Notching Tree's

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The right way,the wrong way to cut a tree,diffreent strokes for diffreent folks..Loggers are a breed of their own(lol) when we do get hurt from my own expereince is when we are tired and hurrying and simplely make a bad decsion..I'VE been cutting timber for ten years and knock on wood nerver been hurt serious,but the way I fell timber will always be different from the next man.If you feel good about the way you go about it stick with it,but it never hurts to listen to a little advice form time to time.
 
SawBum said:
Thats what it's all about right? Felling a big tree and living to tell your buddy's?:cheers:

No...what its about is getting timber on the ground. Getting as much on the ground as you safely can..every day. "Living to tell your buddies" doesn't much enter into it.
 
Gypo Logger said:
Hi Manual, I was actually cutting 'ears' on the foreward stem, which would have ended up as ears on the second stem. Hope the following pics help.

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I'vie seen pictures of you cutting "ears" while felling grade wood before and that technique has stuck in my head sense.
Does that help with Not spilting your bottom log.
Also you must have plunged cut that foreward stem.
Most v trees are branch heavy to the outside of each other. Great job getting them to fall in the same direction.
 
tek9tim said:
Government or D. Douglas Dent, whichever. It works to get trees safely on the ground. I fully know that you can get trees safely on the ground many other ways, I've seen a ton of logger's stumps that have nothing that Doug Dent outlines in his book, and only a couple of loggers with steel in their skulls. I better make sure that point is clear. Loggers don't use hardly any of the safety techniques that I've been taught, and they really don't get hurt that often, especially considering the sheer number of trees they put themselves under. As for forest service cutting, when a tree is burned thin and you need to drop it, it simply comes down to eliminating variables and making your cuts in the safest possible manner.

I am certainly not saying FS cutters are the end-all. Nor I do I want to make generalizations. Ok, so maybe one: FS cutters would not make good production cutters. We simply have a different adgenda.

TreeSling'r, I have a lot of respect for you becuase I know you are definitley one of the guys that actually, really knows what he is talking about when it comes to cutting trees. I mean no animosity toward you, and I hope that perhaps you can look past the fact that I'm a "Forest Fairy". I just like playing with fire AND chainsaws.

Nothing personal what so-ever; you do what you do and I do what I do.
What I read in the post I qouted sounded exactly like the typical beauracratic(sp) BS the FS spiels out. When in-fact many of them have no freakin' clue. You don't learned the most dangerous job in the world by reading a book - or from a classified government official. You learn it by doing it everyday in every condition.
Like I said nothing personal, and no animosity aimed directly at you: just the Forest Service and its agenda of miss-management makes me want to puke. And I'll be damned if college educated punk is going to tell me how to do my job because its what he read in a book.
Just my biased opinion though.
 
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what did the fairy say to offen you?

Tree Slingr

First question:
What did the fairy say in the saw shop?

Second question:
Specifically list what was wrong with the techniques stated on this thread by Tek9Tim? (Rather than using this thread as a good chance to vent, try to educate us and improve our skills).

Third question:
Tell us that when you stated, "You don't learned the most dangerous job in the world by reading a book.", you were not deliberately illustrating that you are not well read.
 
I hear you about the experience vs education issue. I am young, and I do still have a lot to learn. I did grow up in a logging town in SW Washington, and have been running saw since I was 12. I already had a decent base when I started with the Forest Service, and with them, I have cut a lot of different species in all kinds of different situations. When I say something, I say it out of experience, not just because I read it somewhere. If it sounds like it's straight from a book, that's because I teach and certify new sawyers, so I've been through the technicial explanation a time or two.

I pride myself on the fact that I have moved up slowly through the organization, and have gotten my jobs based on experience rather than eduaction, since I don't have any that's relevant.

The Forest Service certainly does have its problems. The people on the inside dislike having to do things the way they're forced to sometimes. Their hands have been tied by environmental lobbyists. The Forest Service still tries to do as much logging as they can, which isn't much, and as a result the loggers hate the Forest Service because they don't allow very much logging, and in the sales that do get through, the guidelines are not what they were in the past. Then the environmentalists are pissed because there's still logging going on.

That's about enough of :deadhorse: .
 
smokechase II said:
Tree Slingr

First question:
What did the fairy say in the saw shop?

Second question:
Specifically list what was wrong with the techniques stated on this thread by Tek9Tim? (Rather than using this thread as a good chance to vent, try to educate us and improve our skills).

Third question:
Tell us that when you stated, "You don't learned the most dangerous job in the world by reading a book.", you were not deliberately illustrating that you are not well read.

The Fairy at the saw shop was explaining to us that he was a falling boss this past summer on some of our local fires, and how he "ran the show" because of his classification. He said he was now qualified to cut a certain diameter tree. He also explained how if it was not done his was way he "chewed some A$$". Knowing that he was more than likely full of it, we asked him how old he was and he say he was 20. So we laughed and he left.

I never said there was nothing wrong with what Tek9Tim wrote - just like I stated though - sounded like the "goverment influence" of needing to have your back cut 1-2" higher than your face. I will admit it was more me being anal because of my experiences with FS morons.

I am sure you and Tek9Tim do just fine.

As far as "learned" it was nothing more than a typo. I am actually wread wrell. It also said reading a book - or some classfied government offical (saw shop guy)

Anyway don't get butt hurt because I don't like the Forest Service or its tactics. It is nothing personal just my own biased observation on an organization not an individual. Perhaps I should have been more clear in my rantings.
 
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Sounds like the guy you ran into was probably a lot more green than he let on. Dead giveaway if he has a DBH restriction. WTF was a 20 year old doing as a felling boss? I'd call BS on him right there... especially in conjunction with the DBH thing.

I think I understood you from the beginning, I guess I was just trying to explain myself a little. I know where you're coming from with being annoyed with something said regardless of its validity, simply because of the other morons you've heard say it.
 
tek9tim said:
Sounds like the guy you ran into was probably a lot more green than he let on. Dead giveaway if he has a DBH restriction. WTF was a 20 year old doing as a felling boss? I'd call BS on him right there... especially in conjunction with the DBH thing.

I think I understood you from the beginning, I guess I was just trying to explain myself a little. I know where you're coming from with being annoyed with something said regardless of its validity, simply because of the other morons you've heard say it.

heck, i even havent heard of such as DBH restrictions :hmm3grin2orange: :hmm3grin2orange:

anyway, that guy must have been greener than grass...
 
20 year old

While it is possible that a 20 year old could be a decent falling boss.
{He had logged a couple years prior to FS or BLM employment}
{Was a sharp guy}
It would be impossible for that type of guy to be prone to a power trip in a saw shop.

Our apologies.

Do you know what forest he came from?
I should be ready to not condemn another regions certification process as this young blood may have been simply exaggerating his position.

Time for the standard qualification that I believe all FS folks would agree with.
No way can we match pros for cutting skill. An occasional exception can occur when we hire a former logger.

Confession: I commonly don't leave the 2" stump shot. Plenty of times where there is nothing that could force a tree back etc.
I like to conventional face those little Lodgepole and match the backcut to leave a very short stump. This for campgrounds etc.

Lodgepole are a particularly safe snag, as snags go. Usually all the bark on, recently beetle killed, means OK wood to work with and minimal hazards from above.

However, plenty of times on serious snags the only safe way is to cut at a comfortable, (good to look up and faster escape), height.
Tek9Tim is definitely correct on that one on fires.
 
We finished a job about a month and a half ago down by Paradise, Ca for Erickson Air Crane. We were up against a major Class I stream with ground roughly 70-75% grade (no BS). Along with being steep it was also covered with Live, Black and Tan Oak - not to mention very very big wood. We had to leave our stumps really high to keep from logs rolling into the stream, sort of like a barracade. It often worked, but I did though end up ripping 5 short logs in the creek. I did like the high stump thing though - but I also knew it was strictly for saftey of ourselves and the stream. That was by far the hairiest unit I have ever had.
 
tek9tim said:
I hear you about the experience vs education issue. I am young, and I do still have a lot to learn. I did grow up in a logging town in SW Washington, and have been running saw since I was 12. I already had a decent base when I started with the Forest Service, and with them, I have cut a lot of different species in all kinds of different situations. When I say something, I say it out of experience, not just because I read it somewhere. If it sounds like it's straight from a book, that's because I teach and certify new sawyers, so I've been through the technicial explanation a time or two.

I pride myself on the fact that I have moved up slowly through the organization, and have gotten my jobs based on experience rather than eduaction, since I don't have any that's relevant.

The Forest Service certainly does have its problems. The people on the inside dislike having to do things the way they're forced to sometimes. Their hands have been tied by environmental lobbyists. The Forest Service still tries to do as much logging as they can, which isn't much, and as a result the loggers hate the Forest Service because they don't allow very much logging, and in the sales that do get through, the guidelines are not what they were in the past. Then the environmentalists are pissed because there's still logging going on.

That's about enough of :deadhorse: .


Not that I want to highjack the thread, but there is a vast difference in management among national Forests and even Ranger Districts within forests.
My take on the Forest Sevice is that there are a lot of good people there who try to do there jobs properly, but they get squeezed by political interference. The news only reports the lawsuits, grandstanding politicians, and forest fires.

Why, for example, are so many below-cost salvage sales proposed in the West, if these do little to reduce fire danger or speed forest recovery, but do pull lands out of potential Wilderness classification and cause shut downs over breaking the law (like the ESA and NFMA)? The public has been clamoring for fire risk reduction near their private property---and the Bushies push a law that allows targetting of back-country logging while skipping over already managed land and public/private fringe areas. Why? Maybe because the hard work of reducing fire danger in a meaningfull way costs more per acre than political pork like helicopter logging old-growth miles away from any development??!

Why don't forest health sales get proposed that focus on employing thousands of workers on the ground, to clear small diameter material, and chip it, burn it, or truck it out for engineered wood products, biomass fuel, or even fermentation to methanol, instead of sales that propose logging large diameter dead and dying trees and leaving the rest?

Maybe the new greener, fiscally more conservative, more job-growth oriented Congess will push the FS in this direction. Maybe they'll provide the proper funding, instead of suspending environmental laws and proposing old-growth logging to pay for "forest health improvement".

It's not so much "enviironmental lobbyists" but the FS itself getting called to account when they lose lawsuits because it isn't following the law. Political interference and old-school attitudes got them there (and a couple doosies like a faulty over-projection of timber yield and an overestimate of old-growth forest acreage, among others). "Environmentalists" don't want to "shut down the woods" (well, there are some no-nothing enviros that might want to---that's not who I'm talking about here); what they want is sustainable management for the long term that maintains forest-related jobs and maintains environmental services like biological diversity, salmon runs, clean water and air, and carbon storage.

OTH, the Spotted Owl Plan (1993?) covering parts of OR, WA, and CA did reduce the cut. It was an attempt to bring the FS up to the present science on ecosystem management, in a landscape that had had most of its old-growth forest cut and the remaining amount fragmented (There was about 20-25% late successional/old-growth on NF and BLM lands at the time, some open to logging, some in Wilderness, Parks, and Monuments). The old Forest Plans at the time were not working, in so far as "maintaining viable populations of plants and animals across their historic ranges"--The National Forest Management Act (NFMA); this was a key basis for the successful Spotted Owl lawsuit by those pesky enviros that produced the injunction stopping old-growth logging.

For this law and others like the ESA to be followed, reserves had to be established on the landscape to maintain and recover the old-growth stage of regional forests. The public widely supports the NFMA and ESA, as well as the Clinton Roadless Rule; at the time, woods workers in small towns hurt by the injunction and later cut reduction were severely pissed, no doubt. They were also pandered to--remember Bush I saying "No jobs for owls" in '92? Yes, these reserves reduced the potential cut if one thinks of the old model of converting all natural forest into short rotation tree farms. OTH, there are decades of work waiting to be done on already managed lands covered with dense young forest, both to increase growth and reduce fire danger; this work would employ thousands. Why isn't it being done?

The Forest Science used to favor "liquidating" old-growth, in it's narrow fiber production view; not anymore, not after the science compiled at the time on forest ecosystem management and certainly not today.

My 2 cents.
 
Tree Sling'r said:
We finished a job about a month and a half ago down by Paradise, Ca for Erickson Air Crane. We were up against a major Class I stream with ground roughly 70-75% grade (no BS).


Were you working on the west branch of the Feather river Tree Sling'r?
 
Dennis Cahoon said:
Were you working on the west branch of the Feather river Tree Sling'r?

Sounds like it might have been the Okie Sale...turn in at Jarbo Gap and go back toward Rag Dump. Steep ground from Rag Dump down to the west branch. We were working a cat side acros the canyon from them on the R-Line. Bob
 
boboak said:
Sounds like it might have been the Okie Sale...turn in at Jarbo Gap and go back toward Rag Dump. Steep ground from Rag Dump down to the west branch. We were working a cat side acros the canyon from them on the R-Line. Bob


My son and I cut a strip for Ericson on the west branch. We came in from Stirling City on the P line. Waded the river every morning at the bridge, and then a 45 minute hike up the river to the strip. Took us 2 weeks to cut it. If you got anything in the river, you got 3 days in the electric chair. Nice big wood. Later Dennis
 
smokechase II said:
While it is possible that a 20 year old could be a decent falling boss.
{He had logged a couple years prior to FS or BLM employment}
{Was a sharp guy}
It would be impossible for that type of guy to be prone to a power trip in a saw shop.

I dunno, single resource boss in his 3rd season? I can somewhat understand being that good of a cutter, but as far as red card quals go, he should only be a firefighter I, maybe ICT5 trainee. (although now they're together, I know) Hell, I know a few guys that are qualified crew bosses with multiple years on shot crews as C-fallers that have trouble getting FELB assignments. More likely, he might be a saw boss on a type 2 crew. BIG difference from felling boss. I do agree, if he was qualified, he would have to have logging experience, and if he did, he would know better than to even let on that he works for the Forest Service when he's in the saw shop, nevermind talk like he knows everything. Around here, we (FS cutters) look up to loggers.

Dr. Dave...

You've got some good insight.

You'd be amazed how much hazard fuel reduction the Wenatchee River RD does here. In the 2 1/2 seasons I worked here, we got perhaps 5000 acres treated. It seems that funding can be out there for these projects. Part of the units we worked got mechanically logged to thin out the larger trees, then FS crews came in and thinned and hand piled the small diameter stuff, and after fall pile burning, very nice, open ponderosa stands were left with +/- 16 foot stem spacing. Of course, the timber sale helps fund the project, and they'd try to make the units large enough to equal things out a bit, so that in the areas that had lots of large trees would help pay for treating the areas of doghair thick grand fir reprod. But, they have both the city of Wenatchee and the Microsoft cabins up around Lake Wenatchee, thus they have a good number of people for what they try to do. Still, EVERY SINGLE PROJECT has lawsuits and protests against it.

Blis,
The Forest Service has certifications for their sawyers based on cutting ability, and graded by DBH. Class A - 8" and under, Class B - 24" inches and under, and Class C is unrestricted. Just takes the liability off of the FS a little more. Basically, you demonstrate to some highly qualified certifiers how good you are, and from there you can cut whatever you like that's within your certification, and if you bust yourself up, it's on you.

Hey Smokechase, what are you guys' intervals for certs, in perticular A & B?
 
Dennis Cahoon said:
Were you working on the west branch of the Feather river Tree Sling'r?

Not really sure Dennis, we where way up Jarbo Gap? (Turn off at Scooters) past Rags Dump north of hwy 70. It was a major watercourse, so it was probably a branch of the Feather - or possibly something that fed Lake Concow. Thats the direction it was heading.
 
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boboak said:
Sounds like it might have been the Okie Sale...turn in at Jarbo Gap and go back toward Rag Dump. Steep ground from Rag Dump down to the west branch. We were working a cat side acros the canyon from them on the R-Line. Bob

It was the Okie Sale, Bob. We would pass a white logging truck everymorning at around 4 mile around 5:30ish - was that you guys?
 

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