Nuzzy
Trail Gnome
You're not missing anything. If you were using an ax or misery whip, you might want to limit the number of cuts you had to make. With a chainsaw, it's a moot point. This of course, is just my opinion.
opcorn:
Dangerous Tree Comes Down
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You're not missing anything. If you were using an ax or misery whip, you might want to limit the number of cuts you had to make. With a chainsaw, it's a moot point. This of course, is just my opinion.
opcorn:
Dalmatian90
Addicted to ArboristSite
You're not missing anything. If you were using an ax or misery whip, you might want to limit the number of cuts you had to make. With a chainsaw, it's a moot point. This of course, is just my opinion.
I'm not even sure that is true with folks who are expert with the ax or two-man saw, both how to use them and how to keep them sharp and aligned. Forest Service has done some tests in wildland areas clearing snags after a tornado and the crews using hand tools can almost keep up with the chainsaw crew -- like accomplishing 95% as much over two weeks.
I'd love to understand more about the transition to chainsaws, but I suspect some of it was allowing folks with less skill to do the same job as quickly, and some of it (eventually) was to allow one man to do what had taken two men on a cross cut to do as quickly.
rms61moparman
Addicted to ArboristSite
You are both correct in that it isn't nearly as much work as it used to be.
It just depends on the tree, the environment, the equipment you have at hand, and the time you are dealing with.
There are many times that the "farmer cut" is just as good as any other. Times when it is asking for a helicopter or hearse ride.
Just as with many other methods and techniques.
The blanket statement that "There is NEVER any reason....." just isn't correct.
As with all the tools and techniques available to the woodcutter you have to know when it won't matter and when it will get you killed.
Mike
It just depends on the tree, the environment, the equipment you have at hand, and the time you are dealing with.
There are many times that the "farmer cut" is just as good as any other. Times when it is asking for a helicopter or hearse ride.
Just as with many other methods and techniques.
The blanket statement that "There is NEVER any reason....." just isn't correct.
As with all the tools and techniques available to the woodcutter you have to know when it won't matter and when it will get you killed.
Mike
woodchuck357
Addicted to ArboristSite
Know a lot of farmers, never saw one make a sloping back cut. The only people I have ever seen use it were city folks newly moved to the country. Also have been around a lot of horse and mule logging and have never saw pointy ends on their logs. Most don't use sleds or cones either.
Hedgerow
HACK
I love a good history lesson...
KiwiBro
Mill 'em, nails be damned.
Same. Even detention while being schooled is worth the price of admission.
raycarr
ArboristSite Operative
Some of us know baloney when we hear it.
paccity
Addicted to ArboristSite
wow to all this ,. LOL!
KiwiBro
Mill 'em, nails be damned.
The great thing about these sorts of websites with a semi-global reach is that at any one time there's always a full moon, somewhere. Equally, there's always at least a few posters who have forgotten to take their meds. Good times, good times.
GOL allows slopping backcuts a long as they bored up and out.
Read that some place on the www. seriously. ask Ginger. she used to post here.
Read that some place on the www. seriously. ask Ginger. she used to post here.
I went to a GOL. Slopping backcuts were discouraged. The instructor was a production cutter from Wisconsin who had changed his presentation to reflect the methods used out here. The main emphasis was on being safe. It's a good course for learning safety. It does not make one an expert cutter and one should realize that. They teach basics. I didn't like working with strangers. The guy I partnered with actually went to grab the tip of my saw while it was running. I didn't know this but it was a habit with me to flip the chain brake right away when I stopped and I happened to stop just then to ask a question. The instructor was in the process of batting the guy hand away with an axe handle and was able to stop that in time.
He taught the bore cut method. But he also answered and demonstrated anything else we had questions on and we could use conventional cuts--Humboldts if we wanted.
He even had a longer bar on his saw so fit in except he couldn't pronounce Oregon in the style of us natives so humorously referred to it as that state across the river. He did not leave us feeling we were experts. We weren't.
I didn't go to the advanced classes.
He taught the bore cut method. But he also answered and demonstrated anything else we had questions on and we could use conventional cuts--Humboldts if we wanted.
He even had a longer bar on his saw so fit in except he couldn't pronounce Oregon in the style of us natives so humorously referred to it as that state across the river. He did not leave us feeling we were experts. We weren't.
I didn't go to the advanced classes.
Using the slopping back cut for clearance of skidding? I don't think so. Out here, if the ground is flat enough to use a skidder on, it is flat enough to use a feller buncher on and those beasties get stumps low. There are some small outfits who still hand fall for skidders, but they all use the Humboldt and get low stumps. The stumps that cause problems are the stumps left from the first entry--those large diameter stumps. I've never seen evidence of a slopping back cut on those, either. The contracts usually specify a maximum stump height measured from the downhill side. On our contracts it is 12 inches. Back in the old growth days it was 12 inches or 1/3 the stump diameter.
If a stump is a problem on a skidder job, the skidder operator takes a saw out and cuts it flatter or might slope it a bit. On a yarder job, the rigging crew will slice off the stump.
Forest Service contracts require one end suspension, but there are times when that can't happen because of the shape of the ground. A good yarding crew will also realize that one end suspension means less hanging up and they'll try to get it. Steep ground=good lift=good payloads.
Here's an old stump from the first entry. Note the springboard holes.
Here's a place where there was very little "Lift". Note how low the carriage is. It is in the process of lateral yarding--snaking the logs into the skyline corridor where they'll go straight down to the landing. Downhill yarding is slow. Everybody hates it.
If a stump is a problem on a skidder job, the skidder operator takes a saw out and cuts it flatter or might slope it a bit. On a yarder job, the rigging crew will slice off the stump.
Forest Service contracts require one end suspension, but there are times when that can't happen because of the shape of the ground. A good yarding crew will also realize that one end suspension means less hanging up and they'll try to get it. Steep ground=good lift=good payloads.
Here's an old stump from the first entry. Note the springboard holes.
Here's a place where there was very little "Lift". Note how low the carriage is. It is in the process of lateral yarding--snaking the logs into the skyline corridor where they'll go straight down to the landing. Downhill yarding is slow. Everybody hates it.
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Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
You always want "one end suspension", whenever possible.
Even when getting a firewood skidding permit from the FS. . . If you mention "lift", they'll let you skid a mile. Also, you have to be professional, know what your talking about -- and make some trades. Like, "I'll clean the ditch down to the culvert (of existing debris), but I want to cut those fir way back there, and I'll do some lop and scatter of my stuff too." You might even find yourself walking the area with the forester, commenting on all the slopping stumps, and how you can see where they lost directional control.
The genealogy of the slopping back-cut is a mystery to me, but as has been proven many times over -- in this thread alone -- it's not a good technique.
Those in denial will still do it, and that's okay. But you'll never find it taught by anyone truly considered a professional in any field of forestry/arboriculture/logging.
Not being snobby -- it's the truth.
Even when getting a firewood skidding permit from the FS. . . If you mention "lift", they'll let you skid a mile. Also, you have to be professional, know what your talking about -- and make some trades. Like, "I'll clean the ditch down to the culvert (of existing debris), but I want to cut those fir way back there, and I'll do some lop and scatter of my stuff too." You might even find yourself walking the area with the forester, commenting on all the slopping stumps, and how you can see where they lost directional control.
The genealogy of the slopping back-cut is a mystery to me, but as has been proven many times over -- in this thread alone -- it's not a good technique.
Those in denial will still do it, and that's okay. But you'll never find it taught by anyone truly considered a professional in any field of forestry/arboriculture/logging.
Not being snobby -- it's the truth.
Blazin
Addicted to ArboristSite
Where's the beatin a dead horse smiley?
Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
Where's the beatin a dead horse smiley?
It's right under the "I have a potty mouth" one.
Blazin
Addicted to ArboristSite
LOLZ! X2It's right under the "I have a potty mouth" one.
twochains
Addicted to ArboristSite
^^^ this!
twochains
Addicted to ArboristSite
Poor choice of face height followed by a poor face. And yes, I cut both hardwood and pine daily on a production basis. Turning away from that wretched cut and looking back at the camera man was just almost too much to watch...very dangerous. You must remain focused on what you are doing and need not be paying attention to other people. Ash is very busty anyway...poor choice of tree to cut by someone with only 20 trees to their belt...you are very lucky that things didn't go really really bad there!...and to cut it at chest height....OMFG! WOW!
Originally it was done with one cut off the stump because they had cross cut saws and or felled it with an axe. To take the time and energy to make a second cut once on the ground would mean a significant expenditure of energy.
Like I said though most of the people who practice the sloping back cut today have no clue why they do it that way. If they did, they'd maybe, just maybe, figure out that you can cut it again easily which a chainsaw.
twochains
Addicted to ArboristSite
I walk by old cross cut stumps every day on a tract I am cutting....zero of them are sloped...ever
