Falling pics 11/25/09

[treeslayer2003]

you gonna give up the rest of the pot?

the rest of the pot of coffee...................jeez guys lol.

 

[treeslayer2003]

I was gonna suggest it was just old age, then remembered that you are young and handsome compared to me

This thread has been a great read recently. Thanks boys for all the great posts/pictures

Question I asked you boys a few years ago, but I'll ask again. About what percentage of trees you fall do exactly what you want them to? Currently I'm up to about 3% going right, 47% working out all right in a lucky sort of way, 35% doing the exact opposite of what I want, and 15% destroying something that I hold dear (sounds bad, but it's actually a huge improvement)

ok Jon, honestly near 100% but..........i am not falling yard trees or hazard tees near power lines or the like. most all of my falling is in the open woods.
most of getting woods trees into a lay is reading the stand, i know before i ever start a saw what most of the stand wants to do and plan my lay according. the one or two od balls will need wedgeing as will trees near the end of my lay that would fall across boundry lines or waterways or what have you.
i will tell you a secrete.........most pine stands can be put into an easterly lay easily..........don't pull mah fallers card boys lol.

 

[treeslayer2003]

if its cooler this week Jon, i'll try to get ya some new pics.

 

[HuskStihl]

I figured pros only miss once in a while.

 

[Metals406]

I figured pros only miss once in a while.

Exactly! [emoji2]

 

[treeslayer2003]

I figured pros only miss once in a while.

i messed up on an easy large poplar in the spring.........cut the hinge half off, it fell 90 degrees into a stream...........it was that ported 660s fault lol
a mistake i hate to admit but a mistake non the less............i did not make another since.

 

[Metals406]

I mess up all the time, but I have different levels of mess up.

The little ones you just keep going, making a mental note for next time.

The big ones, those usually leave a mark, & are luckily less frequent.

 

[Gologit]

Question I asked you boys a few years ago, but I'll ask again. About what percentage of trees you fall do exactly what you want them to? Currently I'm up to about 3% going right, 47% working out all right in a lucky sort of way, 35% doing the exact opposite of what I want, and 15% destroying something that I hold dear (sounds bad, but it's actually a huge improvement)

I'm still thinking about how to answer that question.

 

[slowp]

Two good answers are:

6.

Around a couple more weeks...

 

[bitzer]

Jon- Mike pretty much nailed it, with lay outs and how trees are going to fall. Typically you only have a tree or two to cut at a time. We have many and more room to do it in. This is kind of tough question to answer without sounding arrogant in some way. The only time I don't get a tree to do what I want is when I am asking way too much of the holding wood or the holding wood ends up being punky. I had a tree go 90 degrees from the lay back in June. That was the first time in I don't remember how long. It was a hard maple. Last tree of the day (in a hurry). Had a little cross wind and I cut the hinge up too tight before getting wedges beat in far enough. It was side heavy to where it eventually fell. I could have easily avoided it and it barely avoided my truck. It happens for me, but rarely. Like once a year kind of thing. I think there is a difference in what I want the tree to do and what it physically can do. Like do I get every tree to commit to the face when swinging some heavy side leaning sob up hill? No, but they usually fall close enough to where I need them. Do I hang trees up? Sure, but I can almost always fix that with the next tree, or just buck them if horizontal enough. Hanging trees in a select cut is super easy to do and not always a function of bad technique. When swinging a tree you may get some brushing of limbs that slows it down or the tree takes a bad bounce in the wrong direction. How about when you think you've laid your tree out perfect to save it out and at the last second it takes a bad roll off of some pulp tree and lands so the crotch splits the last couple of logs? I did what I was supposed to but other forces can be at work. As you can see there are a lot of gray areas to your question. I could go on. Ask Icepick my percentage. I laid out for him for two days while he bucked because he had a bum knee. Reading the stand, lean, and limb weight are the biggest things and you need to be able to do that within seconds if you want to make any money. Otherwise you're just standing around looking at the scenery.

 

[northmanlogging]

Probably about 1 in a 100 goes way wrong, and about 50% don't do exactly what I want, but close enough to not worry much about it, 30% I could drive nails with, the rest take more work then I like to think about to get them going more or less where I want them. Generaly speaking though I hit my lay withing 5-10 degrees ish, unless I decide that crossing the lay is the best thing for it.

But I do work around houses, powerlines, cars, roads...

The most recent one to go funky was like usual a little pecker pole hemlock, that was limb locked with a big maple, wedged it over and every thing was going fine until it bound up in that maple branch, so I cut the hinge all the way off thinking it would roll out, maybe. It didn't it almost stood back up and then started slipping off towards the power lines (only about 20 feet away). Luckily the skidder wasn't to far away and I could quick like a bunny wrap a choker and pull it out, that and the other maple next to it caught it and kept it out of the lines...

Seems the biggest issue I have lately is breakage, usually by misjudging the landscape, whacking a hill pretty hard or tossing the top off a drop off, the worst was a very nice cedar, hit the ground hard and detonated the best log in the middle. probably lost $1000 on that little stunt.

 

[HuskStihl]

Thanks guys. I was just curious. I don't consider it arrogance to have a high success rate and report it accurately. I also assume y'all don't obsess on "perfect" and are probably on to the next tree before the dust settled on the previous one. Being 80% perfect in the day job wouldn't fly either

 

[northmanlogging]

Not arrogant, just anyone that says they never have one go wrong is a ****ing liar...

And uh there Doc, I really hope you have better then 80% success at yer day job... at least better then 80% survival rate anyway.

 

[treeslayer2003]

couldn't like that post northy, it cost ya money..........yea, like bitzer said, a big oak with lots of big limbs can lead to breaking and costing grade logs like yer saying.
thats why in oak, some times its better to miss the lay in favor of floppin it down not on a crotch.

 

[northmanlogging]

ya know the craptastic thing is it went right where I wanted it, just couldn't handle the impact. Split lengthwise and cracked a bunch of times, like a tooth pick someone has been chewing on.

 

[Twindad]

a big oak with lots of big limbs can lead to breaking and costing grade logs like yer saying.
thats why in oak, some times its better to miss the lay in favor of floppin it down not on a crotch.

Ya mean like this:

 

[RandyMac]

 

[treeslayer2003]

Ya mean like this:

oh man that'll make ya sick........prolly lost 500 bucks right there.
some times there is nuthin ya can do short of having a climber come top it out. makes me awful mad when it happens.

 

[jwilly]

Log buyer came to our job about 20 years ago and I was bucking the split logs into firewood. He said, "what are you doing, I'll buy those half logs." Not veneer but he paid well for the 1/2 logs.

 

[treeslayer2003]

white oak will still stave if its big.