Felling leaning Red oak

[Ax-Man]

My turn for tree felling and picture posting for better or worse for my skills as a faller. I am not a logger nor a real expert at felling whole trees in the woods. Most of my work is felling the stick after the top has been removed. Here goes. Going to be alot of pics so bear wit me. Also have all this on video but that will have to come later. Hopefully.

Here is the tree . A Red Oak in our little patch of woods that just died last June or July. I thought Oak Wilt got it but today revealed it may gotten Phtophthora in the roots that did it in.

It is a decent size tree with a nasty lean. I didn't want to fell it with the lean as it would have landed in a bunch of small trees and a nice cherry I would like to save. The hedge tree in the first and second pic was directly in the chosen felling path. I knew this tree was going to be trouble later on unless it came down. The main crotch was headed straight for it. Instead of just cutting it down like all the other trees in the way I just cut a notch and hinge with a backcut but didn't finish it and was going to let oak knock it down just for kicks. You can see that Hegde tree better in the second pic it is just off to the right of the oak.

The last pic shows the last cut we were able to make with our boom truck. I might have gotten a double in there by mistake. That was 55 feet up and out with alot of tree left up in the air. Didn't want to risk anyone getting hurt or the truck damaged trying a big topping cut or get into some fancy rigging scenario just for a firewood tree.

(Edit) The pics are off according to my post the pictures didn't get downloaded the way I loaded them but I think everyone can figure out what is going on here.

 

[Ax-Man]

A visual inspection of tree showed a frost crack on the side where the notch was going to go and that Phtophthora fungus after removing some bark. One pic shows the oppite side of the tree. I suspect this is what killed the tree. With the bark starting to come off the tree a sounding with a rubber hammer made it sound like the tree might be hollow.

 

[Ax-Man]

To help pull the tree away from it's intended lean we used the GRCS and added some extra mechanical advatage . This helped for the actual falling but this tree had such a lean to it that not matter what we did it still would have a mind of it's own to go with the natural lean side lean.

 

[Ax-Man]

Here are some of the pics from the felling. I cut a shallow notch because of the lean. No need for a big notch. I put a band around the tree just in case of a barberchair and of course the felling sticks . I don't use felling sticks because there is no need for me to use them. I just did this for the pic . Did I do it correctly??? They did help point the direction of the fall. Another picture of that half cut Hedge tree I wanted to drop the oak onto. The other pic shows it on the ground.

In that pic with the sticks and the band you can see that frost crack defect in the wood where I cut the notch.

My backcut was way off on the far corner , came in low. The saw was cutting straight I just didn't have the saw level . I was going to try a Coo's Bay cut on this one but it just didn't work out and didn't make much sense to try and monkey around cutting a Coo's Bay. I didn't even get half way and the back cut stated to open a little. I decided to do a tapered hinge thing to keep it going to the left. It did work but I didn't get too much of a taper on the hinge. Like I said I am not a faller so to speak but no one got hurt , the tree landed down flat like I wanted and we did not harm the important Cherry trees that I wanted to keep had we cut it with the natural lean going to the right.

 

[Ax-Man]

Almost done, this is a little trick I got over at AS years ago. As you pass the center of gravity doing the stump cut but before you reach the pinch or bind on the bar zone just before you come to the end of the cut. Stick two wedges behind the bar . The stump will fall back and the saw can finish the cut eezy peezy. This might be common knowledge to most of you guys. It works slick though.

Some pretty wood in that Red Oak.

That's it. I hope this wasn't too drawn out for just the cutting of a couple of trees.

I do have all this and more on video if I can figure out how to get it on here.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Clever use of the poles Larry

 

[Jed]

"Too drawn out"!!!??? Larry, are you kidding?!! We haven't had too many fresh kills like this one posted up here lately, so thanks a ton.

And I got news for ya: you Are a faller. Sure the back cut got a little low on the far-side, but, other than that: that's a darned good stump.

 

[Ax-Man]

Thanks. I try my best.

 

[HolmenTree]

Larry you did a fine job.
I find the handiest thing in my tool kit to pull those iffy leaning trees down.... is my pickup truck. In low range 4X4 my Dodge Cummins is one powerful tool along with 200' of 3/4" Stablebraid and a few 3 ton blocks if needed.
As the first picture shows I attached the rope to the tow ring with a biner[didn't even need the biner, the spliced end could just flip onto the indent inside the tow ring]
Normally I attach with a biner on a 6 wrap bee-line prussic onto the rope for easy adjustment. But in this case the rope was just long enough to hook the splice loop to the ring.
That birch was leaning hard back onto the yellow house.
Years ago I used to laugh at some of the local farmers how they pulled down huge trees, but I do the same now . The one big advantage I have under my belt is my Bigshot slingshot and throwline.
Another pull rope I own that I use more then the 3/4" Stablebraid and works very good for me is 200' of 11 mm Yale Blaze climbing line.

 

[Al Smith]

Looks good to me Larry .Too bad the thing is so gnarly it probabley won't yield a log good enough for lumber .Lots of good firewood though .

On that back set on a leaner .One method is to bore cut about half of the back cut ,then set a wedge .Do the other side untill you have about maybe an inch of holding wood in the center,drive another on that side then finish it out .Just one way ,there certainly are others .

 

[gf beranek]

Right on. Looks handled well.

 

[sotc]

Backing up like that is better too, driver has a clear view of whats going on and where the sawyer is. (Even if thats the rearview mirror Willard)

 

[Ax-Man]

I always prefer a truck pull as long as there is room of course with the truck in a position like Willard showed having a full of the tree and sawyer.

I have a couple of U bolts mounted into the front bumper of our truck. We used to use shackles to attach the pull rope , now we use a heavy rigging biner with a porta wrap for the pull rope.It makes life much so easier with the porta wrap to anchor the rope for pulling . The beauty of this set-up is anyone can now set the pull rope without any knot tieing.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I attach the porty to the truck and the rope to the porty. Seems easier on the rope and no knots to have to work out of it save for what is tied to the tree.
Same with tractor pulling.

 

[sotc]

Little older than Willard's but functional

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Anti deer damage bumper right there
Love that thing.

 

[stig]

To me, that bumper looks like it would damage a deer

 

[sotc]

I like my meat tender

 

[Burnham]

That looks like one I'd have preferred to bore the back cut. That would have allowed you set the hinge up however you wanted without the drama of the tree wanting to go so early, and take a potential barberchair out of the equation.

Not to say I'm critcizing the way you handled it, Larry. Any time you get one with as much lean as that to fall where you want it when the lay isn't directly to the lean, is a good fell.

I suppose it may be an obvious point, but anyway ...it's really a good thing that the crack was perpendicular to your desired lay. Putting a crack like that in the face is wise...parallel to the hinge is asking for grief.

You said that in sounding with a rupper mallet you thought it sounded hollow, and then we see it was not...sometimes loose but firm slabs of bark that have slightly pulled away from the wood will sound like that when struck. Watch to see if the bark is bowing in slightly when you strike it, or chop some off and strike wood directly for a better idea of condition.

 

[SouthSoundTree]

Good show Larry.

I'd concur with the POW, as it gives a better bend radius for the rope, even if the rope is just slipped over it like a big thimble, rather than wrapped.

Finding a way to attach our POW to our truck receiver is something that we've been trying to work out optimally for pulling trees with amsteel. Seems a double or triple wrap around the tree (a la a tensionless anchor), with a jacked bowline (effectively the rabbit runs around the tree twice) and using the POW is getting our optimal strength. Sometimes we just break trees off because they are too rotten to cut. In such cases, maximizing the strength, and not breaking or melting our 1/2" amsteel blue with a knot/ poor bend radius is our goal.

I like the two wedges beyond the COG on the stump. I'll use that on round stumps often. For big stumps (wider than bar length) with big buttress roots like that, I'll sometimes just keep a bit of wood at each corner, creating a tripod, then cut vertically into the buttress roots enough to sever the stump free, then cut the little bits of the buttress roots horizontally, from the outside. The no wedge method.

 

[Ax-Man]

Again, thanks for the kind words.

Hey Burnham, Intiallly I was going to bore cut this one but my consevatisim kicked in because I have never bore cut a tree quite this big.. If it was just 6 inches smaller in diameter I would have tried it Be my luck the lean side would sit on the saw or tear out the holding wood prematurely or some unforeseen thing. I was using a 36 inch bar and didn't think it was long enough to poke through the off side so I could see where I was at. As it was I just barely had enough bar to make it in one cut without having to move. I was also going to try a Coo's Bay but that didn't quite work out either so I just settled for what I knew best and felt comfortable with. Guess Ill have to wait for another smaller tree for the Coo's Bay.

I always appreciate your input on these felling tree threads . No substitute for years of experience and forestry training.

I know I keep bringing up this video I have that shows the whole process . I have tried to to get it off the camera but we are having technical challenges . This computer has two movie programs built into it. One is Windows Movie and the other is an HP program and neither one of the programs will accept my Sony camera. I don't know if I am doing something wrong or what. Looks like we are going to have to buy a program to download before we can go to the next step. It is just frustrating because the HP program works just fine for the camera.

 

[gf beranek]

Figuring out video editing capability on a computer can indeed be a frustrating thing. First of all it's always best that you have a dedicated drive to hold the video files. Otherwise it can be too much for a single drive computer to handle the process.

Luck

 

[Ax-Man]

WOW!!! You put it into a nutshell Jerry. I was at the point of just giving up on this video thing but I am starting to make progress. After trying so many tricks not to mention hours and money I didn't need to spend of trying to get the computer to recognize my camera. I finally got over came that obsticle by buying a firewire with a card and had to install it inside the computer on the mother board. I also had to reactivated our old computer because it was a windows XP verses the Vista we have now for the Firewire to work. I have also expanded my computer skills a little more because of this little adventure which is a good thing and I also have my own computer for doing this movie stuff which takes up alot of memory real quick.

The question I have now is that I have just about finished with the editing and clip making what kind of hoops do I have to jump through to be able to post the here. I know I am going to have to go through U tube and set up some kind of account. What about time lengths and byte size.

For example one of the clips is in the windows Movie Maker format, good or bad???? Length is about 9 to 10 minutes in real time with a file size of 126 MB, again good or bad???? Am I going to have problems with this or do I need to condense it more

I don't want to post a big long home movie so to speak but just the highlights you guys would probaly interested in to go along with the pictures.

Also I don't really want ot go public either so to speak using U tube but is there a way around that so I can just post it here.

 

[woodworkingboy]

I just made and posted my first vid, on youtube and here. My mac has it's own video editing program included in the operating system. Probably pretty basic compared to a lot of others out there, but i figured it out more or less in a few hours. If you go either go through the youtube site or look via a search engine, there is information on how to upload a vid. It has to be in one of a few different formats, I chose Quicktime. Larry, without looking back, I believe that you can choose to have your vid private so that it can't be seen by the general public, then presumably you either link to it or embed to have it be seen here. Mine was everyone can see, so I didn't pursue that. I think that youtube has a somewhat new interface for when uploading, so the older primers may not exactly apply. I found this very helpful: http://www.youtube.com/t/creators_corner

 

[woodworkingboy]

This spells out uploading a vid, procedure and acceptable formats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O7iUiftbKU