Altissimus
TreeHouser
Pretty much what happened. With a nod to Gerry we sometimes use a Binder around certain material for the obvious reasons and always willing to take any and all steps (within reason) to increase margin of safety and success managing the work. Most of the time it's just a precaution and doesn't necessarily come into heavy play. Yesterday we fell a hollow old beast just uphill of a house. Trunk displayed several running seams (43" DBH , 100' H Sugar Maple ,oh yeah completely hollow) I climbed it and removed some large heavy limbs on the back side then rigged it for the pull. We set a chain at 5' (lacking the true tensioners we drove wedges between the bark and chain to make it tight. Sure enough as we were pulling (really only a foot plus out) the splits ran and broke under the tension plus the release of the backcut. Binder chain held the old beast together quite nicely as it went over , SAVE ! Seems it wanted to go in three big pieces.