more mini notches

[Old Monkey]

This thread title has me jonesing for those little donuts for some reason.

 

[squisher]

Those donuts are damn good. I just had me a couple dozen fairly recently at the fall fair. My wife always says she doesn't want her own and then ends up sneaking a bunch of mine.

 

[Old Monkey]

Those calories don't count because they were yours.

 

[murphy4trees]

left the hinge a little thick... the thick hinge did more fighting of the fall than the COG, though COG was a factor..

 

[squisher]

As an expirement for yourself. Try cutting some really overly deep hinges on some spars and see how powerful COG really is.

Maybe you could video it?

 

[Old Monkey]

Have you ever put a plastic pop bottle in the hinge? Its supposed to get the butt to jump off the stump. I've never tried it.

 

[squisher]

No but I have put coins on railway tracks.

 

[Paul B]

me too! a couple quarters and dimes, might still have a smushed dime somewhere, some of the greatest treasure hunting I had as a kid was trying to find the coin after the train roared by.

 

[stig]

You need to work on your saw skills, before starting to show us all how to do stuff.

I have been training fallers for the past 1½ decade and you are doing two things that I would not expect to see from anybody but a raw rookie:

When you cut a face all it takes is two cuts!
Whether you do a traditional or a humboldt or any other variation, it only takes two cuts to complete it, not a lot of fussing around and filing away at the bottom of the cut to get it right.

When you plunge/bore cut and face your backcut up to the hinge you don't walk halfway around the treee to check where the point of your bar is ( at 1.36 min. in the video).
A trained faller knows where his bar is at all times and doesn't waste time on checking.

I would tolerate neither of those things in an apprentice after their first ½ season of falling.

I realize that saw handling is not so necessary in arborist work, but when someone posts "this is how to do it" videos, I expect them to at least master the basics in using a saw.

 

[woodworkingboy]

It just seems that the vid teaches something that nobody needs to know.... With a straight spar, a deeper notch will often undermine the center of gravity, so breathing on the tree might help it to go over, if required. Hell, even I know that.

Aging and pretty pooped at the end of the day, why work harder than is necessary?

 

[18 stoner]

A good depth of gob was the only thing needed there IMO, and if there was a concern of thickness of hinge "fighting the fall" then a nice plunge or letter box would reduce this and retain directional function.

Not rocket science and no need to make it so.

 

[squisher]

When you cut a face all it takes is two cuts!
Whether you do a traditional or a humboldt or any other variation, it only takes two cuts to complete it, not a lot of fussing around and filing away at the bottom of the cut to get it right.

I would add though Stig that if someone does screw up their undercuts it is better to fix them than to just try and look 'pro' and continue on with a defective face.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Good point, Squish. If you are dropping trees in the woods everyday, your aim and sense gets tuned in second nature like. Working around homes entails a greater diversity of activities, I think it can be said. Days out of work adds to it to. I catch Stig's drift, but the bottom line is a good notch. Speed and rhythm comes with practice, like wth any other physically learned skill. I'm not praising futzing around.

 

[stig]

I just don't expect someone who considers themself good enough to post videos to teach others how to fall trees, to "screw up their undercuts".
That is for ordinary people to do, not video experts.

 

[squisher]

No doubt. It's a rookie maneuver.

 

[woodworkingboy]

It wasn't much of an undercut to screw up. I think that was the intended point of the video.

 

[Thor's Hammer]

I too would be grumpy boss if I saw an employee farting around like the video.

I'm always amazed at how bad some arborists felling techniques are. Daniel falls into this category.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I can't understand why cutting a bigger notch is a "waste of time." The fark? Was the point of the mini notch merely to 'speed things up?'

Why use a wedge when a pull line's already in the tree? And why did you need more than the power of one person pulling? You already stated that it was a straight-up spar. Perhaps your groundhand was a midget? <<< JK!

As it appears to me, I'd have slapped a conventional face in the sucker and had my weakest groundie pulling. No pull line or wedges?

Check below
v
v
v

 

[cory]

Stig, all good points. But as Jay points out, a high level of caution is appropriate when working near high value targets like houses, so in these cases, isn't checking the opposite side of hinge OK when setting up the hinge on a plunge cut? One of the reasons for a plunge is to get the hinge exactly the way you want it ahead of time, without time constraints, as opposed to "playing the tree" as it is going over when using a conventional backcut. I can't imagine not checking the far side when plunging in a residential setting, but I can imagine it in the woods when plunging to avoid barber chair on heavy leaners.

 

[cory]

Use a mini notch when a spar has a lean to it. Makes good sense, then. And "mini notch" is a good term for it!

 

[treesmith]

Is it just me, or does it appear that Murph is getting shorter and wider in each successive video? Just kidding.....

 

[MasterBlaster]

He needs to adjust his f-stop aperture a bit. ;^}

 

[dandandatreeman]

It would kill me to watch that in person. I couldn't finish watching it.

 

[stig]

Stig, all good points. But as Jay points out, a high level of caution is appropriate when working near high value targets like houses, so in these cases, isn't checking the opposite side of hinge OK when setting up the hinge on a plunge cut? One of the reasons for a plunge is to get the hinge exactly the way you want it ahead of time, without time constraints, as opposed to "playing the tree" as it is going over when using a conventional backcut. I can't imagine not checking the far side when plunging in a residential setting, but I can imagine it in the woods when plunging to avoid barber chair on heavy leaners.

All I'm saying is that a good sawyer should in my opinion be able to make a facecut in 2 cuts and know where his bar tip is at all times.

If you know to the 1/10 of an inch where your bar is, there should be no reason to walk around and check, whether you are around buildings or not. put it parrallel to the hinge and it'll be parallel to the hinge. Why waste time taking a hike to verify it?

We're not talking fancy felling here, but knocking a G.. D..... spar over.
Not exactly rocket science.

By the way, I plunge cut 90% of the trees i fall. I'm European, that is how we do it.

I'm just getting good and tired of Murphy trying to tell us all how to do stuff and constantly turning the simplest operations into some sort of make believe high level falling science by adamantly refusing to utilize the knowledge and methods that everybody else consider standard.

So what I'm trying to say is simply: If he wants to come across as the great tree felling sage, at least he should get the basics right first.

Learn how to use a saw like a pro and sharpen it like one, too!

I'll go back to ignoring these threads, it's better for my bloodpressure.

 

[murphy4trees]

These are excellent points... they show the difference between the logger, falling trees in the woods for a living and the arborist, falling trees in suburban setting.. These are different animals with far different needs and concerns. Its a BIG MISTAKE to judge one by the other's standards.. Or more importantly to blindly apply the techniques used by loggers to suburban tree work... After spending a few hours to rig out the top of the tree, taking a few extra seconds to cut the notch is no big deal.. well worth the added time.. I will often double cut the notch as a SOP... And I almost always check the bar tip on the plunge. Again a few extra seconds is well worth the added confidence it gives me. That's not going to change. Added a few seconds of efficiency to my falling techniques is not going to make a bit of difference to my bottom line, whereas developing the skills to confidently fall trees that others are going to climb or crane makes a huge difference in the extremely competitive market here.

I agree that this is not a good example of the use of the mini notch.. 95% of my trees have a pull line in them. and mostly tied to a skid loader.. The mini notch works well when pulling with the skid steer. And I did learn something here.. That would have been a good tree to gut the hinge on... Not something I do much, except on back leaners... I'll definitely think about gutting the hinge more often after this feedback.. so thanks for that!

You need to work on your saw skills, before starting to show us all how to do stuff.

I have been training fallers for the past 1½ decade and you are doing two things that I would not expect to see from anybody but a raw rookie:

When you cut a face all it takes is two cuts!
Whether you do a traditional or a humboldt or any other variation, it only takes two cuts to complete it, not a lot of fussing around and filing away at the bottom of the cut to get it right.

When you plunge/bore cut and face your backcut up to the hinge you don't walk halfway around the treee to check where the point of your bar is ( at 1.36 min. in the video).
A trained faller knows where his bar is at all times and doesn't waste time on checking.

I would tolerate neither of those things in an apprentice after their first ½ season of falling.

I realize that saw handling is not so necessary in arborist work, but when someone posts "this is how to do it" videos, I expect them to at least master the basics in using a saw.