Wedge Stacking?

[Westboastfaller]

I've never lost a saw or lost a tree over backwards I was taught to cut long poles if you loose one of them that's big dollars, till you cut with jacks daily or come play in the big long wood you have no where to talk.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

but a **** of a lot sideways. You have never lost a tree? That's pretty chuncky soup to swallow.
Never cut a cedar with slight weight to the compression side and it had a small cats face on tension side you failed to check. I Never crushed a saw that I didn't want to either but I should have crushed about 10. Honestly, when was the last time you packed a jack around? It's not a daily basis thing. I have never seen them cut more that snipper wood on Axe man. A lot of second growth Fir there.

 

[northmanlogging]

haxe men isn't exactly a good representation of PNW logging...

Granted a lot of what gets cut now is fairly small, especially compared to the BC and Alaskan coast stuff, but you can thank you're local evironmental knuts for that. Although if the knuts hadn't of stopped it Warshington state wouldn't likely have any old growth left outside of national parks or wilderness areas.

What you don't see on Haxe men is the nice DNR cuts and the occasional forest service cut, cause I'm pretty sure as soon as the foresters found out they where shooting an episode there would be some kind of fire danger shut down or the roads would be too wet to haul...

 

[Bwildered]

Stupid question... what is the difference between felling and bucking wedges?

Cause I taint never heard of a bucking wedge, splitting wedge yes, other wise a wedge is a wedge, Felling wedges are plastic/aluminium/magnesium, splitting wedges are steel. Not sure why a guy would need bucking specific wedges.

Honestly it sounds like you folks are being lead by the blind and ignorant.

Figure 40--A bucking wedge being used as a hanging wedge.
The wedge kept the cut from opening too quickly and splitting the log,
and also stopped the log from rolling on the bucker when the cut was finished.
-- Now You're Logging, by Bus Griffiths,
with permission of Harbour
Bucking Wedges
Wedges used to reduce bind or split wood are double tapered, meaning that each of the broad faces tapers equally from the center. When such wedges are driven, wood moves away from both tapered sides equally.

Double-taper wedges are preferred for bucking, while single-taper wedges are used for felling. Both types of wedges keep the saw kerf from closing. However, the single-taper wedge used for felling performs a lifting function, while the double-taper wedge used for bucking pries the log apart. Crosscut saw bucking wedges are made of metal and are shorter than felling wedges. They are wider at the bottom and have more of a fan shape than a felling wedge (figure 40).

Just because you don't know about it or ever seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, a bit like your whole argument so far.
Thanski

 

[Bwildered]

Why is it better or safer? Wedges spitting out of the cut isn't it. I'm going to call you Reggie from now on cuz you won't give your name.

You can call me whatever you like, just don't ever call me late for dinner.
Thanski Reg

 

[rwoods]

BW, although you admit to being a one wedge guy, you chose to defend this method and thus you have been asked several times why this method is better or safer. You just keep dancing. If you want your opinion respected you would answer the question even if you are simply theorizing or speculating. Most everyone here can see pros and cons to this method. I dare say that most believe the cons far out weigh the pros. If you know different then state your case.

Many here live off production and some have plenty of fire salvage experience. It is only natural for them to be highly skeptical of any method promoted by a group that requires roping any fire damaged tree over 10'. If a tree is properly roped to be pulled, why would one stack wedges?

Not every one here is anti-government or anti-safety, nonetheless it doesn't take any "anti" bent to see that many risks are overblown by our government and exploited by folks chasing a dollar. On the surface this certainly appears to be the case here.

Ron

 

[rwoods]

I'm on that same job as the original poster. I hadn't heard of GOL before reading this thread either. We were shown this method the other day as well, while dealing with a big pine we were working on. I bored in the length of the wedge and it split out fairly easily while putting the wedge in to give the desired lift. We so far haven't had to really pound wedges, due to being able to pull the trees/ spars using our mechanical advantage ( every tree on the project over ten feet tall has to have a pull line in it at least 2/3 of the way up).
I also never knew the difference between felling wedges and bucking wedges, and it did make sense to me / us that since we did not have felling wedges on our crew it would make it less likely to spit the wedge out from the compartment we had created rather than plastic on plastic.
Some of the stuff I'm seeing is things I already knew about from seeing it in action, but just didn't have the terminology of it. Some of the techniques are new concepts to me though, it is definitely different from any job I've been on.
I figured why not bore in for the wedges, I'm not scared to bore cut ( we are bore cutting every tree) and we are not in a hurry to get trucks loaded / wood in the landing....

Please explain the difference as told to you between a falling wedge and a bucking wedge. Is it simply single taper versus double taper?

Thanks,

Ron

 

[Bwildered]

BW, although you admit to being a one wedge guy, you chose to defend this method and thus you have been asked several times why this method is better or safer. You just keep dancing. If you want your opinion respected you would answer the question even if you are simply theorizing or speculating. Most everyone here can see pros and cons to this method. I dare say that most believe the cons far out weigh the pros. If you know different then state your case.

Many here live off production and some have plenty of fire salvage experience. It is only natural for them to be highly skeptical of any method promoted by a group that requires roping any fire damaged tree over 10'. If a tree is properly roped to be pulled, why would one stack wedges?

Not every one here is anti-government or anti-safety, nonetheless it doesn't take any "anti" bent to see that many risks are overblown by our government and exploited by folks chasing a dollar. On the surface this certainly appears to be the case here.

Ron

I have put forward several times the reasons why I think it has an advantage safety wise, i also noted the disadvantages, as those disadvantages weren't safety issues then it passes the comonsense test, as far as the broader GOL techniques I'm not commenting on them, with the roping of the trees there maybe other factors involved like the assets of power lines that must be protected & there could be possibility of old burnt crap pine trees having rot in them. Somewhere in the management process a safety risk analysis has been done & a course of action decided, management seems to have skipped the worker input & feedback part which a essential part of the process.
I've worked on both sides of the fence so maybe I have a different understanding & outlook of how industrial safety operates with statistics, individual skills are not normally considered because of the broad nature of the aims to reduce workplace accidents & making exceptions to the rules puts the managers at risk of litigation if something goes wrong.
Tanks

 

[windthrown]

You have never lost a tree? That's pretty chuncky soup to swallow.

No shirt. Old saying here is that if you have not had a tree spin 180 degrees and fall square on your saw, you are not a faller. In my limited experience, they hang. They spin. They barber. They break the hinge and rock back over the stump. They sit back on the back cut and pinch the bar. They gush water. They shatter. They flip back and land 180 degrees from where you intended. They fall forward but not where they were intended. The wind kicks them off course. The lean was different than eyed and they roll. Or in some cases, they just sit there and do nothing. Or you do a dutchman, or cut a bad face or back cut. On a good day all the trees fall as or near expected. Every day is not a good day though.

 

[madhatte]

OK, yes, that was how it was done in the crosscut days. Also, yes, the wedge I have pictured above is more commonly used in bucking applications than in falling ones, but the fact is that if you're any good at bucking, you will only use a wedge to get yourself out of trouble when you have mis-read a bind. Thus, in the modern vernacular, there is no such thing as a "bucking" wedge.

 

[chucker]

No shirt. Old saying here is that if you have not had a tree spin 180 degrees and fall square on your saw, you are not a faller. In my limited experience, they hang. They spin. They barber. They break the hinge and rock back over the stump. They sit back on the back cut and pinch the bar. They gush water. They shatter. They flip back and land 180 degrees from where you intended. They fall forward but not where they were not intended. The wind kicks them off course. The lean was different than eyed and they roll. Or in some cases, they just sit there and do nothing. Or you do a dutchman, or cut a bad face or back cut. On a good day all the trees fall as or near expected. Every day is not a good day though.

that is plain truth to a fact! you "SIR" are a truthful tree slayer!

 

[Bwildered]

No shirt. Old saying here is that if you have not had a tree spin 180 degrees and fall square on your saw, you are not a faller. In my limited experience, they hang. They spin. They barber. They break the hinge and rock back over the stump. They sit back on the back cut and pinch the bar. They gush water. They shatter. They flip back and land 180 degrees from where you intended. They fall forward but not where they were not intended. The wind kicks them off course. The lean was different than eyed and they roll. Or in some cases, they just sit there and do nothing. Or you do a dutchman, or cut a bad face or back cut. On a good day all the trees fall as or near expected. Every day is not a good day though.

Any day that you make it to the end of & you still have all your bits in working order is a good day.
Ta

 

[rwoods]

BW,

Thanks for responding. To save others time, I have highlighted below your responses that explain your reasoning. Are there any other reasons you would add to support your conclusion that this method is safer? Instead of us just theorizing, it would be good if the matters in italics were addressed by the actual proponents, or their pupils.

Ron

It maybe rubbish, but each wedge has the advantage of being in timber & has less chance of flying out like plastic on dirty plastic, if a wedge does shoot out of the back cut then there is a higher chance of the hinge failing when it sits back down again, they must give reasons though of why this method is preferred & better than any other, or its just a meaningless way of training.
Tanski

Rather than just knocking the method I'm just looking at the pluses & minuses of it, the pluses are you need to carry & use less wedges, they are less likely to fly out, they can't be driven skewif because they're captivated in a slot, there is less chance of the tree sitting back down & breaking the hinge.
The minuses are you have to do another couple of bore cuts of adequate depth that an experienced faller should be capable of doing repeatedly, you have to be able to gauge how much lift is needed before starting as another bore cut once loaded is not an option, training experienced fellers in a different method.
Fanks

I'm only going off the posted pictures & explainations of backing up doubled up wedges which means an equal amount in reserve to stop the tree sitting back & possibly breaking the hinge. Plastic wedges aren't much good for lifting anything heavy anyway & with our HWDs they are as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike, that method with a single wedge is the recommended way to get small poles down against the lean. So far on the surface I'm seeing more positives than negatives.
Ta

I'm not disputing plastic wedges don't lift, they just don't lift much before they start to do everything but lift. I think the method with wedges stacked in bore cuts gets the most out of the poor little things safer, the negatives some have put up are a bit limp, like having to do bore cuts to a depth greater than the length of a wedge, if you're a competent Faller & that's an unsafe activity you're in the wrong game. Boring out the centre of the hinge isn't an unsafe practice or method either. Having to cut out the wedges after is a mystery as well, as a hit with the back of an axe on top of the mortise cuts will break them out easily, all I'm seeing is resistance to another method without any reasonable grounds.
Stanks

In regards to breaking out the mortised timber of bore cut, here's another little experiment you can do, pop a dangerous deep bore cut 1/2" from the top of a stump if you can, place a wedge into it & hit it with 20 oz claw hammer, you will be able to easily break out the timber above the wedge with a couple of half hearted taps with the hammer, so in the grand scheme of things when you belt a wedge in with a 4 lb axe it's nothing & not going to make wedging a tree any harder.
Some mongrel days I might wedge 50% of the trees I fall & I only carry one alloy wedge, anything that needs anymore I'll push it over with the big tracked wedge or pull it over with the winch on the other end, or fall anything of value & size in its path & send it where the lean will let it go. I don't use plastic wedges in the bush as they are less than useless, but have found them really handy when I hang a solid core door getting it to the right height as they are nice & slippery.
Ta

What's garbage about it? It's safer. So what if another wedge has to be used to get the same amount of lift as two back to back.
Wrong country bro.
Thangst

If you had taken your time to read what I said, it's already been said & you don't have to go too far back to read it either. The reasons for why this method has been pushed by the trainers hasn't yet been explained, but I'd be saying that it is a safety aspect, which is front & foremost these days & the sacrifice of a little time to achieve it is the price industry has to pay to reduce accidents, workers comp payments & industry deaths. Our logging industry 30 years ago was full of hillbilly cutters killing themselves hand over fist, then they gradually changed the industrial laws, so that now if anybody is negligent in their duty of care they can be sued for millions in a common law court for negligence, that goes from the land owner up the chain to the owners of the mill, that's why they implement training programs to cover their arses, but they still want the job done cheaper every year which is a total contradiction & the only way around to make money is mechanisation, or the people doing the job will have to take shortcuts, from what I can see some are defending the later.
But back to the question, it's safer because the wedge has less chance of bouncing or skewing out of where it's being driven into, plastic on plastic only has 1/2 the resistance of bouncing out of the cut as one with timber friction on each face & the incline of the slope is double that of a single wedge which isn't working in the favour of stopping a wedge bouncing out. If wedges bounce out there is more chance of the hinge breaking when the tree sits back down with force, which leads to a Faller being caught by a tree going the wrong way with no escape route, not all fallers may back up their doubled up wedges to prevent this happening or had a few close calls to learn what to do from a near miss. Statistically 1 in 2 million minor incidents will cause a fatality in the building industry, forestry is probably twice as dangerous as that at least.
Thansk

 

[Bwildered]

OK, yes, that was how it was done in the crosscut days. Also, yes, the wedge I have pictured above is more commonly used in bucking applications than in falling ones, but the fact is that if you're any good at bucking, you will only use a wedge to get yourself out of trouble when you have mis-read a bind. Thus, in the modern vernacular, there is no such thing as a "bucking" wedge.

I didn't know there was a difference either, but there is.
Ta

 

[Bwildered]

BW,

Thanks for responding. To save others time, I have highlighted below your responses that explain your reasoning. Are there any other reasons you would add to support your conclusion that this method is safer? Instead of us just theorizing, it would be good if the matters in italics were addressed by the actual proponents, or their pupils.

Ron

Thanks, hopefully that will save me from being accused of not giving any logical reasons, if it's not logical enough then we are operating on different levels or I have a hemispheric understanding gap.
Thansk

 

[rwoods]

No problem, BW.

My opinion doesn't count for much due to inexperience but when I add up the pros and cons I reach a different conclusion. I get the side hold and the "traction" issues but it looks that you need at least three wedges and two bore cuts to do the job of two stacked wedges and as you noted you need to figure this out up front. For some reasons my figuring and the tree's tend to vary as often as you and I do.

I am done for the night as my computer locks up every time I open this thread. Using my phone tain't fun.

Ron

 

[1270d]

As an aside, I have found that putting some pine bark in between wedges worked well when temps are low. Like -20 f or lower. Wedges spit pretty easy then it seems, bark even helped when not stacking. Hard to find any dirt in the winter.

 

[JRoland]

Please explain the difference as told to you between a falling wedge and a bucking wedge. Is it simply single taper versus double taper?

Thanks,

Ron

Felling wedges have barbs on them so they won't spit out.
Bucking wedges do not.
We hadn't really seen the barbed ones that often, but they sell them on treestuff. ( not sure if it's a good idea to post websites here... )
Jason

 

[JRoland]

Is your background in tree service?

Logging, then line clearance, then forestry, then residential tree service. Among other things lol.

 

[madhatte]

I got a case of barbed wedges shipped to me this fall. I haven't used any yet so I don't have an opinion on them. I'll get to them when the ones in my bag are done.

 

[Westboastfaller]

Felling wedges have barbs on them so they won't spit out.
Bucking wedges do not.
We hadn't really seen the barbed ones that often, but they sell them on treestuff. ( not sure if it's a good idea to post websites here... )
Jason

??? I'm not so sure who's telling you this Jason. "Bucking wedges" Felling wedges, bucker pants, Faller Pants...bucking dogs, Falling dogs, ...figuratively speaking. Yes a stout double tapper wedge can be referred to as a bucking wedge. My minimal requirements is to carry three wedges, its part of the training, they also want you to have one double tapper.
To me its a beginner thing. As an experienced guy, I use rounder head corners such as K & H ( "red heads" ) single tapper to insert parallel with my chain. These wedges at 10" are a lifting wedge.

The purpose of the double tapper:
It's when working with minimal room
such as bucking OR felling with small diameter binds or lean.
They don't go very deep into the kerf before been affective. I believe K & H makes a 5.5" bucking or Falling wedge ??
What ever you like?? The doubles are steeper than heavy lifting wedges at about .... 8° I believe??


It serves the same purpose as a broken or cut wedge past the tapper for me.The tapper is basically redundant as I can open the kerf and get it to start if needed. Lets not forget wedges aren't to get you out of trouble but to keep you out of trouble.

I just use textured wedges like mentioned above that work in frozen wood better. Caulked/barbed wedges just add more work which causes fatigue and fatigue causes accidents. Much like the demonstration here. That's why it's not safe. You will notice you have to go a long way for the first barbs to set and most aren't good enough to set the barb..lol total joke.