OK, some small firewood poles here, as I´m teaching my right hand some stuff again after neck backbone injury. Rate me or have a fun.
The object of the first two photos is the snag in the middle. The first photo is from the left side, considering the direction of fall (to the left in the photo). This 12“DBH oak has a bit of head lean and quite a bit mass disbalance. Also, the top above that left-protruding branch was leaning toward the photographer and had most branches protruding this direction, making the crown quite flat. But major plane of this flatness was oriented from about 2 to 8 o´clock, compared to 6 to 12 o´clock direction of desired fall. The availible coridor was about 6´ wide for whole crown, since the object was not to even scratch young trees on it´s sides.
Standard procedure would be a fat hinge on the right side, relying on strengt in pull during some torque. I had serious doubts about this being the safe way here, since the snagwood is usually damn brittle in this area (actually, I haven´t seen more brittle oak wood in whole life).
So, no relying on any pull anywhere, do the best to force it to „sit down“ for any move. The plan: conventional face, opened with sth as a „boxcut“ on the right (pull side) and quite closed on the left. I bored for very uneven hingewood, very thin and tall with a shallow dutchman on the right side, thicker and short on the left side. With releasing the holding strap, hit the right hingewood a little bit more, so when the branches way above get first contact with other crown, the right side of the hingewood collapsed forward (but still atached), turning the tree counterclokwise and letting it sit to the right, aligning it with the free space and then forcing it to jump off the stump. The left part of the hinge was sheared off by the weight of the tree, rather than pulled apart as usual, as I hoped for. The difference in fiber pull/shear is visible in the photo
Aftermath: (This was some good ilustration about the need to KNOW by hands, not by mind variations through different places where one is cuting. I tried it somewhere else, where the wood is a bit different-without the need, having enought space, just to test it. No big succes, the estimations I did were not right-and the wood was brittle somehow differently, I can feel it, but not say how, why etc.) (That´s a stump B&C mounted) Branches got bent to compact form quite well, but frankly, I got a bit pinched twice during cutting them off. Some of them had 90 deg axial torque accomodated, making it very funny to cut.
(Other site, one of bunch of trees) This oak has about 17“ DBH/stump dia, some head and left side lean. Althought a lot of space, not to disturb crowns of trees on the left protruding under few remaining branches of this snag above that free space was a must. Humboldt undercut btw, otherways nothing special I think.
And now, maybe get ready your laughpads (that´s not mistype). A logtruck as you have never seen it, I suppose:
This is a smaller load, the tree above was rigt to go twice for it. Once again:
In this second picture, the payload is somewhere around 650-700 lbs, since bottom two rows are mostly green 8-9 ft. oak posts. It´s fun to tow this by MTB, and more to watch the faces around. Main reason for this not-so-common transportation is that the trees were from higly protected potable water supply area. No big problem to get an acknowledgement with foresters and cut there (but very limited fuel/bar oil supply allowed), but quite a long lasting issue to get a permit from the water supervising company to drive there. This is easier, instant, no permit needed and helps to take me back to good shape.
