You won't find any good guidelines showing your method because it is not a good safe method. I won't reiterate what was said above because well, it's good advice and a waist of my tim to repeat it. The trees that fell in the undesired direction when you used the proper cut were likely leaning if a different direction than you desired. You can follow the recommended method and still have a tree fall the wrong way. This can happen if your trying to go against the lean, make you face cuts too deep or the wind pushes it backwards. The whole premise of proper hinge wood and the horizontal back cut is to control the tree during falling an prevent kickback. If wedging on a slipped back cut you induce a shear force on the hinge and run a higher risk of the hinge failing before the tree falls safely.Thanks everyone for some great replies. For some clarification, I do leave a hinge, cut 3 is stopped when the tree starts to go.
Due to my newness felling and inability to cut straight lines/angles, I found doing it by the book like fireman33 first posted resulted in several trees dropping backwards. Right now I'm cutting a large tree line between two fields so there is no danger of hitting anything but myself. Using my cut shown above has resulted in all the trees dropping exactly towards the notch (I'm notching in the direction they want to fall).
So basically I was wanting to know what was unsafe or dangerous about felling using my method. I assume something is wrong since I can't find any felling guides that shows doing it my way.
You need to read that tree better ,it is leaning 180 degrees of that huge face to start with ,its gonna go over backwards and smash your saw after you pinch it in the farmer back cut .Tell me why this is not a good felling method, assuming tree is wanting to go in the direction of the open face. Open face is approximately 60% of the way through the tree.
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Thanks for posting the links. After you get past the safety boilerplate they have a lot of good information about different falling cuts. I haven't seen anything explaining the differences between them and where to best use them before.The width of the notch 60* vs 30* isn't as big a problem. With the smaller cut, when the tree goes over, it will break the hinge easier. This may or may not be advantageous to you depending on the situation. What is the problem with the notch you drew was the depth, how far it went into the tree.
Here is some good information for you. It is the standard to which Certified Fallers in BC must adhere to. In BC, commercially, you can't fall any tree over 8" diameter unless you are certified or using arborist techniques (roped, or climbed).
http://www.worksafebc.com/publicati.../assets/pdf/bc_faller_training_standard_1.pdf
http://www.worksafebc.com/publicati.../assets/pdf/bc_faller_training_standard_2.pdf
Works good for timber that grows on hills. Just makes for taller stumps when your on flat land. Good points none the less.I assume you meaning the difference between a regular notch, wide notch and humbolt notch.
There is lots of information out there about the technical differences. You have to be careful when you read about falling notches in BC. They require the humbolt to be used all the time. There are two reasons, the technical - prevents sliding back on the stump, the other which isn't discussed much is financial. In BC, virtually all the timber is owned by the government and the cutting rights licenced to the timber companies. The government gets a fee (called stumpage) from the volume of timber harvested. The stumpage rate is a complex calculation, one of the factors being average tree volume based on a 30cm (1 ft) high stump. If a regular notch was used, then the notch would be coming out of the butt log and not the stump, like you would get if you used a humbolt. This is considered a waste and the companies are fined for it.
I remember when I was in school, that if you were to square up a log when a regular notch was used, you would lose 1-2% of the volume of the log. That was a long time ago, my memory could be failing.
I do volunteer trail construction and maintenance for several trail organizations. I have been through USFS and NWCG training every 3 years for the last two decades or so.Tell me why this is not a good felling method, assuming tree is wanting to go in the direction of the open face. Open face is approximately 60% of the way through the tree.
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