Inexperienced feller looking for advice.

[bitzer]

It's just some general guide lines buddy, no body said it had to be a certain way, you made that up on your own so get the #### off my back.

It takes experience and someone by your side with a specific tree being cut down as an example to really put the learning in motion. This computer stuff is meant to put the mind in motion.

When you start giving specific numbers it gives it a certain finality and exact quality. Someone always brings that type of stuff to these type of threads. Nothing personal, just buisness. 1/4 face is not a good idea in my opinon.

Stuff like judging limb weight, not cutting under the lean, watching the top for movement instead of watching your saw, etc. Stuff that keeps you alive and saves you a lot of trouble. All trees have 2 types of lean. Cut the far side off first (compresion side) and get a wedge in there if needeed. Watch the top. Picking a specific target a ways out to gun to. On and on. Critical thinking and common sense. Mistakes and learning from them. Physics.

 

[Sport Faller]

Get one for me Jake.
I been eating aspirin, trying to remember what it was like to run.

Yes Sir, I got Evan Williams Black Label (Cody!, where you at?) you can have it neat, with an ice cube, or with a coca-cola. I even got a Zippo fired up for you to get ahold of the business end of a Backwoods

 

[slowp]

Damn, if I could get back all that Roger Maris swingin', wedge pounding, expended energy from leaving waaay to much holding wood.......... well, I could probably get up from watching storage wars and fix myself another drink

Storage wars?

I have the problem of pulling the saw out as soon as the tree starts going over, and the hinge I leave is heavy duty. Then we become Farmerette Loggers and hook up the tree to the tractor to get it on the ground.
Limblock is not our friend.

My falling is postponed until ski season is over. But I was out there today getting a load of green firewood. :smile2:

 

[RandyMac]

Yes Sir, I got Evan Williams Black Label (Cody!, where you at?) you can have it neat, with an ice cube, or with a coca-cola. I even got a Zippo fired up for you to get ahold of the business end of a Backwoods

In a glass with a drop of water, thanks for the ceegar Jake

 

[Nailsbeats]

When you start giving specific numbers it gives it a certain finality and exact quality. Someone always brings that type of stuff to these type of threads. Nothing personal, just buisness. 1/4 face is not a good idea in my opinon.

Stuff like judging limb weight, not cutting under the lean, watching the top for movement instead of watching your saw, etc. Stuff that keeps you alive and saves you a lot of trouble. All trees have 2 types of lean. Cut the far side off first (compresion side) and get a wedge in there if needeed. Watch the top. Picking a specific target a ways out to gun to. On and on. Critical thinking and common sense. Mistakes and learning from them. Physics.

The numbers are not meant to be a finality, but a starting point.

 

[RandyMac]

The numbers are not meant to be a finality, but a starting point.

Lots of text, but needs details and clarification, anyone who blindly follows such will see trouble.


An alternative to dealing with a headleaner, without the complications of boring for the beginner.

provided by the GaryGoo corporation

 

[Nailsbeats]

Lots of text, but needs details and clarification, anyone who blindly follows such will see trouble.


An alternative to dealing with a headleaner, without the complications of boring for the beginner.

provided by the GaryGoo corporation

That'll work too. That's how I was taught before boring was really thought of as an option. It offers that "look at the top" feel that a bore cut doesn't.

A note on the bore cut, it will create maximum momentum if you need to crash a tree through something. The tree takes off quick with maximum innertia.

 

[Gologit]

A note on the bore cut, it will create maximum momentum if you need to crash a tree through something. The tree takes off quick with maximum innertia.

Not in every case.

 

[hammerlogging]

I'd compare what your doing to what I would consider fence row cleaning in my area. Beside the falling advice that you have received, I'll give you my thoughts on how your attacking the job at hand.
I would refrain from getting a chit load down. It makes it tough to operate, trip hazards, limbs etc. I'm from the school of dropping one or two and cutting it up and piling my brush, cutting one or two more and doing the same thing. It keeps it from getting like a giant version of a game of pick of sticks. get too much down and it just becomes a tough area to work in. Just my take on it, I've done a lot of this type work, imho your going to be working your hiney off for that wood. Be safe/be careful and good cutting.
A lot of good advice has been given on felling, pay attention to what Randy Mac says, and you won't go wrong.

Perhaps the most useful advice to come through yet.

Cutting till you're done, avoiding barberchair, escape route (esp. with the butt kicking fromg those higher stumps)- pretty imp. too.

 

[Greystoke]

I'm neither a feller nor a faller. Note my signature line. I do know that like Billybob said, when on a steep cutbank, or streambank, make some solid footing to work from. And have your escape routes brushed and figured out before cutting.

Ooooh, I'm going to utter something and get flamed.

Look for a Game of Logging class perhaps? It won't make you a great faller, but you will learn some safe habits and get a bit of a start on technique and reading the trees. I think there may be more classes in the East than out here.

A real, genuine, faller also told me that he would never recommend using a saw smaller than a 460 for falling.
He says you may need that extra power once in a while to get out of a bad predicament, as in needing to pour it to the tree to keep it falling. You might want to use that bigger saw.

A Proffessional Timber Faller is definitely not a truck driver with a chainsaw. A real Timber Faller...is just that, a guy that falls timber for a living for a significant amount of time. I don't really care if I offend any truck drivers out there, or anybody else for that matter...just wanted to clear something up for the inquiring minds on here as to what a real timber faller is, if that is what they are aspiring to do. Evidently Hooktender Keith has not worked around any real timber fallers...after all he is a riggin rat, and there is rarely any respect from them for timber fallers.

 

[Billy_Bob]

TIP: When you are logging, you are hauling away the whole log and just bucking (cutting into sections) in very few places. In this case it is advantageous for the hinge wood to break free during the last part of the tree falling to the ground...

And with a chainsaw chain, if it touches the ground while cutting (easy to do while bucking), then this can instantly dull the chain...

With that said, if you are bucking the log for firewood where you fell the tree, you are cutting the log in many places. Lots of opportunity for that chain to hit the ground...

So in that case, if you use a wider notch so the hinge wood does not break after the tree falls, then the base of the tree will remain attached to the stump - and up off the ground - and if you buck the log starting at the top of the tree, then a large portion of the tree will be held off the ground for you by that stump! (No chain dulling.)

Then last cut is to cut that hinge wood to free the remaining piece of wood.

 

[slowp]

A Proffessional Timber Faller is definitely not a truck driver with a chainsaw. A real Timber Faller...is just that, a guy that falls timber for a living for a significant amount of time. I don't really care if I offend any truck drivers out there, or anybody else for that matter...just wanted to clear something up for the inquiring minds on here as to what a real timber faller is, if that is what they are aspiring to do. Evidently Hooktender Keith has not worked around any real timber fallers...after all he is a riggin rat, and there is rarely any respect from them for timber fallers.

It is a humorous quote, which came at a trying time. The "Professionals" had multiplied that day. Buddies of buddies of the fallers were out falling. Because they had multiplied, they had gone beyond the layout. Not out of the unit but beyond the corridor layout. Add snow, bad feet, and a pulled muscle, and the steepest portion of the unit, --I was one cranky forester. I crawled through their fell and buck, marked the corridors out, and mumbled a lot of bad things. It was a bad day. Hooktender Keith was flagging in more trails so they would have an idea of which direction to fall to, and came upon me mumbling and saying bad things. The fallers got a few days off because they put so much on the ground--it is not a good thing to get too far ahead with the cutting in Winter. The yarding caught up quickly, more snow fell, they pulled out.

Is there no humor in the woods allowed anymore? That line made me laugh on that nasty day.

 

[madhatte]

It's the funny stuff that keeps me in the woods.

I remember one lousy day working BLM land in the Oregon coast range my partner and I found a vertical canyon <100 foot wide between us and our unit after we'd hiked several miles in. The maps provided for that contract weren't very good and we'd never seen the ground before, and on the unit map it just looked like a stream. There were no contour lines to offer a clue. It became immediately obvious that we weren't crossing that canyon, so we began the hike back to re-plan our strategy.

That's when the rain started. Of course, this was early-October, coastal Oregon torrential downpour rain, after a sunny morning with "possible" showers forecast. I hate raingear and wear it as seldom as I can, so I was immediately soaked through, alternating between sweaty-hot and shivering cold. About 3/4 of the way back to the truck we broke through to the edge of a clear-cut unit, and what little shelter the canopy had afforded was gone. We stood a few minutes at the edge of the timber and stared at the grey and green ahead of us, not looking forward to the next couple of miles' trek through 8-year-old reprod.

I got to thinking, "what if some kind of flaky-ass Oregon hippy meditation boojum could lighten the load?" I turn to my partner and go, "Zen camouflage, man -- If I believe it, they will too." He looks perplexed until I start muttering "I am tree. I am tree. I am tree." After a few moments he catches on, and we're both mumbling this mantra in near-hysterics, rain coming down in sheets, the both of us completely drenched. Eventually, I tire of this game, and turn to one of the tall trees at the forest margin, and say to it, "Hey, dude, zat a epicormic branch, or are you just happy to see me?" My partner and I busted up laughing for about a half hour. Then we started walking. Dry clothes were only a couple of hours away, after all.

 

[RandyMac]

That'll work too. That's how I was taught before boring was really thought of as an option. It offers that "look at the top" feel that a bore cut doesn't.

A note on the bore cut, it will create maximum momentum if you need to crash a tree through something. The tree takes off quick with maximum innertia.

Boring behind the hinge came along with the first chainsaws, it has been an option for many decades and is as new as vertical cylinders. There is very little that hasn't been tried already.

 

[Greystoke]

It is a humorous quote, which came at a trying time. The "Professionals" had multiplied that day. Buddies of buddies of the fallers were out falling. Because they had multiplied, they had gone beyond the layout. Not out of the unit but beyond the corridor layout. Add snow, bad feet, and a pulled muscle, and the steepest portion of the unit, --I was one cranky forester. I crawled through their fell and buck, marked the corridors out, and mumbled a lot of bad things. It was a bad day. Hooktender Keith was flagging in more trails so they would have an idea of which direction to fall to, and came upon me mumbling and saying bad things. The fallers got a few days off because they put so much on the ground--it is not a good thing to get too far ahead with the cutting in Winter. The yarding caught up quickly, more snow fell, they pulled out.

Is there no humor in the woods allowed anymore? That line made me laugh on that nasty day.

Sure there is humor, but do you really want me to start mocking the forest circus? I could do that all day!

 

[slowp]

Sure there is humor, but do you really want me to start mocking the forest circus? I could do that all day!

And just what do you think I heard all the time? Go ahead, there's nothing I haven't heard (I think) and I can do a bit myself.

Besides, most of the guys posting here are those gods of the woods--fallers and a little bit of teasing does not hurt, or shouldn't hurt. :smile2:

If it does, I'll try to figure out another clever signature, maybe Sincerely?

 

[Greystoke]

And just what do you think I heard all the time? Go ahead, there's nothing I haven't heard (I think) and I can do a bit myself.

Besides, most of the guys posting here are those gods of the woods--fallers and a little bit of teasing does not hurt, or shouldn't hurt. :smile2:

If it does, I'll try to figure out another clever signature, maybe Sincerely?

Sounds good to me! A little teasin never bothered me, just wanted to point out that REAL Timber Fallers, are Gods

 

[Gologit]

And just what do you think I heard all the time? Go ahead, there's nothing I haven't heard (I think) and I can do a bit myself.

Besides, most of the guys posting here are those gods of the woods--fallers and a little bit of teasing does not hurt, or shouldn't hurt. :smile2:

If it does, I'll try to figure out another clever signature, maybe Sincerely?

That's okay, Hooktender Kieth can say whatever he wants and we'll give it the attention it deserves.
Fallers never pay much attention to hooktenders anyway. And, I gotta confess, some times it's nice to stroll across the landing at 1:30 in the afternoon and make sure the hooktender sees that we're on our way home. We might even lounge around for awhile...you know, doing faller stuff, getting our boots off, putting stuff away, and not being in any hurry to do it.
If he ignores us, and he usually does, we always make sure to holler at him..."Hey, we're outta here, see you tomorrow".
Besides, a bullbuck told me one time that a hooktender was just the guy that could yell louder than anybody else on the crew. It's true. Everybody should go with their main talent.

 

[highrisen]

You aint hurt yet are ya? Listen for the crack and move in the other direction!

 

[highrisen]

P.S. dont listen to me