Plunging: Safer for Amateurs?

[Exophysical]

Don't have enough experience to suggest any better way, and sounds like it was effective. My problem with every video I've seen on the "keynotch", "mortise", whatever-cut is it's been on straight pines that would have fallen directly in the notch direction anyway. I've never seen it employed on a leaner that anyone was trying to get to go in another direction. To me, wedges and/or ropes are absolutely essential to get a tree to go where it really doesn't want to. Complex cuts alone can only do so much to alter the force of gravity. Wedges and rope are needed to get control over direction, which you use smartly use wedges a lot for.

I do plenty of felling and bucking with just an axe as well, and its surprising how far you can steer a tree just with a really big notch. With an axe I make the face cut a big notch almost 3/4 through, and short of other complications I can usualy get a tree to go down at nearly 90 degrees to their lean. Never tried that with a saw though.

 

[Paul Bunions]

I think I gave the wrong impression about the trees.

Where I live, maybe 90% of the trees I deal with are some kind of worthless trash oak, and I would say the majority rot on the inside after they get to maybe 15" in diameter. They live a long time like this, however. They hollow out to some extent, and the remaining wood is generally pretty sound. I have seen live oaks here with 5-6-foot trunks that had rot inside them. The rot and hollowing might be anywhere from 1 foot to 3 feet across, and the wood around it would still be hard. Those are extreme examples.

I do have trees that start to rot very badly while standing up. I don't cut them myself unless it's really obvious it can be done safely. I am especially reluctant to go near rotting trees that are straight and perpendicular to the ground, because if anything falls off while I cut, it will fall straight down.

I have waited for straight dead or dying trees to collapse on their own instead of messing with them. I have one right by my driveway right now, and I haven't touched it. I'm playing the odds, hoping that when the big bits come down, no one will be driving or walking right under them. I'm isolated in the woods, so it's not like I have a constant flow of power-walkers and joggers going by.

They tend to crumble from the top down, which is good. After a while, you have a straight trunk which isn't very tall, and you can shove it over with a tractor without any danger of it coming back at you.

I am not afraid of small trees, fallen trees, and leaners that are pretty sound. The scary trees, I plan to get rid of by hiring a clearing company to shove them over with an excavator or wheel loader, while I sit in my living room, far from danger, preferably drinking homebrew in an expensive recliner. I am told they will give me 8 hours of this for $4500, which is worth it in order to avoid felling trees toward my buildings. I don't care what they hit on the way down, in terms of damage to other trees, and I am happy to cut up and move the trees once they're down.

Right now I have a couple of trees that are nearly horizontal, hanging over a neighbor's property. I am starting to limb them from the tops down, and I am hoping I can keep going, cutting off sections of trunk until I have a manageable segment of trunk left on the roots. If it gets hairy at all, I'll let someone else finish. These trees are not all that big, and I believe I can cut the trunks way back using just a little pole saw, if I'm patient.

I won't get on a ladder to cut a tree, and I don't raise a chainsaw above my shoulders (much), but I am willing to be somewhat braver with a pole saw, since it gets me farther away from what I'm cutting. Maybe that's wrong. Input always appreciated.

I'm more of a bucker than a feller, so I always hope the trees fell themselves before I get there.

 

[Paul Bunions]

I say continue as you are- natural selection is a needed thing in this day and age.

I can tell my wife to come here and post photos of my mangled remains for your enjoyment.

 

[muddy42]

You're right to be wary of falling dead wood, its so unpredictable. If professionals have looked at the trees and think they need to cut from a distance, that's probably good enough reason to do likewise.

I have a telescopic loader with a 6 meter reach plus forks (pic below, not mine but similar). Its great for this kind of thing, it has wheels rather than tracks, but with the handbrake on you can really push/pull/wiggle with the arm. If the tree is too big, this wiggling should dislodge any hanging deadwood, hopefully making a subsequent cut safer. I'm in the UK but $4500 a day seems steep, find a hard up farmer to help for less.

 

[Hermio]

Actually, if you use the recommended open face notch the back cut should be at the same level as the apex of the notch. The hinge is what controls the direction of fall.

If the hinge breaks you are generally doing something wrong. If this happens you have lost all directional control of the tree

It will always break when the notch closes, which should happen when the tree is mostly down. But it it hits another tree after the hinge breaks, it can slide violently backwards. An elevated back cut can sometimes stop that.

 

[Hermio]

Well, relevant or not. I lost one friend to a limb falling from above, and another it broke his collar bone and screwed him up pretty bad. So, there is that.
I have a couple of big red oaks that are half dead. Doesn't matter where they fall, but they scare me enough not to mess with them. And, they are not worth paying a guy in a bucket to whittle them down.

So, there is such a thing as just leaving them alone.

I know of a professional forester who died from cutting off a limb that his safety harness was attached to. Even pros make mistakes when they are tired. It is a dangerous job. I believe no critical forestry work should be done when you are tired. Also, felling dead trees has the additional hazard that branches may break off when the tree starts to fall.

 

[RandyMac]

'chair 'em for the noise of it

Generally, a too shallow an undercut can produce a barberchair, go steep and deep.

 

[Paul Bunions]

I took my gas pole saw in to get it fixed, and while I was at it, I picked up a 10" pole saw attachment for my EGO power head. One of these trees will come down safely but slowly with a pole saw. Anything that comes off will fall straight down, and I can cut from the side.

Still pondering about the other one. It's higher off the ground. I should be able to use a pole saw from the bed of a truck.

I trimmed a bunch of junk off both trees and opened up escape routes.

Worst possible outcome is that one tree has to come down on one or both fences in order to be safe. I would rather pay a fence company a couple of hundred dollars than give a tree company $2000.

Hate to say this, but there will be some guys who are basically cowboys bringing saws. If they start doing it their way, I'll be in the clear, but it's kind of weaselly to let them take dumb risks.

 

[Yarz]

Please STOP and read/watch the correct plunge cutting techniques before you get hurt.

If I have a tree leaning to the north, for example, I cut across the north side a little bit and beat two wedges into it to keep the cut from closing.

By not cutting out a notch and giving enough space to close as the tree falls, AND THEN eliminating the minimal space (saw kerf) you did give it, you may be creating MORE of a risk of barber chairing! Wedges should be used to help make the tree go in the direction you want, not to hold it up.

I plunge into the west side of the tree and cut until I hit the cut where the wedges are, giving me one big cut most of the way through the tree,

If you cut away all material inside the tree up to your original cut, you no longer have a hinge to provide control to the tree. I understand it is leaning already, and probably will go where you want (north in your example), but you eliminate all east/west control!






Notice how he

1. cuts a notch
2. bores the trunk
3. sets up the proper hinge
4. cuts the back strap

Yes, his tree was vertical, so he used wedges to force it to fall, so that part would not apply to your leaning trees, but all of the rest applies.
This method maintains proper control of the tree during both your cutting and it falling.

 

[Paul Bunions]

Thanks for that video.

That tree is not like what I usually think of when I say "leaner." I get trees leaning from 45 degrees all the way down to horizontal. Nearly everything I cut is leaning way over, horizontal, or down. As a rule, I don't have any reason to fool with healthy trees that are standing up straight. I generally work on trees the wind has done in. I don't know much about steering trees because it's virtually never possible with what I work with.

Tree on ground. Tree on chicken house roof. Tree snapped in middle, hanging horizontally across driveway, 20 feet off ground, stuck in another tree. That's my life.

It seems like cutting straight trees is more dangerous than cutting leaning trees here, because the oaks are always dropping rotten branches from their tops. Time after time, I go out in the yard and find ten-foot-long branches on the ground.

I wonder if that's why I've seen local arborists using bucket trucks and taking trees down in sections from the top. I've never seen one in a tree here. Where I used to live, I knew an arborist, and he used to climb all the time.

 

[Paul Bunions]

I ran into a video of a guy doing something similar to what I've been doing, but he notches the tree on the side where it will fall. The notch he cut was pretty shallow, so no worries about the saw being pinched.



He also put ratcheting straps above the cut to hold the trunk together.

 

[RandyMac]

straps and chains are so S&M.

 

[Paul Bunions]

I don't know why the straps are so high. Up there, their effectiveness will drop really badly. It's like paying for a strong strap and getting a weak one.

 

[RandyMac]

where is all that squeakin' coming from?

 

[slowp]

The two real timber fallers I saw doing this used a binder, similar to what log trucks use, on a small tree. The tree was damaged during road maintenance and had an existing split in it. It was next to the haul route. So, since they were driving by, and I was there, they fell the tree. It went down with no chairing.

 

[slowp]

where is all that squeakin' coming from?

Maybe one of the backyardian squirrels? Or bunnies?

 

[RandyMac]

yeah, squirrels it is.

 

[Gologit]

yeah, squirrels it is.

How do those guys keep their chaps so clean? After the first couple of days mine always looked like a Haz-Mat site.

 

[Brushwacker]

You really should always make the back cut slightly higher. If the hinge fails, that will help prevent the tree from sliding back off the trunk.

Less likely to pinch your bar also.

 

[HumBurner]

Good for resolving leaners, to avoid potential barber chairs, etc. Strongly promoted by ‘Game of Logging’ training.

It’s one tool. Good to have multiple tools. Good to have the right tool for the right application.

Philbert

Exactly. It's not the only tool for cutting leaners or compromised trees, but it's a good one to know how and when to apply.