FS C sawyer certification with Dent, 2011

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Great pics Burnham, as you have mentioned before Dent really likes to get involved and stand right in amongst it but touching the cutter as he's felling? I'd find it a bit off putting having someone right on my shoulder when your trying to concentrate and if he put his arm around me:O
 
Also if the 2 Pete's are coming over to fell some big un's any chance for a 3rd!. We could get a bus load for a busmans:D
 
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  • #28
I hear you...that's definitely his style. The touch is to give you a nudge or tug when he decides the time to exit is NOW. If you go on your own without him feeling the need to encourage you, you never even feel his hand.

I can tell you, he is as focused on the tree and the feedback it's giving as the sawyer is, and has a ton of experience with interpreting those messages. If you have to cut a really nasty one, and that last snag was not pretty at all, if you can get comfortable with his presence, it can begin to feel reassuring.

If it's something where you'll learn a hard lesson but not likely get killed, he'll often let you scew up...like letting a guy go ahead and allow a tree to set back and pinch the bar even though he can tell the saw is beginning to bog and the wedge isn't set tight enough. And he is not shy then about parcelling out a dressing down, should you deserve it...also his style, for sure.

The thing he has to make sure never happens is for a student to get injured or worse under his tutalege...that would leave him feeling responsible, and liable as well. So close monitoring is his way of dealing with that...which is maybe better than standing back and just hoping it'll work out OK.
 
I know what you mean about having someone nearer at times for confidence, I've stood with guys when training and they bounce thoughts back off you even though they know they are correct and im sure you'd agree that confidence is a major part in tree felling. I don't think I'd be as close as Dent though as im sure someone would be telling me to "chuff off" out the way! I hope I look happier than that when im watching people:D
 
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  • #30
If one were to tell Dent to chuff off, he'd tell you to shut your blankity blank saw off and get your blankity blank azz out of his class and sight...in no uncertain terms and with a distinct lack of gentle language accompanying the aforementioned message :D.

He smiles often enough during his lectures, and during the bs sessions before and after a class, but not so much when the felling and autopsies are going on, 'tis true. He sees this a deadly serious business, and with over 100 faller's fatality investigations as a hired expert witness for court proceedings, he may be more sensitive to that than most.

I think they broke the mold after v1.0 of Douglas Dent was cast ;).
 
Burnham, how you describe Mr. Dent, seems to me to express the attributes of a good occupational teacher. Liking them isn't a necessity, there is the larger and more important picture. Wonder if his own teacher is speaking through him?
 
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  • #32
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. Certainly nothing organized, like an apprentice program...such didn't exist. That would be a great question to ask him.

Did y'all know he was only 23 when he wrote Professional Timber Falling, A Procedural Approach?
 
In a way I can see where it would be less distracting for the faller with Dent actually touching him. At least that way the faller isn't wondering in the back of his mind "Where is he?" You know he's right there next to you.
 
The guy seems almost Japanese in his approach. During my apprenticeship, it was basically a nightmare experience six out of seven days per week, morning until night. Then when we would punch the clock at 6:30, sometimes the man would be waiting and ask me to go for a beer with him, or enquire as to why I never came over to his house on Sunday. I was like wtf? Being able to flip a switch from intensity and severity one minute, to a much more easy going approach the next when work is finished, I had never experienced anything to that degree, and it took years to get a handle on it. In retrospect, I did myself a lot of harm by taking things so personally, it sure didn't help anything. It does stretch you out as a human to be able to still be light hearted in such a demanding situation, really realize what is going on.
 
To write a book like that is amazing for a 23 year old...or any age. To know that much by that age is incredible.
 
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  • #38
inbredJed said:
Yeah... That was clearly a really filthy snag. Good job staying safe while making a good hinge.
Click to expand...

Damn good thing I did do a decent job on that one...I can't recall having screwed the pooch so badly on a face cut as I did on the first tree in some 30 years of felling for the FS :(.

Just when you think you're beginning to get halfway competent at something...
:|:
 
Yes, and to have the respect for the work to want to make your contribution and teach it proper. Reminds of another person, too.
 
Burnham said:
Damn good thing I did do a decent job on that one...I can't recall having screwed the pooch so badly on a face cut as I did on the first tree in some 30 years of felling for the FS :(.

Just when you think you're beginning to get halfway competent at something...
:|:
Click to expand...

A good reminder to all the cutters that one has to be always on their game, no matter their experience, and that everyone makes mistakes, if only on a rare occasion.
 
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  • #43
Sure is, Gord. USFS employees, every single one with field-going responsibilities, are issued hardhats that must meet standards for use in wildfire suppression activities. Those like you linked are not sufficiently resistant to radiant heat to meet the standard.
 
Ain't standards silly, sometimes? I mean, if I'm in a fire that melts Gord's helmet, I think the rest of me's gonna be lit up, too.
 
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  • #45
You're kidding, right? If not, you don't know squat about the real conditions fireline crews operate in.

Ask Old Monkey, or wiley p.
 
No, I don't. So, your hardhat can melt and you're still OK? Cool, news to me.

I don't mean that to sound like that. Know whutta I mean? The conditions...
 
Great pics Burnham.
I have to say that old McDonald T helmet Dent is wearing was banned over 20 years ago. The one I'm wearing in my avator to the left is the new certified standard aluminum helmet with double layer riveted top.

Willard.
 
Butch, the heat will soften them, then they harden back up and become brittle, either condition can render them nearly useless. They are quite light weight (thin) material
 
Nice work but I would be nervous as hell with him standing there looking on as I cut. I think it would be quite intimidating.
 
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