Gypo,
I think you're cutting at a whole different level than many of us....
And Wiley... I wish you could come east for a while and see the stumps these guys leave... There aren't (m)any real logger types out here and most if not the great majority do NOT understand even the fundamentals of a notch, back cut, or hinge...
So I come from a different culture... I gave a copy of the mag article to my log loader and told him that his buddy, Victor, a landclearer was gonna laugh at it... The guy drops more trees in a month than I do in 5 years...
So what seems like the oldest trick in the book... tree cutting 101 etc... to you and guys like Victor, isn't even on the radar of a lot seasoned arborists... Like the guy who helped me drop that Tulip... 35 years in the business, 65' bucket, his father was a landscaper, all his brothers run their own landscape or tree co.s .... I tried to explain the concept of the tapered hinge to him and it went right over his head.... I told the same guy about advanced friction hitches two years ago and he just came over last week to learn one...
And you may not have been around when Spidy put the Dent on hinging thread out, but there was heated debate about the tapered hinge as put forth by Dent... Actually as I recall most everybody was ridiculing Spidy over the idea... How long ago was that? And where were you and Rocky and NE (and everyone else that thinks this is such a basic idea) then?