Overkill338
M-Tronicly Obsessed
How dare I insinuate such a thing lol
New chain vs sharpened.
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How dare I insinuate such a thing lol
Yes..no you limit and play within it.
so then that's the right decision for you.
pointless trying to fall the back one unless you can get it to roll out if its in the banches on one side of the tree.
which is common. If Im Danger thee falling (DTF) I would fence post it down until it falls or fall them together (non salvage) In cases where it was less work I cut my holding wood to the outside and leave a little square then bore in the trunk a slot for my axe head and lift. if you are pulling then you are definatly on the wrong side. Works for up to 16" 40cm at times. easy to smash your axe if you aren't fast
I wish I got payed a stick of wood for those I probably made half a dollar to
$3 for most of them for the time it took
Our native hardwoods aren't conifers so they don't roll out of anything very easily, they need space to come down safely & easily, they have bushy heads with not much weight in them & will get hung up so easily with a branch or vine.
Just a charity firewood cutter, but I'm with Bw on new chain. Probably unlike him or the rest of you, seldom, if ever, do I achieve out of the box performance with my resharpening. However, I did experiment with some Stihl square and found it to be fast but short lived. I rigged up a Gransberg jig to re-sharpen it but was unable to duplicate the factory angles. Though my filing was inconsistent and looked bad in comparison to factory and the posted pictures of others' work, some encouraged me to run it anyway. So I did.
I felled and bucked to 8' lengths this red oak. Tad over 25" at the stump.
Bucked this red oak to 8" lengths. That's my cutting partner, Brian, halving the bucks because the tractor could not lift them.
Felled and bucked this white oak. Saved out a 17' log off the butt.
Felled and bucked these twin 27" red oaks.
Felled and bucked these two dead poplars. 20" and 30".
Felled and bucked a 24" red oak, several 15" poplars and a bunch of small junk.
Then bucked this large oak.
All without even a touch up on the chain. Later hit the dirt and the ride was over.
Don't know the moral of this story, beyond to say that similar to my minimal falling skills, my filing gives credence to the saying that even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
Ron
hedge hog
ArboristSite Guru
Squirrels can can find barbed wire in hedge if you want to try your filing skills out
Or tee post in a tree
I still take them to grinder
But soft wood like you described I knock 10
Thousands off the rakers before I start
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
But you know what you are doing. Hacks like me are just that. I started to cut that large oak with my 125 with a freshly sharpened round filed chain but I did something wrong as it would just about rip your arms out of their sockets. When I get time I will examine the chain to determine what I did wrong. Ron
PS Didn’t find a t-post in a tree but I did find a t-post with a tree - dead on with the first stem of the twin red oak shown. Not intended but representative.
PS Didn’t find a t-post in a tree but I did find a t-post with a tree - dead on with the first stem of the twin red oak shown. Not intended but representative.
Ron's Report Card: Dec 2018
PE --------- A+
Ron remains amazingly very Physical and is a pleasure to have around
Good Job!
Art----------B
Ron can now pee his name in the sawdust this semester but had reverted in areas, dribbles more on the front as time goes on.
Ron's is capable of being semetrically sound BUT he gets extremely disorientated in his back cuts.
I have had a lot of students over the years along with much personal experience. The findings general stem back to deep issues in ones youth....or too many drinks the evening prior.
The latter pretains to both problem, A & B noted above
This is an area I would like to spend more time with him on to correct this little problem? I refer to problem B only.
Room for improvments
Physics:..........C
Ron uses wedges (good ones) and cuts good 'wedges'. Large undercut on tall trees that need wedging require a lot more force as we've reduced the lifting point to hinge distance dramatically changing the lift ratio. Its gears basically. Its like shifting to a high gear going up a hill. Nobody would Do that.
The deeper the undercut the harder the lift, the greater the force needed the greator the disturbance.but the faster the lift. The laws of physics. 25% on wedged trees and sleek 10" K&H and alternate the hits placing wedges furthest from the hinge. *especially watch deep undercut on wedging snags.
*Be sure you are not chasing undercut to merry up cuts that are out of range????????? That one I'm questioning.
or where you trying to make a deep undercut? as it appeared. 45- 50% perhaps?
IDK if the first tree was wedged? deep cut it appears though. good for sort studies to manipulate centre of gravity on shorter straight trunks though.
Site preparation..... see grade below
see you next year
Thanks for sharing Ron
obviously I like to have a joke but a wise woman once told me there is always an element of truth to a joke?
Merry Christmas
good sized stuff eh.
PE --------- A+
Ron remains amazingly very Physical and is a pleasure to have around
Good Job!
Art----------B
Ron can now pee his name in the sawdust this semester but had reverted in areas, dribbles more on the front as time goes on.
Ron's is capable of being semetrically sound BUT he gets extremely disorientated in his back cuts.
I have had a lot of students over the years along with much personal experience. The findings general stem back to deep issues in ones youth....or too many drinks the evening prior.
The latter pretains to both problem, A & B noted above
This is an area I would like to spend more time with him on to correct this little problem? I refer to problem B only.
Room for improvments
Physics:..........C
Ron uses wedges (good ones) and cuts good 'wedges'. Large undercut on tall trees that need wedging require a lot more force as we've reduced the lifting point to hinge distance dramatically changing the lift ratio. Its gears basically. Its like shifting to a high gear going up a hill. Nobody would Do that.
The deeper the undercut the harder the lift, the greater the force needed the greator the disturbance.but the faster the lift. The laws of physics. 25% on wedged trees and sleek 10" K&H and alternate the hits placing wedges furthest from the hinge. *especially watch deep undercut on wedging snags.
*Be sure you are not chasing undercut to merry up cuts that are out of range????????? That one I'm questioning.
or where you trying to make a deep undercut? as it appeared. 45- 50% perhaps?
IDK if the first tree was wedged? deep cut it appears though. good for sort studies to manipulate centre of gravity on shorter straight trunks though.
Site preparation..... see grade below
see you next year
Thanks for sharing Ron
obviously I like to have a joke but a wise woman once told me there is always an element of truth to a joke?
Merry Christmas
good sized stuff eh.
Overkill338
M-Tronicly Obsessed
I'm definitely no pro. The Oregon chain I resharpened, I had a friend helping me. He couldnt be here, so I literally sent a picture of every cutter as I finished. It was time consuming but very educational.
Wbf, thanks for the critique. I learned something that I never thought about - the effect of the depth of the face cut on wedging. Also made me think that I need to learn more about depth of face cuts as I general go deep assuming good wood and little back lean. I wasn't chasing the cuts here - hopefully I have learned my lesson that chasing makes a deep cut even deeper. Not sure my terminology is correct but when I mis-match, I try to determine if a clean up shave, deeper cut or a block cut would best remedy the problem.
You never know for sure what a tree is going to do, especially when you are judging lean and limb weight. Each stem of that twin red oak needed to be turned to the left to miss a fence. The first had quite a bit of forward lean. I greatly misjudged the load. I cut a thick hinge with the intent of continuing to a pie shape to get it to turn, but the hinge broke at 5" before I started to pivot (that is the tree that found the t-post) - see photos. Its twin (the one laying on top in the photo above and seen in the first photo below) had a little back lean and fell with the pie shape hinge exactly where I wanted both stems to fall.
As to being disoriented, I stay disoriented; you should see my "level" cuts while on sloping ground.
Back to chain sharpening, if I could regularly get my chains back to typical Stihl out of the box sharpness instead of occasionally, I would be a happy man.
Ron
You never know for sure what a tree is going to do, especially when you are judging lean and limb weight. Each stem of that twin red oak needed to be turned to the left to miss a fence. The first had quite a bit of forward lean. I greatly misjudged the load. I cut a thick hinge with the intent of continuing to a pie shape to get it to turn, but the hinge broke at 5" before I started to pivot (that is the tree that found the t-post) - see photos. Its twin (the one laying on top in the photo above and seen in the first photo below) had a little back lean and fell with the pie shape hinge exactly where I wanted both stems to fall.
As to being disoriented, I stay disoriented; you should see my "level" cuts while on sloping ground.
Back to chain sharpening, if I could regularly get my chains back to typical Stihl out of the box sharpness instead of occasionally, I would be a happy man.
Ron
Deeper face cut / notch equals harder wedging?
How do we know how far into the tree to cut?
Teach me how to line up my back cuts as well.
Also how do I stack wedges without them flying back 20 feet out of the tree
Why do I cut my wedges.
Looks like you might be using too large a wedge (length wise) for the size tree you are cutting.
Going too deep on your face cut will only exasperate that problem since you now have even less room between the hinge area and your bar to use your wedge without it contacting the bar.
Going too deep on your face cut also lets more of the back lean weight settle back right where you're going to attempt to lift, making the lift more difficult, and more prone to the wedge bouncing out instead of sliding in and lifting.
Your face cut should normally only be approximatley 1/3 the total diameter.
As to stacking wedges, and preventing them from kick out:
If you do need to stack, don't stack them directly on top each other. Stagger them, say 45 degrees or so. That way the 'amount' of lift with each hit is more gradual and lets the wedge slide in easier with less chance of bounce back.
Also, some wedges are totally smooth, and some have the little anti-kick out spikes on one side of them. The spike kind will dig into the wood and less prone to kick out.
If stacking that type, the smooth sides go against each other, with the spiked sides against the wood, top and bottom.
If you're routinely wedging various sizes of trees, it's good to have several wedge sizes.
Small - 5"
Medium - 8"
Large - 10 - 12"
Example:
https://www.amazon.com/Gator-Wedge-...&qid=1545884085&sr=8-5&keywords=timber+wedges
That wedge has been around for a while. Good input on how deep on the face cut
I’ve got a pile of wedges I wanted west boast to give me some ****
I’ve got a pile of wedges I wanted west boast to give me some ****
I’ve got four or five layed out where I’m cutting. That hacked up one gets used the most. I like him. It’s a ten I think
In all honesty I still suck at stacking wedges. Hence the little shins I cut
Hey, nothing wrong with that....whatever it takes to get it done.
Nice saw by the way. Gotta love that era of saws.
I usually ran 288's and 394s back when I was logging.
I recently bought a pretty decent 272xp as a larger firewood saw. I totally restored it with oem parts. Loving the lighter weight and the power of that 272
Yeah dig the two series. I have a 288 also. Bout the only real thing wrong on that 272 is ****** plastics
first chain I got for my elec chain saw project turned out to be 2 links short, despite measuring it on the counter. so they added one and it took a Stihl53. fits good, and a test run sounded real smooth. I also had some time so I put a couple of sharpening passes on my Echo C@-271T. right away I could tell the dif. just handling the chain on the bar. I did not do anything but sharpen it. I will blow it clean in the morning after the rains pass.
I have had very good results with my hand sharpening. I take each tooth as a project. ck it out b4 and after. feel it. saws always cut much better, quicker after a sharpening of the chain. but, I have to admit... a new stihl chain is quite nice. very sharp... and definitely has an attitude of "I mean business!"
my chains cut great, but little doubt the new Stihl will cut better.
thanks for the inputs along the way...
I have had very good results with my hand sharpening. I take each tooth as a project. ck it out b4 and after. feel it. saws always cut much better, quicker after a sharpening of the chain. but, I have to admit... a new stihl chain is quite nice. very sharp... and definitely has an attitude of "I mean business!"
my chains cut great, but little doubt the new Stihl will cut better.
thanks for the inputs along the way...
oh, and we got comp'd a nice new cap... 
Good pic. I have fallen a lot of different hardwood. Not oak. Maple can be heavy with offset weight.
but Oak runs anywhere from 50- 60lb per cu ft. Doug fir is about 38 lb on coast and 35 in thre interior. Red cedar about 27 -30lb Western Hemlock about 40lb per cu ft.
I was talking about "gears" in terms of leverage points. Just like a leverage handle. Like putting a pipe over a wrench for leverage. Its no more complicated than that. So if you have a 8ft dia tree and a 2ft undercut 25% on wedged tree when you have just under 6ft of wedging leverage at the back. short handle leverage vs long handle leverage. back of tree to hinge ....the greater distance the easier.
So you are alternating 2-3 ..maybe 4 wedges at the back one inch thich and one or two are all the way in. how much has it moved 1ft back from the hinge? About 1/16 " would be an educated guess.
think of trying to wedge on the side with something like that?
That's what makes it possible to wedge big trees. (increased leverage points.
I loosely referred to it as been like
gears as its very dramatically changing your lift ratio.
Now you have your wedges.
Thinner wedge! 'lower gears'.
In your picture you have the best wedges and not the ones you like.
The Grass valley K&H "red heads" from Medford Oregon.
I carry 3, 10" and one 12" and the same in my back pack that all stay on the feling face at night. The 10's are about between 5& 6/8" (3/4) and the 12 standard about an 1".
The main reason I buy the 12" for is to release my 10's. That and that little extra may get the tree over if its getting easy.
I chase with it and use it in the alternation if needed but its the thin ones that make it soooo much better.
They are lightly tectured and have a very low coeficent of friction.
good through the cold winter and all.
They are great for stacking largely due to their sleekness. They are rounded to hit in the corner to keep them straight when wedging small dia parelell with the hinge. As well stacking if they start to spread.
* @jchipps never heard spreading them on purpose to alternate your wedges in a stack? Props to him. I have banged my share of wedges in that way that want to spread but it never thought of it as a teckneque. It would be really have ro do with a square head. He is definitely right. You have to not only alternate your stacks up alternate your wedges in the stacks. (very important)
Otherwise its a wasted swing. hitting them both at once. I saw a vid of "Bucking Billy" He did a really good job of this heavy backleaner 3' fir. Did the back cut first but he is a horable wedger. Starts out with an 8lb sledge
(I could have been it pretty fast with my 3 1/2 lb 22" handle) On two separate times he does 4 hits in a row on the wedge closest to him?
he had at least 4 rows. Then be stacks all them up. and stays with the sledge? Pretty hard to hit one wedge in a stack with big sledge at waist height. Finally he picks up a 5lb falling axe (wedge melter) then he starts getting somewhere again. Saw him doing a small dia with a 10" k&H from the side. He did not know to hit it on the corner to drive it straight as there is only pressure on the one side of the wedge. He kept straightening it and hitting it flush again....lol
Anyway I always just aim to hit my one wedge in the stack when at chest hight and I can't angle the head. usually I can. I go weight on left foot for top wedge and hit with the width of the axe on the outer edge
and then right step bottom edge.
As mentioned, short wedges may be good for some guys to find their style for small diameter. remember they are generally steep. You can modify the thickness?
As said 1/3 the dia undercut. 25% on a forward leaner if possible. 25% on wedge trees.
Wright some more later on.
