intentional barber chair

Big skidder don't care!

At State Parks, we had a heck of a hard leaning Bigleaf Maple. Too dangerous to try a conventional hinge. Rotten in the butt, and BIG, thick in butt, and wide, leaning downhill toward some type of basic kitchen shelter/ pavillion . We set a throw line to pull up a rope, to pull up a cable. The roadway was way too steep and loose for the bucket truck on this beach access trail to set a cable.

A small skidder, Garrett 15, chained to a tree up the hill, with a block to redirect the cable, Hard winching pull wouldn't break it over. We eased off tension, some. I went in and crippled the back/ backcut some, wedged, and cleared the F out. He pulled. Not enough. Ease the tension. Cut some more to cripple the back. Pound the wedges tight. Clear out. PULL. Over it went. I was impressed. No clean-up...all landed in the woods.

Like Atlas and a big enough lever, a skidder winch and a tall enough lever/ moment arm, and it will go, cut or not cut. Somewhere.


I'd just consider it breaking a tree off the butt.
 
I guess because I worked in the woods for so long it seems foolhardy to me to do something so stupid. Hell I've probably forgotten about more messes than I can remember that I've pulled apart with cable and machines. For me it's ingrained to stay alive and safe you do everything in the safest way possible and try to envision all outcomes of what you're doing.

Encouraging dealing with trees that could be faced to not be faced is foolhardy. Yah with big and fast enough rigging you can just rip trees over/apart. If this kind of stuff gets your blood flowing you should try cable logging. Winches that would blow your mind.

Residential setting is no place to expirement. What did the customer think of that? Where they clueless or were you just up front with them that you had priced their job high enough to 'expirement' with.

Bizarro
 
Heh I don't mean any disrespect Butch.

In my time too I've done all sorts of different things but I believe it's been pretty well established that 99.9% of the time a proper face and back cut provides the best and safest directional control. Period.
 
What next? Intentionally BBC-ing a spar while safetied around it? :/: (Now THAT would be an ego-stroker...)
 
He said it was a zero risk situation. I've experimented at customers houses when there's no risk. Obviously he knew it would be better to throw a notch in it, everyone knows that (except the guy that MasterBlaster worked for.) But if you're in a situation where you can do something wrong and you know it will still get the job done, why not do it to study its reaction and further your understanding of the physics of trees. If I have a tree that's leaning bad and there's no hazards and I had time, then I wouldn't want to put in a notch and bore it. I already know how to do that. I'd want to experiment with it. See if I can't overcome the lean with wedge, or drop it sideways while keeping it intact. Why not learn from it?
 


Here's a video of a barberchair in a bur oak caused by excessive pressure on a 3-1. It happened at a "safety meeting" lol
 
I removed a big dead ash once by throwing up ropes into the canopy and breaking it out. A tree I didn't want to climb. It worked. I broke a rope doing it, that was scary, but expected, but we broke out the whole canopy.
 
See if this embed works, Shaw

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fF3lMijA09U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Looks to me like the sawyer does not understand that the tree could slide back along the "chair ramp" back towards him.

The fellow is too close, is he not?
 
I can guarantee that it wasn't the excessive pull that barberchaired the vid in that tree. It was cut up improperly or their was a flaw.

Is there anymore footage/pics of the stump?
 
He said it was a zero risk situation. I've experimented at customers houses when there's no risk. Obviously he knew it would be better to throw a notch in it, everyone knows that (except the guy that MasterBlaster worked for.) But if you're in a situation where you can do something wrong and you know it will still get the job done, why not do it to study its reaction and further your understanding of the physics of trees. If I have a tree that's leaning bad and there's no hazards and I had time, then I wouldn't want to put in a notch and bore it. I already know how to do that. I'd want to experiment with it. See if I can't overcome the lean with wedge, or drop it sideways while keeping it intact. Why not learn from it?

Dr Shaw. Welcome to The Treehouse.

I'm all for a good expirement if it doesn't affect production. I'm not for stunts in stupidity. I logged for a decade and did residential tree work for nearly a decade. Do you think that every situation I've been presented has been dealt with in a textbook manner?

Making a 'teaser thread' about about an intentional barberchair and then posting a vid that isn't even a barberchair? Before expirementing should be undertaken a effort should be made to master all known techniques.
 
At all levels of tree care our job is to manage and mitigate risk and danger. There seem to be already many documented examples of dangerous practices. If you want to try yourself, well, doing so at a customer's property seems a bit foolish to introduce a problem. Sure, all's well that dropped well, fine, but if it didn't, and it was determined that something wasn't done properly with intent, and there was damage as a result, how would that go over during a lawsuit? Especially for you guys down in the States.

In my case it's already foolish that I climb, I'm not going to push the envelope in cutting, I'll leave that for the more experienced.

Just my 2 cents.
 



Here's a video of a barberchair in a bur oak caused by excessive pressure on a 3-1. It happened at a "safety meeting" lol
 
It might be good for Dan to work a season on a crab boat up on the Bering Sea. Come home just wanting to do safe things. Fifty grand in your pocket can purchase some nice gear too.
 
Here's how to embed videos;

1) Do NOT copy/paste the page url.
2) Click the "share" button - a embed button will appear underneath/to the left.
3) Scroll down and click the "embed" button - a blue highlighted address will appear.
4) Copy/paste THAT address in your post.

However, attempting to post vids via a phone is many time problematic.
 
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