FS C sawyer certification with Dent, 2011

Welcome, Valley, and thanks for piping up. Feel free to post some of the stuff you have done...sharing here is what keeps us going.
 
Burnham, in pics 6,7,8 of that post, where the bark is skimmed off, like a 18" x 2" deep face cut. The yellow wedge is standing on the little ledge. It's totally on the back side of the cut.
 
Yeah Sir: I think he's just slabbin' off a bit of that wolfey bark so that he has got something solid to dog off of for his near corner. Sometimes, when you slice vertically through the bark till you start to hit cambium, it's easier to just keep on cruizin downwards with the bar farther than one would need to, but then, you can just make a bar-deep (I should have said bark-deep) little horizontal cut in order to nip through the bark. Does that make an ounce of sense? That might be the "tiny face" you're referring to.

If you're referring to the back-cut: that's just to ensure that the spongy bark doesn't minimize your wedging capability.
 
I don't think Doug had much of a teacher, other than the school of hard knocks as a young bull of a custom cutter in western Oregon in the late 60's and 70's.

That's a heavy sentence, B.

I never liked the MacT cuz it funnels sound with the full brim into your ears, bigtime.
 
Don't you guys find that a brimmed hat blocks your vision when working at the base and looking up? I have to hack most of it off. I dunno, perhaps due to limited neck range mobility, either an inherited trait or perhaps from a lot of muscularity? 8)
 
Yeah Sir: I think he's just slabbin' off a bit of that wolfey bark so that he has got something solid to dog off of for his near corner. Sometimes, when you slice vertically through the bark till you start to hit cambium, it's easier to just keep on cruizin downwards with the bar farther than one would need to, but then, you can just make a bar-deep (I should have said bark-deep) little horizontal cut in order to nip through the bark. Does that make an ounce of sense? That might be the "tiny face" you're referring to.

If you're referring to the back-cut: that's just to ensure that the spongy bark doesn't minimize your wedging capability.


I see your point about spongy bark minimizing wedging capability, and having something more solid to dog off. I will remember that if I ever cut down something that big. It looks like that slab face starts 6-8" below the wedges and dog. So I'm still not understanding.
 
It is not a face cut, he just shaved the bark off, most times you get into wood just a bit. Chainsaw bark peeling. Unless you were to bore into the bark you will alomst always shave it at a slight angle resulting in that little ledge. If that isn't clear maybe you could draw on the picture and repost it so we can see what you mean
 
#1 reason to skin bark off on dead hammers,is so a sheet of bark that loosens up don't have your wedges lifting a huge slab of bark instead of lifting the stem into the face. getting rid of irregular contours in the trunk is an ancillary benefit.
 
Was pulling a pretty good sized Pine a couple months ago, a guy I always work with on a backhoe, and me cutting at the stump. We had a block set up so he wasn't in the lay, and he couldn't see the tree. I was about a third of the way in to where I wanted to be with the back cut, or however it was supposed to go, and he ripped the sucker over. A real mess at the stump and dangerous. I said wtf? Said he couldn't see the tree, a lame remark and it pissed me off. I don't know what was in his mind, but we never work like that. Always pull on instructions to do so, or just pay attention and easy does it until the time is right, Definitely he should have known better, years of experience and working like an idiot, what can you do? It was the end of a long day.
 
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  • #88
That just about puts the proper name to it, Deva :).

The D.D. Dent training threads I've had the good fortune to be able to start have all been the genesis of some really worthwhile back and forth. Lots of great info passed on in every one of them.

Which just goes to show you how far the influence of a teacher of Doug's caliber actually reaches, even these years after his unfortunate and far too early passing.
 
Amen. He still has many to teach yet. Info like that doesn't just disappear.

If we keep the threads warm, they can't die.
 
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  • #90
Bump. Per Deva...keep the thread warm :).

Found it by luck, saw a bot or guest reading it.
 
Hey B, you have probably already told us this, but why is Dent and the FS teaching the conventional face notch instead of the Humboldt?
 
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  • #94
D. D. Dent never taught one over the other, and the USFS never did either in general. Both he and the agency taught the pros and cons of both face types, as well as the many variations on the theme, like a bird's mouth face as a single example, and left it to the sawyer to make his or her own choice as each situation required.
 
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  • #96
Yessir, Chris. There never has been, nor ever will be, a single "right" way to fall any one situational tree.
 
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