Hinge Forensics

After about every felling cut (especially with a lot of thought input); i try to read the hinge to understand more. And quite a few cuts in the air get that 1/2 second check to try to expand and polish info for next time..... It is a simple thing to monitor the output, especially with all the input fresh in your mind. And in this field, another fine idea of Mr. Dent's.

Every picture tells a story..... every torn hinge can too i beleive.

This was a tough one that was a sling shot shaped, that i had to take off one arm; which off balanced it extremely, but left as much of the shortened arm as possible for balance; then worked on equalizing the rest.

ButterFlies are Free

Another thing about looking at hinges and figuring out what pulled where, is ya can look at other hinges, from other people and make fair guesstimates as to what transpired days before, trying to exercise and seive out what lessons that can be had for less than usual, someone else has already paid the BeaST (Blood,Sweat & Tears; how do ya like that music?).

So, even at a construction sight i might be lurking, this time with my 'net' (camera) for trapping stuff in my 'jar' (monitor on desk that digital pix get putt into).

Orrrrrrrrrr something like that!
:alien:

:umpkin: Just in time for Halloween, Scary Hinges! :umpkin:

Spyder, I see these and worse all the time as evidence of either attempted or successful firewood theft on the National Forest, falling trees for fuelwood being illegal. So far I have never found a body...but once a squashed Mac! How do so many people survive Darwinian principles???

Nice scairy pics!!! Truly classics. An urban tree care myth caught on film!!!

Perfect example of taking a removal that would have been X dollars to Xsquared dollars.

Was McPeak working in the neighborhood??

OK Holmes,
Here's one for you....
This is a wild cherry I felled today... I would normally show the before pics first and tell the story... In this case here are a couple pics of the hinge.... You can tell the story..........

Story might include:
How was backcut made?
Lean of tree?
was it pulled/pushed? And if so how?
Anything else you can think of?

The infamous mark of the blue glove....

On construction sites i usually assume pushing, especially with such heavily sheared fiber standing. That particular lot, they stripped the whole thing wholesale without mercy. Pushing with heavy equipment puts operator away from direction of fold, also locks into the ground to push off of (rather than pulling to a high position which as it works reduces traction, this is wy on some pulls on tops i like to have a low redirect pulley with all of the pull to top, but none of the friction breaking lift on truck).

Mostly looking for dramatic examples with less hidden charachteristics. Decay, kinda throws clues off etc. Especially wether a missing chunk of fiber from stump was from shear stretching force seperating it and those fibers went with tree as they contracted in a bit from the stretching (instead of staying with stump) or if it was a decayed pocket giving no help or was empty hole anyway. Decay makes patterno of stretched fibers hard to determine too as it interupts it.

i beleive it is logical for the fibers to stretch out a bit then retract fractionally, also that the tree butt would be the mirror image of sutmp stalgmites/holes and more clues to story.

Dutchman strike marks are hard to see anyway, but don't see any.

With the stretched fibers starting middle, lots of forward leveraged pull, fair amount of lean too, not too much from not so many far stretched fibers (but could have been thrown faster, where they didn't stretch) to ooposite side of hinge from lean (save stripe) .

Seems compressed fiber on both sides indicating balanced load somewhat, perhaps by line pulling to front but opposite lean side.

No crystal ball, just observations; thin ice along the way, color shirt that was worn hard to tell from hinge........

Orrrrrrrrr something like that!


:alien:

That report gets you an "A"....
Fairly heavy side lean to thin side of hinge as per your diagram and the below photo....
Here the tree is faced up and ready to fell.... Only thing not shown is the other house.... Should the hinge have failed, tree ends up in the kitchen! House in picture is not threatened...
A careful look at this pic shows pull line set in line with camera angle and a control (or retainer) line set perpendicular to face...
Pull line set in 3:1 Z rig with two men pulling...
Tree is 88' tall and the only remaining lead after failure of two other leads due to cable failure... Cables were ancient and though they may have been set properly at time of installation, the tree had far outgrown their placement.
Also you may see that both pull and retainer lines were set from ground using lacing technique and tied off to trunk several feet above hinge.

Here's the notch....
Cut using 084 with 36" bar.... Decay in center notch is clearly visible... Good wood on both sides, especially right side, which is the tension side of hinge is reassuring... Taperred hinge with retainer line as a back up works for me...
Backcut was started with 36" bar to about 6" of hinge straight across, and finished with 28" bar on compression side (left) of hinge, leaving the full 6" of hinge on tension side.

Here's a final pic showinf felled tree from patio of client's house...
Color shirt: RED

cherry pull

Do the cherry trees down there get the little gnat like, paper winged bugs sucking the leaves turning them whiteish tan? They do bite and are real pests in this area. Good size cherry, typical of most I do around here with the rot problems and size of tree when the customer finally calls to say it time to remove them. You have a bit bigger landing zone with this one. Whould you have hesitated to climb that one if it had to be climbed to set ropes or remove a limb, do you think it was safe enough to climb? I climbed one last year to set ropes and remove two limbs in the wires and when it hit the ground 35' of the top of the one next to it fell out as the first one hit the ground . To think I was going to climb the second one to set ropes scarry. The second one broke off where the woodpeckers had hollowed it out to nest, they didn't leave enough wood to hold the top in. In the pic from the patio it looks like I'm seeing the underside of the leaves but that is what the leaves here look like when the bugs get in them, leaves fall off early but don't kill the trees.

Hey Daniel,

Fairly tough thar with decay, less dramatic signs of stretching etc.; kinda got lucky guessing.....

i woulda hated to guess wrong, and people not think that they could learn something from looking at their hinges to learn/familiarize with the workings of this shorn, single use machine, that we charge with so much work.

Especially there own hinges, after carefull consideration to making the face, where lean was etc. To immediately start stockpiling mentally what these things work like, so that their patterns become familiar and understandable.

i have always thought that by monitoring your output, and folding those lessons of doing better back into successive operations as a strategic evolution performance, positive action etc. This hinge forensics is just my version of that in this field.

So many things come back to the hinge for it is the machine that does the largest of this work singlehandedly ushering 100's of tons of force gracefully. And like any fine machine that has real potential power, polishing out points to allow that power to shine can make it a whole new game, and kinda fun in the 'tuning' sense! With the fine adjustments i can do to the 'power source' of leveraged force of C.o.B. (and added line pulls and direction); the main effect i can have is making the hinging/face slapping machine polished at the pivots, pulls and pushes crafted just for that single task to use that force the best, not a generically made hinge for this specialized, single task. The better i do that, the better the results, and sometimes the awesomeness as so much moves so gracefully against so many of the odds.


Orrrrrrrr something like that!



Tomorrow i might have an interesting one, not as big, dead but not decayed. i think i can take it down by kinda rolling it R around the head of another tree, then coming L under that head to hit target area and not crush 3-12' growth on the R, that is kinda woods anyway...... Kinda limited movement, the longer the spar, the more the far end moves to clear. i try to get the hinge to pull one way in the first part of travel, and take that force pulling to the (right) and slap that force i pulled over on a right step dutchman to then use that force to throw left. Also depending on the other head of the tree to support felling one, but not let motion stop(dangerous) just keep the motion 'rolling' away from head of maintained tree. But it has to look like that the day i do it, but i'll bring me'camera, would like to capture one of those.....

Some older forensic shots, including a goof!

Works in reverse

Folding a lodged tree to 'fold up' and free up, pushing and pulling itself to free side.

This is using these things in reverse.

One side closing early to push to the other side,that is extra wide to let hinge pull that way, then extra pull put in hinge....

So one side is narrow, other wide, with tapered hinge. The narrow face side becomes a step dutchman that pushes to the side that hasn't closed. Also IMLHO causes step side of hinge to rip earlier, invoking hinge taper, and subsequent pull to the opposite side automatically!

All to the shape of rolling off the tree trying to preserve, using it as partial support and direction.

These Dutchman things are said to be dangerous, and carefully working sm./med. with slow falls and plenty of escape time.

Not recomended, walking the outer edge to show the powers here and present, to be assessed and used in smaller portions daily to aid, and to identify the patterns to lock out against happening when they can stand agaisnt you. Also with this much command without a line, placing one in lends more (especially here torqued where the twist would make tree ride upwards slightly as it was leveraged around) power of hinge and direction.

Orrrrrrrrrrrr something like that!

:alien:

This was over another tree, so sent it L (as you look at it)to get out from over the other tree, that sent it toward crushing some stuff, so then drew it back R under neath the other tree top. This way it cleared the top and didn't crush the other lower stuff too.

Using the hinge pull in First part of fall to pull L. then taking that force and slamming it on a dutchman on that L side, to make the tree then go R in the latter parrt of the fall. Taking advantage of the 2 stages of felling of pull in the hinge then push in the face(s).

Kinda like swing tree one way,then the other, by 'chasing' the spar into the cut, slanting it L then R; with saw. Clear out as you send it to slam on Stepped Dutchman of uneven face.

This is to show the power in the faces slapping, and the 2 different phases of Pull on Hinge, then Push in Face, used here more creatively to show how these things should be calcualted to happen in 2 stages, not just pull in the hinge.

This in everyday felling would illustrate the power in the slapping faces, why the faces would be even, no kerfs in hinge or anything, perfect faces that perform a function. Also, the force fed into them should be a balanced even force to throw forward evenly with every cut. This would be another 'arguement' for that tapered hinge, fopr the whole idea there is to balance out the force for an even ride on hinge squarely into the face of fall; this also slaps the L and R faces evenly with balanced force to each side, to serve forward evenly.

2 different phases, both better and safer, more predictable ; balanced as any other motion or machine. IMLHO

Stoped by a demolition site today...

Here's an interesting stump for hinge forensics...
Big Tulip tree

And another pic of same stump....
it's pretty clear to me what went on here... What do you see???