Extreme leaner. How would you drop it?

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Can't stop now. Some say we are over figuring this little tree. Yes but there is a lot at stake. I think it was Gologit who said experienced fallers are dying at alarming regularity due to tree accidents.

My question for the day is "boring the heart out"? I have read it often but have never seen the dimensions and now we have Marshy who I'm guessing is an engineer (conclusion from the force vector diagrams) and bitzer who we all know is the real deal for falling trees in the real world. Let's say we have a solid 20" hard leaning tree and not interested in saving the log or donating a saw or blood to the effort. We start with an open shallow face 4" deep. We now have 16" of wood left and want to bore the heart out, starting from the center of the notch. Dimensions of the heart bore? How about 6" wide and 9" deep?

I am not discounting a chain wrap, coos bay, basic limb cut procedure, or any other viable options and as always there are no guarantees.

I see no way to "bore the heart..." without standing right under the leaner. That is one place I will not stand.

Harry K
 
Pre-split logs are fine with me but chairs, I've had a few and they scare me. Exploding stem, never been at one and don't want to.

Two chairs for me (one was planned for "if it happens") and one exploder. the exploder was my first experience, outboard man on an old, old Mall with a 4' bar - tree was a Tamarack almost 4' DBH. Undercut, start back cut and tree sad straight down. No-one was hurt but the bar had a perfect 90 degree bend in it. It was still putting away.

Harry K
 
to you, thats what he is!...

all of these things you have seen WITHOUT a chain...so putting a chain on it wont make it any worse...
what if it still blows up if he cuts it like you say?

Exactly. An amateur really shouldn't be fooling around with fancy cuts on a dangerous tree. Try them out on one that isn't leaning. The chain/strap is just and added safety. I have put down several hundred trees, some of the bad leaners. I do not consider myself an expert and will have a strap on any suspect tree.

Chain/strap used the same as all the other safety gear. 99% of the time not needed but when it is...

Harry K
 
v v v There's only one solution v v v

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I see no way to "bore the heart..." without standing right under the leaner. That is one place I will not stand.

Harry K
I run a 32" bar everday and you don't need to be under the lean to bore the heart from the face unless the tree is over 4' then you have to be for the first couple inches on the far side.
 
Theres really nothing fancy about these cuts. Like a coos bay backcut. The coos bay is older than power saws. Old timers would have chopped both sides of this tree out until it went. Thats a true coos bay. No face. Boring the backcut is the real fancy cut here. If you take your time and think about it, its common sense- remove compression wood then release tension wood. Keep yer tip out of where it doesn't belong.
 
The guys who want to bore this thing must not like their saws.
Bitz, if you didn't try to make a face cut, could you bore out the heartwood from the side without risking u'r saw? I apparently have no touch with a saw, so when I'm limbing/topping large unsupported limbs I now bore from the side first and trigger from the top. Every time I try to get cute from the bottom I pinch. These always seem to be head high, so it's a reach anyway
 
Bitz, if you didn't try to make a face cut, could you bore out the heartwood from the side without risking u'r saw? I apparently have no touch with a saw, so when I'm limbing/topping large unsupported limbs I now bore from the side first and trigger from the top. Every time I try to get cute from the bottom I pinch. These always seem to be head high, so it's a reach anyway
Jon, when dealing with 5' leaners there is lots of room for all kinds of plunging. Putting a harvester bar on an 880 comes to mind.
 
Bitz, if you didn't try to make a face cut, could you bore out the heartwood from the side without risking u'r saw? I apparently have no touch with a saw, so when I'm limbing/topping large unsupported limbs I now bore from the side first and trigger from the top. Every time I try to get cute from the bottom I pinch. These always seem to be head high, so it's a reach anyway
Clint and the good ole boys do it that way. The supporting wood in the front where the face would be keeps the tree more or less in place. Then they cut out the back or leave a strap. You cant't leave much on the front though, otherwise it will split there. With this hard of a lean (ops tree) it would be tough to do it. I am not a fan of boring as you know. I almost never do other than a heart gut, but yer just barely pokin yer tip in there. Underbuck and top buck yer limbs accordingly. You just have to read em. I still chop myself out every once in a while. Thats one reason to beat wedges with an axe versus a hammer. Trusty ole axe will get you out of many a pinch.
 
Clint and the good ole boys do it that way. The supporting wood in the front where the face would be keeps the tree more or less in place. Then they cut out the back or leave a strap. You cant't leave much on the front though, otherwise it will split there. With this hard of a lean (ops tree) it would be tough to do it. I am not a fan of boring as you know. I almost never do other than a heart gut, but yer just barely pokin yer tip in there. Underbuck and top buck yer limbs accordingly. You just have to read em. I still chop myself out every once in a while. Thats one reason to beat wedges with an axe versus a hammer. Trusty ole axe will get you out of many a pinch.
Thanx Mang!
 
Clint and the good ole boys do it that way. The supporting wood in the front where the face would be keeps the tree more or less in place. Then they cut out the back or leave a strap. You cant't leave much on the front though, otherwise it will split there. With this hard of a lean (ops tree) it would be tough to do it. I am not a fan of boring as you know. I almost never do other than a heart gut, but yer just barely pokin yer tip in there. Underbuck and top buck yer limbs accordingly. You just have to read em. I still chop myself out every once in a while. Thats one reason to beat wedges with an axe versus a hammer. Trusty ole axe will get you out of many a pinch.

My "go to" in pinches is drop the power head and grab a second saw. Last week that didn't work too well, I had both of them pinched. Had to chain up and yank the log to free the bars up.

Harry K
 
Good news to is down. Safely and with no drama. I did get my bar stuck trying to clip the edges but grabbed Bbig Bbirtha and was able to get it out with out any issue.
Then hit the trigger and down she came .
May not be pretty but it worked.

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And my wife doing her best Vanna impression.
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So no face then? Just bored and then cut the strap? You cut the middle from both sides? You get pinched on the side nearest the camera?
 
I put a small face in and only bored about halfway through and then got pinched opposite side of camera trying to gust take the side out like a coos bay. I tried to just use the nose and guess I got in deep enough to pinch. Did a cut just above it with second saw then cut into the back about an inch and it released the bar. Then I finished the back cut and she went down a lot slower then expected. Started a small chair but was stopped as soon as it got into where I bored. Slick as a whistle other then pinching the nose of my bar. But I knew that was possible going into it. The compression wood was just higher then I thought. But hay it worked out great and I am sure many people will Lear a lot from this thread.

I did not try to bore from the fave just because I had so little room I could not get the saw between the face and rhetoric ground.
 
If a plunge cut was used, it would be the first cut I'd put in, then a shallow undercut and a fast blast thru the backcut.
Most chairing is the result of the deadly dutchman and a slow cutting saw.

you mean do the plunge cut and gypo the thing? shallow undercut taking both corners with it LOL. a guy hasn't been scared until he sees a 5' spruce chair on a real steep hill with a ladder carved in the ground with an axe going uphill for an escape route. :givebeer:
 
you mean do the plunge cut and gypo the thing? shallow undercut taking both corners with it LOL. a guy hasn't been scared until he sees a 5' spruce chair on a real steep hill with a ladder carved in the ground with an axe going uphill for an escape route. :givebeer:
I am glad I was not in that predicament.
 
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