chips size question

[The Count]

hi guys.
I have just came back from my sumer house and i`ve toiled like a dog.
still lot of land left to clear but I had great time. my neighbor was there too and he had a 70 cm diameter nut tree with 3 branches and one was tore by a wind and still hanging.
he wanted it cut but the guy who was supposed to cut it said he wouldn`t fell that. So I took up the challenge mainly to gain experience;
I got up, cleared the broken branch, got down, felled the tree.
now, I had a 16" b/c and the chain was sharpened few cuts before; since the bar was half the diam, I had to go from both sides etc.

my question: the tree was healthy and my chain sharp; why at some point, the wood chip was in fact a fine dust? at the beginning I thought that the chain went dull; but later on, cutting the same tree, the chips got normally bigger.
I had no camera, for it stays with my wife and son but I took home the result of the face cut (thinking to make a coat hanger). maybe i`ll take a picture and the next time I`m there i`ll shoot the stump.
however, watching proudly the water melon slice of wood, I have seen that cuts from opposite direction didn`t met exactly in the same plan. there are some blade marks on the wood. can that be the cause for the fine dust? or was it the wood was of a different texture? i don`t know. It is the first time that it happens to me.

In the end, a guy with a 365 came and did a much better bucking job

 

[promac850]

hi guys.
I have just came back from my sumer house and i`ve toiled like a dog.
still lot of land left to clear but I had great time. my neighbor was there too and he had a 70 cm diameter nut tree with 3 branches and one was tore by a wind and still hanging.
he wanted it cut but the guy who was supposed to cut it said he wouldn`t fell that. So I took up the challenge mainly to gain experience;
I got up, cleared the broken branch, got down, felled the tree.
now, I had a 16" b/c and the chain was sharpened few cuts before; since the bar was half the diam, I had to go from both sides etc.

my question: the tree was healthy and my chain sharp; why at some point, the wood chip was in fact a fine dust? at the beginning I thought that the chain went dull; but later on, cutting the same tree, the chips got normally bigger.
I had no camera, for it stays with my wife and son but I took home the result of the face cut (thinking to make a coat hanger). maybe i`ll take a picture and the next time I`m there i`ll shoot the stump.
however, watching proudly the water melon slice of wood, I have seen that cuts from opposite direction didn`t met exactly in the same plan. there are some blade marks on the wood. can that be the cause for the fine dust? or was it the wood was of a different texture? i don`t know. It is the first time that it happens to me.

In the end, a guy with a 365 came and did a much better bucking job

I've had that happen before. I was cutting freshly dropped poplar with my PM610, I had just made the chain razor sharp a few days before, and all it did was make dust.

I believe that it simply may have to do with the species of tree and how fresh it is. Some would do this more than others, in the end it really doesn't matter; as long as you know your chain is sharp, don't worry about that dust that you may encounter in certain conditions. You could have that same sharp chain making nice stringy chips in one type of tree, and dust in another. Hope this helps.

 

[oscar4883]

Yup. It happens from time to time. Stump some knarly Maple and you will be throwin dust, chips, noodles, and just about everything else. lol

 

[GASoline71]

When you make the angled face cuts into the tree. You're not really goin with or against the grain... kinda mashing through it. So it tends to spit a little smaller chips or even some dust.

Perfectly normal... Especially on hardwoods.

Gary

 

[Terry Syd]

As an experiment, the next time you have a round to work with, try cutting across the grain, with the grain and then across the end of the grain. You will go from chips, to noodles, to dust - same piece of wood. Its just how you cut the fibres of the wood.

You can use that knowledge to help your cutting. If you are going to cut up a round it will be easier on the chain if you cut with the grain than if you try cutting the round across the end of the grain.

 

[promac850]

As an experiment, the next time you have a round to work with, try cutting across the grain, with the grain and then across the end of the grain. You will go from chips, to noodles, to dust - same piece of wood. Its just how you cut the fibres of the wood.

You can use that knowledge to help your cutting. If you are going to cut up a round it will be easier on the chain if you cut with the grain than if you try cutting the round across the end of the grain.

Cool, I learned something today. Thanks for furthering my edu-cat-ion.

 

[The Count]

thanks guys; I was suspecting that when cutting from the other side, partly the cut being made, being a mm above the first cut, as a new cut,you only cut a mm there. therefore the fine dust.
But you guys made it infinitely clearer.
Thanks