Being a wood Scrounge, I figured I had better report in with a Greaser update.
Recently psych'd myself into rediness for falling a redwood snag on my dad's old place in town. Fortunately, he has an oversized lot which with some pucker-and-luck, I've had room to drop dead pines within the perimeter fences.
First horiz notch cut the chain on my 394xp kicked-off. Great.
Got the chain back on and then the up-cut for my Humboldt notch, my clutch began smoking big time. muscled through the notch, and got my back cut in which chain is locked in direct drive.
Took my time tapping the wedges in and what seemed like forever, the tree made a crack, and more tapping and the tree fell exactly where I had hoped.
For a gun-sight tool for checking the direction of fall, I simply insert a typical carpenter's square up against the hinge-cut, and then carefully modify the hinge as needed to true-up the direction the square is pointing. Then once happy, I make the back cut.
Friday, I had a leaner tree which had to be dropped between a chicken coup and a wood shed. Again, I used the carpenter's square inserted up against the hinge cut to feel rosy about the "proposed" direction of fall. I kept the hinge heavy on the uphill side of the leaner to hopefully pull the tree towards the proposed direction of fall and it fell right where intended. Probably again more luck than skill. My buddy thanked me for showing him a few particulars of felling concerns.
I wanted to report that yesterday, July 11, was another wood scrounging day, and drug my 33yr old son with me to garner him a nice 1-1/3 chord load of Grey Pine. Grey pine (digger-pine) up here in Shasta County, California grows like weeds, so nowadays with concerns of Defensible Space, homeowners have been required by insurance writers to remove 'pest' trees being the grey pines. Grey Pines are so full of pitch, the bark beetles don't seem to bother them. So, yes, trunk-wood on the mature pines ranges from 24" to 48" on average. Thus, a large 100cc faller's saw and a 36-inch bar are pretty much a required tool.
Because the clutch on my old 1992 Husky 394xp tossed a spring and locked up the clutch a few weeks back, I purchased a new Husky 395xp w/ 36" bar, before they are no longer available.
What a treat to use a nice new tight saw.
Because my son will inherit the new saw, I suggested he use it for the bucking of 36 rounds for a stock-trailer load of wood.
Was probably 92-degrees when we finished around 10:30am, and by 3:00pm, the afternoon temp was 110-degrees and sweltering.
