1/3 Diameter Notch Rule

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I cut down a pine tree today that was bigger than my bar. It was already topped and limbed so it was just a 12-14' stem. Good to try something new on (maybe). I did the face cut and then bored the center out of the tree through the face. Then I did my back cut from both sides. Did a bad job of making the two back cuts meet in the middle but it did go down exactly in the direction of the face cut. Unfortunately, my face cut was a little (lot?) off direction wise and the top ended up about 6' from where I wanted it. Had the stub been 3 feet longer, it would have crushed a swing set. LOL... It's amateur hour at the House of Haywire ! :greenchainsaw:

Ian

Cool! It's great to talk things over and share information, but the only way to find out is to give it a try yourself.

I think your actually picked a pretty tricky one to practice on. Without the weight of the top and limbs to pull 'er over, I would go big notch and watch out for the stem "riding" the bar on the stump (once again, don't know if I worded that right).
 
Whut's a Humboldt?

I know it's a county in northern California whose primary export is a folk medicine for glaucoma, ever since the mighty 009 harvested so many of the redwoods :chainsaw: (or was it the 090?), but I think there is more to it than that. I'll check old threads. Just curious.:monkey:

OK, I got it now. It's an upside-down face cut. Saves wood at the bottom of the log. Cool. Works on BIG trees, many of which are in Humboldt County. Makes sense.
 
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it might not sound manly, but put a string around the tree and draw the cut lines in with chalk...

Now that's an idea. Will use that on the big oak I'm dropping sometime in the next couple weekends. It's 30"er.

I use the saw to make superficial marks around the tree

I tried that.. but they didn't meet in the middle so I just winged it... LOL

Fuzly said:
I think your actually picked a pretty tricky one to practice on. Without the weight of the top and limbs to pull 'er over, I would go big notch and watch out for the stem "riding" the bar on the stump (once again, don't know if I worded that right).

Yep... should have done a deeper face. It was about 1/3, but 1/2 might have been better. It needed 3" of lift to get it over. I had it wedged early on so no bar pinching occurred.

Ian
 
I cut down a pine tree today that was bigger than my bar. It was already topped and limbed so it was just a 12-14' stem. Good to try something new on (maybe). I did the face cut and then bored the center out of the tree through the face. Then I did my back cut from both sides. Did a bad job of making the two back cuts meet in the middle but it did go down exactly in the direction of the face cut. Unfortunately, my face cut was a little (lot?) off direction wise and the top ended up about 6' from where I wanted it. Had the stub been 3 feet longer, it would have crushed a swing set. LOL... It's amateur hour at the House of Haywire ! :greenchainsaw:

Ian

When you bore the face, poke the tip of the bar out the backside just a bit. It will show you exactly where to put the backcut in.
 
I cut down a pine tree today that was bigger than my bar. It was already topped and limbed so it was just a 12-14' stem. Good to try something new on (maybe). I did the face cut and then bored the center out of the tree through the face. Then I did my back cut from both sides. Did a bad job of making the two back cuts meet in the middle but it did go down exactly in the direction of the face cut. Unfortunately, my face cut was a little (lot?) off direction wise and the top ended up about 6' from where I wanted it. Had the stub been 3 feet longer, it would have crushed a swing set. LOL... It's amateur hour at the House of Haywire ! :greenchainsaw:

Ian

OK, I'm a noob re fancy felling techniques, but why use this method? Why do you want to take the centre out of the hinge?
 
Now that's an idea. Will use that on the big oak I'm dropping sometime in the next couple weekends. It's 30"er.



And if you are on the lines, no one will ever know...:greenchainsaw:

A small plastic plumbers level placed on the bar works well also... It's amazing how far out your can be on sloping ground or with leaning trees.
 
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OK, I'm a noob re fancy felling techniques, but why use this method? Why do you want to take the centre out of the hinge?

Actually I didn't need to use that with this tree, I just wanted to try it. If you have a tree that is more than twice your bar length in diameter (which this one wasn't), you bore into the face at the level that your back cut will be and sweep the center of the tree out. That way when you do your back cut you no longer have to worry about the bar not being long enough to reach the middle from each side. I suppose you would try to plunge it in and take as little of the actual hinge out as you can. I found it difficult to do the sweep since I wasn't able to use my dogs as a pivot and ended up taking out more of the hinge than I liked. A set of large dogs and a more open face would have made it easier. I was smart enough to keep the camera pointed away from that stump. LOL

Ian
 
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Actually I didn't need to use that with this tree, I just wanted to try it. If you have a tree that is more than twice your bar length (which this one wasn't), you bore into the face at the level that your back cut will be and take the center of the tree out. That way when you do your back cut you no longer have to worry about the bar not being long enough to reach the middle from each side.

Ian
gotcha
 
A small platic plumbers level placed on the bar works well also... It's amazing how far out your can be on sloping ground or with leaning trees.

Hehe.... I fixed this bubble level up with a magnetic base last year for exactly that purpose, but never have used it.

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holy crap

LOL...And then what?

Okay so I have some experience with felling here in the midwest
and even some from when I went to school in Montana

but if my little MS250 saw that picture of that huge notch she wouldn't even start lol
that is awesome she would refuse to do anything out of fear




Respectfully
GEO
 
Nothing huge, nothing fancy, just a decent stump.
It was a 22" dbh Ponderosa Pine. State Forestry won't allow humbolt's on this job (sorry).

JonesSchmidtJob011.jpg

JonesSchmidtJob012.jpg


Andy

good looking stump...what was the saw/bar combo?

here is one i cut awhile back..it is about 5 1/2' across, 660 w/36", slightly different cutting method....I use 2 "ears" at the corners of the hinge rather than a solid hinge all the way across..had to swing this one away from the railroad tracks..so i started on the far side of the stump and came around...works like a charm.
cuttingtrees031.jpg

and this is the tree that it came from
cuttingtrees005.jpg
 
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