In the first video he finishes his face cut, then does a small borecut real close to it before his back cut and fell. What is that for? To make it fall a scosh more to the left, or what? Or just for safety with the small piece it leaves?
I have a lot to learn on big felling, Most of the big stuff I do moms nature does the felling...not all, but most.
He seems to be removing wood to prevent a possible dutchman since the Fir is leaning heavily to that side, and to help direct it's fall. And in my experience, it is very difficult to convey on video just how much a tree is leaning. So it likely is leaning even more than it appears, which makes both of those firs insanely dangerous. Bear in mind that some of the stuff cutters do for logging is as much for preserving the wood as it is safely dropping the tree. Even though with a dutchman from a leaner such as that it may still fall fine, it risks splintering/pulling the wood or partially barber chairing - if not fully barber chairing. Also, on some trees, and hotsaws does this often enough, a soft dutchman helps it fall where you want it, or hop from the stump further out.
The back strap method ya saw(I forget what he called it) pulls a good amount of wood out of the tree and is avoided in all circumstances aside from one such as in that video where you have a good sized Fir, which is very hard due to it's lean(which could be 100 years of leaning or more). You can not simply bore cut some of the larger trees that lean because with a hundred tons of weight such a tree will snap violently when you cut the back of it or walk the cut out the back. In those cases, some cutters will just leave a little back strap as they feel they can get away with and let it pull itself out and just write off some of the butt as a sacrifice.
Another thing I forgot to add previously is that, on larger trees, you have to work from both sides of it - you really do not have an option of cutting from only one side. In such a case a full wrap is very handy.
opcorn:
