tapered hinge comes through again

[murphy4trees]

Here's the hinge...
2.5" on thin side and 4.4" on fat side...
28" DBH tulip tree (not a good hinging wood)...
Tree had been stone dead for quite a while
5" depth on open face notch (not according to NE)
Stick was 75' + 3' left on stump
Stick had a significant lean towards the house and was standing less than 20' from the rear corner of the house

Backyard landing zone would have been a lot wider if the stick was 5" shorter, as I wouldn't have had to thread the needle between two trees... but Big Jon likes to bring out the best in me though.. It would have been to easy otherwise

 

[murphy4trees]

Here's a look at the LZ... Had to thread between the two trees seen and was hedging to the right to avoid deflecting of or damaging some overhead ash limbs... the gun was aimed pretty much dead center of the two trees at the rigging anchor (see block), but the back cut was aiming right to protect against side lean towards the house, and adjust the gun a little right in the LZ....
I wasn't sure just how much hinge to leave, as we've been having a lot of discussion of thicker hinges failing due to lack of flexibility etc.... To tell you the truth I was plenty excited, as I don't trust tulip for hinging even when it's green and this tree was dry...

 

[murphy4trees]

Major thanks again to Spidy fro bringing the magic of the tapered hinge to my attention... In retrospect a well cut standard hinge probably would have held, but I'd have rather rigged it than risked finding out different.... That's where the added confidence that a tapered hinge brings is so important...

I was with another tree guy, a 35 year veteran, he kept saying "go up and take another 20' off"... Then when I said no... he said "well go ahead then... it's your thing... you wrote the book"....

An interesting side note... He had seen the rake trick, which was part of the power point presentation... Daniel Murphy's Trick's of the Trade, that was given at the ISA conference... So he said do that rake trick to make sure this thing will fit.... You can see my distance marking stick, with the purple sling on it was right on for distance... within a couple of inches on a 75' stick and was only 40" to the side of the lawn dent...

He was impressed which was fun... cause they don't always land so pretty..

 

[glens]

Congrats.&nbsp; You're becoming quite the tree feller.&nbsp; Though I don't see any evidence of wedging in the photos :<tt></tt>)

Glen

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

Fellers in Pa. only give wedgies in private GlenS.

Great going Daniel!

Sometimes, when worrying about the flexability of the hinge in solid wood, i go for some help from face push, as it doesn't depend on flexability, but just solidness massiveness.

A straight hinge will try to correct automatically; the heavy side across long axis of hinge, will pull on the opposite side of hinge harder to correct somewhat to center. Then, the heavier side will hit it's face harder, to once again throw more center in this phase too. It tries to correct, many times can't, but wishes to be on your side; i think of the tapered hinge as givign more leveraged fiber to pull with to correct.

i think it takes so much force to bend tree forward, then the given positions of those bent fibers must support the tree. A 2 stage process.

 

[Saw Man]

Seems your 'gun' , POA, and POI were on.
Nice shot!

 

[Newfie]

I assume that is a pull line on the ground and a come-along anchored to the tree? It's hard to tell from the photo.

 

[Burnham]

Daniel, I am not so sure that the tapered hinge did come through for you. You missed your gun to the right by 40 inches, and it looks to me like that's because you left too much hinge on that side.

I know the theory of it all is correct, and I don't disagree with your decision to go with a tapered hinge, though I can't say I'd have made the same choice, not having been there, but I would be something less than pleased with the results if it had been me doing the falling. Your post-mortem indicates that you think a straight hinge would have done the job...I agree with that.

Sure enough, though, it came close, and nothing got hit, so I wouldn't be real disappointed . Just don't fool yourself.

I hope this doen't sound too negative, 'cause I am not into busting your chops about this job...you did good.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

i think the tapered hinge was proven again, overcorrection actually showing it's power.

 

[glens]

The reason he missed his mark is because the non-open-face notch (note the non-downward-slanting notch bottom in the third image) was not gunned exactly where he'd wanted.&nbsp; Note in the first image how the stem is 90&deg; from its near side of the hinge.&nbsp; The taper was just the right amount to compensate -- no over-correction present -- the fell was held precisely to the direction it was gunned.

Glen

 

[glens]

I'd be happy with it too.&nbsp; I hadn't intended to convey any notion otherwise (if it seems that I had).

Glen

 

[xander9727]

Dan you did well. I would have used a block notch. On dead trees or trees that don't had really good holding wood a block notch gives a little flexibility to the hinge to prevent premature separation. This is of course my opinion based on my own personal experiences.

 

[arboromega]

what is a block notch exactly

 

[murphy4trees]

I actually didn't miss the gun by anything... My last post must not have been clear.....
The stick was planted as a marker of distance only... not gun...
You can see it in the medium shot of the LZ... it's dead center between the two trees....
I was gunning to the right in the LZ because there were some overhead ash limbs I wanted to clear... I was concerned that if the tree hit the ash limbs it could deflect and be thrown seriously off course... so I was aiming as far right as I could while leaving enough cushion to safely clear the tree on the right.... So actually the gun was dead on... And they don't all go down that sweetly...

That said, I'd normally be very happy with 40" off target, on a 75' stick with significant side lean... That is a lot more accurate than 40" on 40'... Any math geniuses out there that can calculate the degrees on 40" of a circle with a 75' radius?

I won't even consider falling anything unless there is a lot more room for error than that...

Pat and big Jon took the top of the tree out without me... Pat actually stopped by the job cause we were working next door today..... If we could only get him to post an opinion!!

 

[MasterBlaster]

Yur a genius!!!

 

[NeTree]

Murphy, in flying we have an old saying...

Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.


Now you know why the old-timers used tapered hinges to prevent snags!

 

[xander9727]

Scavenged off AS

 

[xander9727]

in motion

 

[MasterBlaster]

Kool, Tod!

School them noobies!

 

[xander9727]

As usual Butch,
Your too kind.