plunge cutting good when needed

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Plunging to prevent barberchair is a smart trick to have in your goodie-bag.


Great work, great pics Dan!
 
Your welcome and the original point is that though the plunge cut may not be the "best" cut in your average falling situation, like arbormaster and Chisholm teach, it is important to have the technique available for front leaners... The reason loggers are taught to use the back release in all falling is that it saves them up to 5 seconds in escape time, which is a huge safety factor for them..

I know I tried using a plunge cut in a critical situation and over cut the plunge, which left too thin a hinge and put me in a bad situation, which fortunately turned out OK, but I kicked myself for not practcing the technique more in non-critical situations.... I still need more practice at the bore....
I will use it when saw isn't cutting straight too....
 
When plunge cutting, I cut my notch first, then plunge thru to leave a 3" or 4" hinge. Next, I thin the hinge to the thickness I want, then I cut the back release from the outside in.


But that's just me.
 
???? you making fun of the power blues? I can't afford those fancy slacks Jim wears. I guess its like you said in an earlier thread about how the $$ money comes later. I just need hone my skills or make just make it work more often.

I did like the new slacks that are about to come out from arbor wear that I was promised to get hooked up with. Forgot ask if they come in green. They just might be the cats meow. Water proof as well, like I need that! Water proof pants and rain X for glasses and I just might be capable of working in the rain.
 
With your skills, John, you oughta be well compensated! At least $12 an hour. *


Hear that, murph! Haha..Now get him some purty pants!

oops.

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* $12 more than average.
 
netree i was going to mention that also. murphy when you do the bore cut you dont have to take the saw out to release you can just finnish the cut and go.
 
FLIPLINE

not to swap subjects but what kind of flipline is that I all wayes like to use a cable flipline when I wse a saw just looking at your pics :D
 
When plunge cutting, I cut my notch first, then plunge thru to leave a 3" or 4" hinge. Next, I thin the hinge to the thickness I want, then I cut the back release from the outside in.

Tht is pretty much standard which is fine for felling trees, but when cutting a front leaner while aloft, the piece may not have the room for all the above... Part of the teaching piece here is that you can plunge before cutting the hinge when needed... I plunged a piece once that was 8-10" diameter....

As I said, i need more practice on this technique.... The piece was wide enough to cut as above, but I wasn't taking any chances on cutting a bad plunge after the notch was set.... It was a critical situation and i did what I thought would work most reliably... The point is to practice more in non critical situations and learn from every cut...
 
another fine technique for leaners is to taper the wood into a triangular shape behind the hinge before the final backcut is made...not sure of the name for it. very reliable and it still allows fine tuning of the hinge as the tree begins to move.

i used this technique here...set it up then stepped down a few feet to make the backcut. i see no reason not to be comfortably below the cut when the top goes...safer in the event of the spar splitting or, hate to even say it, a barberchair.

western redcedar

this tree had leaned over and was resting on a large rock...it's growing on bank, so it was a good bit taller than it looks...the spar stood up a bit after the top went...i had assessed it and was expecting it.

blah blah blah not tied in twice blah blahblah
 
backrealeasing,we do the release with an axe as part of level 2 falling ticket it really gives "green operaters"alot of insight as to how much you can leave,at the back
 
Spot on Gord, I use the triangular hinge technique often...especially when there is no room for a plunge cut. Douglas Dent covers it is his book.
 
Hey Dan.

Looks like a ton of fun!

Gotta say that forming the notch after making a plunge scares the bejesus right outa me, and leaving so much strap behind the plunge scares almost as much bejesus outa me.  The former because I plunge all the time and find it no big thing (as opposed to forming a notch, forming the backside of the hinge with a plunge is much more often a first-time-is-right operation for me).  But then again I've only done it aloft while in a bucket...

So I spent the better part of a half hour fetching the images (not being able to transact anything else all the while) and performed a command similar to the one in this attached batch file, which command took about 40 seconds on my 466 MHz Celeron box.  Result was instead of "5,410,365 bytes in 10 files" I got "1,442,810 bytes in 10 files" (maybe still just a fuzz too much).

You've got a high speed connection, fetch the ImageMagick package you like as described at http://www.imagemagick.org/www/windows.html and after "installing" it, drop a copy of this attached batch file (after dropping the .txt extension, so that it's just "resize.bat") into the directory with your images and run it (double-click on it or similar method of invocation).  It will first create a subdirectory named "smaller" and then drop a 65% size copy of each image in the directory into the "smaller" directory.  If the resultant size isn't to your liking, change the value "65%" in the line not starting with "REM" to some other value using an editor that will leave the file in pure text format while saving it.

Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions, privately is fine if you want.

Glen

[edit attachment:  silly me, I had a "/" for a pathway separator instead of "\" in the command line -- now changed
If it doesn't work now please let me know]
 
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When plunge cutting the backcut, I miss being able to change the angle of fall as the tree starts to move. No matter how perfectly you think the notch is, there's always room for a slight change in the angle the tree falls, while the back cut is being done.
 
when cutting a headleaner which is where the boring backcut is used , there isn't much chance to change the swing at the last minute, again size up is extremely important, some hardwoods may give you more swing but not on a tree where barberchair is a conceren. Remembe3r the tree hass a heavy favor in one direction.
 
i use the plunge cut quite a bit ... for another use i didnt see here... we have alot of clients who dont want their stumps ground away so they are quite particular about having a flat stump left. if you start you plunge in the middle of the stump i can alomost promise a flat stump almost every time.
 
i think one way to dispense with the high force in a hard head leaner is to not place the tree into the lean so much, as that would be it's maximum direction of pull.

Furthermore if you can use the passive force elements to affect the steering (hinge pull and face push); rather than adding force with active elements of wedge and high leveraged line to the equation at steering rather than hinge strength increasing towards target with the active elements of force, it helps. i think using the force of the tree to power the steering with the passive/responder forces that must be powered by something else, consumes another chunk of the tree's available force. Then the direction on the ground strike is not form such a perpendicular, leveraged angle; but across the ground in direction as it is striking the ground.

If you have a good trustable hinge i try to apply any wedge or rope force to target, to force hinge strength and let that larger power steer, rather than handling the steering directly pulling and pushing aginst it in direction. i believe any imbalance to target across the hinge pust be settled before movement, and this takes force. i've messed with the plunge behind the hinge, and don't find the control as MM and Wiley say. Mostly i've tried it more just because of Daniel as a source, and the sources he quotes; beckoning a further peak.

i also like the Sorensen solution of center pucnhing the hinge through the face especially for a head leaner. And am finding other uses for it too; as it eliminates some of the neutral fibre in the Stumper examination, and leaves more active fibres bent by forward force as i'm seeing it now; but stump has to be wide enough across t support it's main functions in hinge of compression and pull, especially in side leaners. Eliminating these fibers according to Sorenson took out stiffer, inner fibres and flex over on the outside younger more flexible ones; also less wrecking fibers up the Fatte$t end of the harvested timber. i see an elimination of less usefull fiber and a forcing of them under the same flexing force, in other more useful places, usually against side lean, as far away from compression side of hinge under said sidelean as possible.

Or something like that!
:alien:
 
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OK here is a pic of the butt of that lead on the ground.....

Big Jon told me to be careful not to angle it much off its head lean... With that much lean, I agree with Wiley... TRying to slow it down by falling it much off the couse it wants to go is risky and in this case unnecessary... That may work well in hinging limbs and smaller trees, but when you are dealing with that much force/weight, it's not a good idea. Fortunately there was a good sized LZ and it didn't need last minute steering or a change in direction from the lean.
 
Daniel:
First of all I'm no arborist. With that said everytime I use the bore cut technique I make my notch. I then plunge in and form the hing. After the hing is formed I cut back to form a trigger. I then make my back cut releasing the trigger. I have never seen it done the way you did it with that step in the butt. Is there a reason for this?
Also when using this technique on brittle wood ( red oak) that has a heavy lean it is useful to plunge the heart out of your notch. This reduces the likely hood of a split butt.
 

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