best face for dead trees?

[HolmenTree]

You made the statement: "we all know heartwood is dormant, the sapwood is the living "strength " of hingewood." Can you site Shigo's writings on this point?... Jay made a couple posts about the heartwood having more strength in woodworking applications... in looking at hinge fibers it often appears as though the heartwood does the most holding..

Now we're talking 2 different things here:

I was a faller for a large forestry company for over 20 yrs starting at age 16, I understand sapwood and heartwood strength in hingewood. No matter soft or hardwood when you see those 2 tallest pulled fibers on each edge of the stump that's sapwood. The broken off fibers almost flush to the stump between the sapwood fibers is the dormant heartwood which offers little strength.

Then after my faller position I was a licensed lumber grader for 13 yrs before I went full time as an arborist.
I know and fully understand the properties of kiln or air dried lumber. There is very little sapwood if none at all because it's cut off in the milling process. Structural or woodworking lumber has total different properties from a live tree. And as Jay says when you reintroduce moisture back to the wood by steaming and bending strength can be increased.

Now to that Shigo comment, I took a tree dynamics course in March 2004. My instructor was a very close friend to Dr. Alex Shigo and from the information I received both verbal and from my study book, quotes were from Dr Shigo on the subject of the role of compensation wood in gymnosperms and reaction wood in angiosperms.
Shigo had disected countless trees in his lifetime and hingewood of sapwood and heartwood is fully understood.

If I get time this evening I'll scan some of the pages of my study manual.
The manual's bibliography says 3 of Shigo's books were used, Modern Arboriculture 1991, Tree Anatomy,1994 and Tree Basics.

 

[HolmenTree]

Let me add this to my last post. When you fall a codominant tree that has grown into a single stem, at ground level. What's gonna happen?

Yes most cases one half of the tree will fall sideways before the other hits the ground. On a codominant tree there is only sapwood on the outside of the hingewood of both sides of the tree. There is no sapwood at the split in the middle of the tree.

It's all heartwood in the middle of the tree right up to a inch or less from the bark, but did it offer strength?

 

[Tucker943]

Whether Shigo said it or not, its true. Shigo came up with some things, and has been credited accordingly. The men in the woods and in the air came up with the other 90%. Alex Shigo was a gift to the industry, but he was only one man. I'll listen to men like Willard all day long. Decades of filling landings are more then enough time to be abke to say you know what you are talking about.

I thought I was some sort of hot dog about putting trees on the ground until I took up logging......

 

[HolmenTree]

Thanks Chris I try my best

Here's the scans I promised from my "Tree Dynamics, Worker Safety & Risk Assessment" manual.
Pretty good reading.

 

[murphy4trees]

Nice info.. thanks for taking the time to dig that up.
Any chance of finding anything related to hinge strength in sap vs heart wood? I've seen many hinges where the big fiber pulls were out of the center area.. Don't really recall too many where the big fibers are pulled from the new wood.. Guess I ought to be paying better attention.

 

[HolmenTree]

Nice info.. thanks for taking the time to dig that up.
Any chance of finding anything related to hinge strength in sap vs heart wood? I've seen many hinges where the big fiber pulls were out of the center area.. Don't really recall too many where the big fibers are pulled from the new wood.. Guess I ought to be paying better attention.

No problem Murph, got nothing in that manual on hingewood but I have a pile of other manuals and timberfaller books to go from.
Just think about what I last said about the hingewood in a codominant tree.

I gotta run , 1/2 day of work then off with the family and camper for the weekend.

 

[Bermy]

...Norfolk Pines almost all leave big fibre pull on the outside...sometimes it will just fold over and not even tear or pull out, hang on all the way to the ground.
Isn't that why some of us are taught to 'nip' the outer sapwood prior to felling, to prevent that outer edge pull on some species...

 

[flushcut]

I got it the best face for a dead tree is a game face.

 

[HolmenTree]

...Norfolk Pines almost all leave big fibre pull on the outside...sometimes it will just fold over and not even tear or pull out, hang on all the way to the ground.

Yes that's why conifers have such a strong hinge..........very strong sapwood. Those fibre pulls can stay on either the stump or the butt of the tree.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I got it the best face for a dead tree is a game face.

The "Yeah right, I beleive it died this year face." :roll:

 

[HolmenTree]

Isn't that why some of us are taught to 'nip' the outer sapwood prior to felling, to prevent that outer edge pull on some species...

All the I.S.A. manuals teach this.
They're called "kerf cuts", 2 shallow cuts on the sides of the tree , a few inches below each side of the hinge. These prevent sapwood fiber tearing down to the climber's tie in, lanyard or rigging when doing aerial removals.

 

[flushcut]

The "Yeah right, I beleive it died this year face." :roll:

I gave one of those to a guy that was telling me this evergreen died last year and it was so rotton I couldn't tell what it was. That thing was dry rotton down to a two inch core of heart wood in the stump, maybe 14” DBH, and most of the limbs were gone.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I often wonder if they just lose track of time

 

[flushcut]

Possible or they had their brains sucked out by aliens for examination, either one is very plausible.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Alien abduction.. that would explain a lot of customers .....

 

[murphy4trees]

Quote Originally Posted by Bermy View Post
...Norfolk Pines almost all leave big fibre pull on the outside...sometimes it will just fold over and not even tear or pull out, hang on all the way to the ground.

Yes that's why conifers have such a strong hinge..........very strong sapwood. Those fibre pulls can stay on either the stump or the butt of the tree.

Seems to me that the fibers pull on the corners 'casue they "can"... not cause the wood fibers have better holding ability.. I ran across this old video footage today... its the first tree I ever recorded. Left the close up examination of the hinges in for contemplation in this subject..

I'd really like to hear some sort of discussion.. Seems like there is some industry wide misunderstanding on this very important matter...

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ECsesxqXIjI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Old Monkey]

"So you're implying there is no difference between the holding power of sapwood and heartwood?" he asked while waiting for a video to download elsewhere on his computer.

 

[murphy4trees]

I'd guess the heartwood is the same or even stronger... might depend on species, moisture etc...

When fibers rip down the corners of a hinge, all that shows is that the resistance to rip down the sides is less than it takes to pull the fiber apart, which makes sense. Its going to happen at some point & has nothing to do with being a "stronger" fiber than the heartwood...

 

[SkwerI]

Jesus! You're an idiot, Murphy. Please just shut up and quit spouting off your nonsense. You're really making yourself look like a blooming fool.

 

[Tucker943]

Like.

 

[murphy4trees]

Jesus! You're an idiot, Murphy. Please just shut up and quit spouting off your nonsense. You're really making yourself look like a blooming fool.

And you're a nasty drunk that never did his work.... if this conversation is over your head, then keep your ugliness to yourself...

 

[MasterBlaster]

Alright, you both have had your say now BOTH STFU.

Put each other on IGNORE!

 

[woodworkingboy]

I have to say that I have messed with a whole heck of a lot of planks with both heartwood and sap wood in them, and have never been given an indication that sapwood has more resiliency than the other. I could accept that maybe in living trees with the high moisture content, in some species the sap wood has more bendability, but in dryer wood as a general rule, I'd be hard pressed to draw that conclusion. As a side thought, I can't really see how being wetter would change the bend characteristic between the two different types of wood. With lesser moisture content steamed wood that will be bent, the species known for their high bendability, if you leave on the sap wood, that is where your crack will start, and why it is removed.

 

[murphy4trees]

but in dryer wood as a general rule, I'd be hard pressed to draw that conclusion.

It s absolutely clear that in looking at long dead oak hinge fibers, the center heartwood has A LOT more holding ability than the outer "Sapwood"....

 

[Old Monkey]

Absolutely clear huh? Sometimes it's not what a person says but how they say it that matters. I suspect you could say "I have a pencil," and sound arrogant.

I wonder how we could test the holding power of sapwood and heartwood in order to see if their is a difference?