already significantly under that at about 36". According tho current USFS guidelines the No-Go criteria specifies a minimum 30% good fiber at the hinge. This was borderline.
However, the real kicker is that due to the available saw bar length we would have had to bore through the middle of the hinge to clean out the center to do the back cut. Based on the other condition signs of the remainder of the trunk we decided to walk away which I believe was the correct decision.
Below are some photos of the condition of the trunk.
Initial assessment of possibly falling this tree acreoss the field (aka sewer line easement) could have possible thrown debris into a neighboring parking lot on the far side of the easement so that was a no go. We finally decided that the best falling direction was along the ROW.
We had a volunteer with a tree access device (air cannon) and we put a regular bull rope over some of the higher, smaller limbs and managed to break and pull a few of them down. We noticed that it didn't take much force to start the tree twisting a bit.
We set the griphoist in the lower crotch about half way up and proceeded to put some tension on the tree. The tree didn't budge with 2000 lbs pull.
We then took to the lower trunk with an axe to try to determine just how much sound wood remained in the trunk. There seemed to be a fair amount of sound wood on the side toward the intended falling direction so I decide to put a face cut in it to see hat we had going on in the location of the hinge.
The results of the face cut were not promising. This is a red oak tree and as you can see there is very little sound fiber (red wood) at the apex of the hinge. The rest of the face cut although not rotten was punky wood and not good fiber.
That was a 56" tree before we started removing the bark. For a normal face cut the minimum hinge width should be about 45". Due to the decayed outer layers of the tree we were already significantly under that at about 36". According tho current USFS guidelines the No-Go criteria specifies a minimum 30% good fiber at the hinge. This was borderline.
However, the real kicker is that due to the available saw bar length we would have had to bore through the middle of the hinge to clean out the center to do the back cut. Based on the other condition signs of the remainder of the trunk we decided to walk away which I believe was the correct decision.
Below are some photos of the condition of the trunk.
