The "Not So Pro" discussion thread...of course Pros are welcome!

[northmanlogging]

Generalizing:

Take lean and direction off the table - should you face the bad side or the good side or does it matter?

Put a slight lean back on the table, should you fall with the lean, angle to lean or against the lean? I get the pounding part, so assume sound top.


Ron

Hope this answers...

You want your hold wood to be in as much solid wood as possible, so if fall direction and lean are not issues, go for that.

But if fall direction and lean are an issue, then you have to make do with what you have, doing your damnedest to have something resembling solid wood in the hold wood. barring that go for hold wood all the way across, or as far as possible anyways, this is where that ole adage of 30% face gets completely **** canned and you work with what you've got, be it shallow or super deep, as long as you leave room for wedges, or don't get yer saw pinched on face cut...

Essentially, any punky wood isn't doing anyone any good, having nothing but punky wood in yer hold wood, will cause bad things to happen, any punky wood in hold wood will cause the tree to do things you don't necessarily want it to do, basically severing one side or the other causing it to turn, often in a bad direction.

Snag falling is an ass ache, with the best of conditions (cause its a snag, and already the worst of conditions) when possible dump em with their lean, when not possible take the next easiest route, the more difficulty in tipping one the more likely your are to get hurt or killed trying to tip it.

 

[rwoods]

tb, go ahead and shoot me as I had a 1” rope in the back of the truck as well as a pull rope. I could blame my failure to use it on it being frozen solid to the truck bed which it was, but the truth is it never occurred to me to use it.

No real stress after finding it didn’t want to fall. The heevee jeevees was from a fear that it was weighed on the right side and would splinter off to the side while I was cutting - a fear proved to be unfounded. It stayed intact even after slamming the ground.

Ron

 

[tramp bushler]

Hey. Kind of off topic question here. How many of the old bunch from a few years ago are still on this site. ??
It's great to see you guys that your still walk in, talkin and cutting. !!

 

[rwoods]

NM, this one was so far gone the only way to get a full hinge was to face the good side - just happened to be the direction I wanted which is why I asked. Except for wind twisted damage, it is fairly common on oaks here to gut the middle leaving “posts” for the hinge. If I had faced the bad side, two post hinges would have been the result which on this tree should have been plenty. I only do a few of these a year so I don’t have much experience - no one around to teach me hands on so I pester you guys. I appreciate you guys taking the time to give me long distance advice.

Though I like challenges, I much prefer sound live trees. There is a reason that I cut these snags but this post is long enough already.

Ron

 

[Skeans]

Hey. Kind of off topic question here. How many of the old bunch from a few years ago are still on this site. ??
It's great to see you guys that your still walk in, talkin and cutting. !!

It's great to learn every day of the week, if you're not learning you're dead.

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[northmanlogging]

Hey. Kind of off topic question here. How many of the old bunch from a few years ago are still on this site. ??
It's great to see you guys that your still walk in, talkin and cutting. !!

Gologit (mostly retired shows up when he's not playing old man and the sea/sky) Randymac makes an appearance now and again, Slowp is mostly not around (cause rampant macho boys and well she is retired...), Madhatte, Bitzer, still show up fairly often. A handful of the muntuckey boys still show up now and again, but less and less often. trx250... aka the junk man, is still around.

the rest more or less bogged off after the famous hacking, or shortly thereafter because of access issues. I keep in touch with a few over Facebook etc, like 2chains, and treeslayer...

Many others have come and gone.

Doc HuskStihl, has retired from "falling" and is focusing on Family and Doctoring, last I heard he was alive and doing fine though

 

[tramp bushler]

There is a HuskStihl over on Firewood Hoarders forum. Didn't know if its the same guy.
Mdavlee isn't doing a lot with hopping up saws at this time. He just got a Longhorn cow and calf. He has been farming and welding.
I see Mastermind is still doing saws.

 

[Gologit]

No real stress after finding it didn’t want to fall. The heevee jeevees was from a fear that it was weighed on the right side and would splinter off to the side while I was cutting - a fear proved to be unfounded. It stayed intact even after slamming the ground.

Ron

You did fine. There's no rule book for snags, you just do what you think will work and be ready to run if things blow up.
I cut a lot of snags and the only ones I was ever comfortable with were the ones that I'd cripple up a little and then drive with another tree.

 

[fool skip]

Got a snag story if you want to read. I had been watching this big doug fir snag above me for a couple days. I was working my way up to it and was planning on falling it first thing in the morning. You tried to get your snags first thing because of the tendency of 056's to set them on fire with the muffler. I was just packing my jugs out for the day and thought I would give this ole snag a good look see. I was walking around it trying to figure out how to fall it without getting killed from the loose bark and shaky top. I took a big drink out of my water jug while looking up the tree:: whoops that was the gas jug! I sat down for a bit to see what was going to happen; man that burned. Pretty soon I dropped my pants and just squirted a stream from the back end. I was too dizzy to walk for a bit but finally made it to the truck. I downed a couple beers real quick, threw up, more from the back end then drove on home. Took about a day for full recovery. After that I always carried a canteen. You really don't realize how hard you concentrate while cutting timber.

 

[tramp bushler]

That's the best story I've read in a while.

 

[Gologit]

That's the best story I've read in a while.

'Bout time you got back here.

 

[Gologit]

Doc HuskStihl, has retired from "falling" and is focusing on Family and Doctoring, last I heard he was alive and doing fine though

I think Jon's hands were starting to feel the affects of the saw. If he had to make a choice between keeping his hands in good shape for cutting people rather than cutting wood I'm glad he made the choice he did.
The kind of surgery he performs makes life better for a lot of people.

Still, we kinda miss his sense of humor around here. He's definitely one of the good guys.

 

[tramp bushler]

I wouldn't want to see a surgeon shaking his hands around like you see happening in a crummy full of fallers.

These modern spring mounted saw are SOOOO much smoother than everything before.
But, the cumulative weight and strain has a real negative effect.
But, running a modern power saw is a lot easier on the hands than framing houses.

 

[woodfarmer]

I got carpel tunnel, from framing. Before air nailers were popular. (They don’t drive a nail like a good aol fashion 3 1/2” spike), I found running the 066 for a few hours today I was getting that funny feeling in the underside of my forearm.

 

[tramp bushler]

One of my problems with powersaws is I like an aggressive chain. And I like 404 chain. Those add up to hands and arms taking a thrashing . Along with certain parts of the saw.

 

[tramp bushler]

I got carpel tunnel, from framing. Before air nailers were popular. (They don’t drive a nail like a good aol fashion 3 1/2” spike), I found running the 066 for a few hours today I was getting that funny feeling in the underside of my forearm.

Which forearm. Trigger side or handlebar side ??

 

[woodfarmer]

Trigger, which was also my hammer hand. Used Estwing hammer, not much forgiveness.
There is more stress on the arm when felling, until I get the saw dawgs in. Need bigger dawgs than stock for my 460. Bucking isn’t bad at all, I guess because I’m just letting the weight of the saw fall through the log.

 

[rwoods]

Don't know but this may be more of an East coast question. Most all of the trees over 24" that I cut are oaks, followed by maples, and a few beeches and poplars. Only rarely do I cut other species of that size. Yesterday was one of those rarities. LO asked me to cut a 28" locust. Heretofore my experience with locust has been spindly weed trees 15" and under and splitting for fence posts as a teenager. This tree was more like an oak - it had a nice straight truck and a large bushy canopy. It was located on a small bank at the intersection of a county lane and a county road and was weighed over the lane. I treated it like I would an oak and tried to fall it against the weight into a field but with four rows of wedges maxed out and a rope not high enough in the tree, it required hinge thinning beyond my comfort zone to start the fall. You guessed it - the hinge broke almost immediately in the fall, the rope tension pulled the trunk forward which caused the stem to plunge straight into the ground about three feet from the stump whereupon the tree spun and fell almost 90* from the intended. Four hours later my cutting partner and I had the canopy out of the lane - not talking firewood here - lengths as big as my 4wd truck would pull. The downed telephone pole blocking the road only took about 5 minutes - thank GOD no was passing by at the time. Real YouTube stuff. Long intro to, the landowner has some large doggy walnuts to cut as well as some sycamores. Clearly, I was not experienced enough with the characteristics of locust. I have zero experience with large walnuts and very little with sycamores - other than parking my saw any advice on what I should look out for with these species?

Ron

 

[Beetlejuice]

Talking from N.W. Locust, (Eastern Washington), black locust and honey locust, look more like a misshapen sick old maple tree. I'm not the fall guy, unless it hits a house or power line, but the big guy always trims most of the limbs and only when he's satisfied it will drop where it should does he do his thing.. And even then, it's a crap shoot.. Says they don't fall same way every time.. Japanese elm same way.. Damn things don't like growing straight up..hope this helps, but most is just common sense, patience, and experience.. Cheers, K

 

[Skeans]

Don't know but this may be more of an East coast question. Most all of the trees over 24" that I cut are oaks, followed by maples, and a few beeches and poplars. Only rarely do I cut other species of that size. Yesterday was one of those rarities. LO asked me to cut a 28" locust. Heretofore my experience with locust has been spindly weed trees 15" and under and splitting for fence posts as a teenager. This tree was more like an oak - it had a nice straight truck and a large bushy canopy. It was located on a small bank at the intersection of a county lane and a county road and was weighed over the lane. I treated it like I would an oak and tried to fall it against the weight into a field but with four rows of wedges maxed out and a rope not high enough in the tree, it required hinge thinning beyond my comfort zone to start the fall. You guessed it - the hinge broke almost immediately in the fall, the rope tension pulled the trunk forward which caused the stem to plunge straight into the ground about three feet from the stump whereupon the tree spun and fell almost 90* from the intended. Four hours later my cutting partner and I had the canopy out of the lane - not talking firewood here - lengths as big as my 4wd truck would pull. The downed telephone pole blocking the road only took about 5 minutes - thank GOD no was passing by at the time. Real YouTube stuff. Long intro to, the landowner has some large doggy walnuts to cut as well as some sycamores. Clearly, I was not experienced enough with the characteristics of locust. I have zero experience with large walnuts and very little with sycamores - other than parking my saw any advice on what I should look out for with these species?

Ron

Ron do you have any pictures of the stump?

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