It's good to see that most of us big, strong, handsome men (speaking for myself) have enough cultural refinement to be able to sit down together and have a gentlemanly discussion over tea and crumpets, about the finer points of a CB cut. The rest of you troglodytes can get in line so's I can whomp you with a knotted plow line. :msp_lol:
Jokes aside, I appreciate the discussion here and have learned a great deal from the descriptions. I have been a member here quite a while but have not posted much - most of it being in the chainsaw forum. I believe this was my first foray into the F & L forum, though I stand to be corrected.
The most interesting thing I think I have learned from this thread is the various versions of the CB cut. Until I read this thread, I would have said the the "T" with a slight face cut would be "safer" because it appears that it would add stability against any sideways lean. But then it could be argued that if the lean is read properly there shouldn't be enough side lean to matter - or if there were a little then wedging would take care of. When I saw the diagram of the "strip" version I thought to myself that I wouldn't use that if the tree were quite hollow, but then I wouldn't use a CB cut at all if it were hollow - would I?
That was a question gys not a statement. I have felled several thousands of trees over the past 8 years but 95% have been small by logging standards. Of those 95%, probably 80% of those have been flame boxelder trees less than 80' tall and most less than 60' tall with DBH of 16" to 34". But virtually all of them have lean of varying degree. They simply do not grow very straight in the patch where I harvest them. So while I have a lot of experience dropping leaners and am comfortable (not "reckless" comfortable) doing so, they are relatively small. What makes them dangerous is that as they start getting past the 28ish" DBH they tend to get real punky at least if not downright hollow all the way from the first forks to the stump, so I have dealt with numerous barber chairs with this species. I wrap the bigger ones with chain but the smaller ones I read the lean carefully and use a long bar to cut the holding wood. I've had quite some unforeseen close calls logging as we all have but never with a barber chair. Knock on wood I've never been caught off guard from one that I hadn't already thought "this one might barber on me". On the larger ones I do wrap them.
All that said, my question now is given the scenario of a ~34" tree with significant lean, significant heart rot, but with the lean easy to read accurately (all these FBE trees are easy to read the lean), what is the proper cut for this situation. I guess that would start a controversy let me rephrase the question, what cut would you use in this scenario. I *do* realize there are many other factors to consider when falling a tree, but with this basic info as a starting point what cut would you think you'd consider first?