Leaner

[anlrolfe]

Camping this weekend on our Troop commanders old farm and he asks if I can bring a saw. Sure, big or small? Expecting to just cut some tops for the camp fire and he goes into this whole story about sliding in the mud and rubbing his camper into a leaner on the farm road.....
I know exactly the tree he's talking about. Not just a 15deg leaner but rainbow arc opening up primarily onto the lean. The ONLY good is that its 16-18"dia. I'm thinking stand the F-back and nibble it with the pole saw. It's not IF it's going to crack, it's just HOW BAD is it going to crack. Nothing is in the way. It's pasture land and will fall across a dirt(mud) road. I don't recall much overhead on the weak side but planning on trimming anything I can reach and the little bit of ground cover just in case I need to GTFO fast.

Any other recommendations?

 

[arathol]

Not a large tree by any means, it should be fairly easy.
If you do have a pole saw, cut off as much as you can from the top end of the tree. Anything that adds weight at the top will increase tension at the cut.
Make a small 90° face cut on the compression side, maybe 4 inches deep. Plunge cut and set up a hinge 1" or so thick, then finish the back cut and move out of the way. Should fall quickly with little drama, just watch for sideways movement.

 

[Del_]

Take and wrap the trunk with a 10k binding strap a few times and tighten.

Or multiple wraps with a rope. Above the felling cut of course.

 

[Marshy]

4" deep face is too much on a heavy leaner IMO. 2" deep face is plenty. That tree is a perfect candidate for a bore cut.

 

[ATH]

Yep....but not the tree to learn how to bore cut.

 

[EchoRomeoCharlie]

I cut my bore cutting teeth on a 27" maple that was leaning about 30º. My 28" bar just BARELY made it out the other side on the bore cut.

Real shallow face cut, doesn't need much because the tree is going straight down. There's no steering needed which means you don't need a wide hinge. Narrow hinge is better, less material to bend, less likely to split. That shallow face also leaves LOTS of room to bore. Take your time boring and setting the hinge. Hinge should be 5% of tree diameter at most. Again, we don't need a big hinge to steer the tree, less is more here to keep it from splitting.

Leave a decent size strap on the back and towards the side you'll be standing on, stand in the safest place you can with a decent length bar and release the strap. Bam she's on the ground.

 

[ArtB]

Go look at the old/renewed thread in logging.

https://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/barber-chair-question.28509/page-6

OP did not give the tree height or species, making a few worst case assumptions your strap or chain needs about a 40,000 pound breaking strength total strength, so may need a few wraps of something substantial. An old tire chain or just some clothesline rope is worse than no strap.

https://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/barber-chair-question.28509/page-7

 

[EchoRomeoCharlie]

Go look at the old/renewed thread in logging.

https://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/barber-chair-question.28509/page-6

OP did not give the tree height or species, making a few worst case assumptions your strap or chain needs about a 40,000 pound breaking strength total strength, so may need a few wraps of something substantial. An old tire chain or just some clothesline rope is worse than no strap.

https://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/barber-chair-question.28509/page-7

I don't know if you were talking to me or not....but when I said 'decent size strap' I didn't mean a ratchet strap or tow strap...I meant the strap of wood you leave on the back of the tree as the trigger after the bore cut.

Properly bore cutting a tree means you simply don't need a strap because the tree shouldn't ever have a chance to barber chair...

 

[ArtB]

Was responding to the OP. I knew the 'strap' you ere talking about was holding wood.
The other thread got into a pi55ing contest about wrapped straps.

Added the links to the logging thread as there was a previous post in this thread about wrapping with a 10,000# rated chain - which would be good since breaking is about 4X what a chain rating is. 10,000# is 'pushing' a 3/8" grade 100 or rusty old BIG 3/4" grade 30 chain.

 

[andy]

I cut my bore cutting teeth on a 27" maple that was leaning about 30º. My 28" bar just BARELY made it out the other side on the bore cut.

Real shallow face cut, doesn't need much because the tree is going straight down. There's no steering needed which means you don't need a wide hinge. Narrow hinge is better, less material to bend, less likely to split. That shallow face also leaves LOTS of room to bore. Take your time boring and setting the hinge. Hinge should be 5% of tree diameter at most. Again, we don't need a big hinge to steer the tree, less is more here to keep it from splitting.

Leave a decent size strap on the back and towards the side you'll be standing on, stand in the safest place you can with a decent length bar and release the strap. Bam she's on the ground.

Would add..
..when you cut the strap, do so just below but intersecting the bore cut kerf. This way if the tree *pops* early your saw won't possibly be in the upper part and get taken away.