Murphy's Step Cut

Merle Nelson said:
I like the idea of preventing a barber chair with chain today. What does the self-locking feature look like? At that time it would have been wise also to make for a more controllable, fallible tree.
Click to expand...

It is just a chain with a hook that fits across a single link in the chain and locks it that way.

The way to do it is to make your face cut then put the chain around the tree so the extra length hangs down in front of the face.
That way you don't have to worry about accidentally hitting it while cutting.
 
Smooth video Bixler.

Not sure if I’m the only person, but I can’t make out yellow lettering well on any videos I see it in.

On those diagonal cuts on the hung tree, is there anything you would change about them if you were making them again today?
 
Thanks Merle, if I could change anything I would trip the log with a staggered bottom release cut, like Murphy demonstrated in those last couple vids.

The yellow txt read: "the camera died, but we pulled it over, trust me."
 
Nice video...looked good cutting that leaning wood.

But how could you do that?....not show the felling on the last tree?

Two wedges, a face cut and no denouement? Torture!
 
Bixler said:
Thanks Merle, if I could change anything I would trip the log with a staggered bottom release cut, like Murphy demonstrated in those last couple vids.

The yellow txt read: "the camera died, but we pulled it over, trust me."
Click to expand...

If you're sure the bottom has tension, its faster and easier to cut straight down and out... just watch for the pull of the root ball and the angle of the lean... NICE job Bix
 
I removed around 460 trees inside of a 3 ac. forested plot. Most of them were recently dead Tan Oaks from Sudden Oak Death. They grew up competing for light with second growth redwoods and some fir so were very tall and leggy.

After falling a few that would hit the ground clear, and climbing and dismantling a bunch of the 2 and 3 foot dia. trees the smaller ones looked most workable to lay over against other trees and just work them as ‘hung’ trees.

I cut down from the top at an angle stopping when I thought I was close to a ‘pinch’ and then matched the cut and came up from the bottom. Release was always very snappy.
When I saw Murphy’s video demonstrating the cuts he uses on hung trees and the momentary tearing of the topstap I thought, thats it. I can do a lot with that extra moment of time.
 
I don't understand that video. Why not dissect that log without the snapping and tearing of wood. Put a notch in the pressure and cut through the tension. Clean, controlled, and wont throw chains.
 
Chris asks a reasonable question.

I'll throw in another, one of my regularly argued and hopefully helpful criticisms ...most of the time Bix, you fail to practice one of the basic tenants of safe sawyer habit. To gain the strongest grip possible from the human hand, and thus benefit from the best chance of maintaining control of the saw available to you, if kickback or other miserable occurances should come to pass, you must wrap the thumb in opposition to the fingers when gripping the saw with your left hand.

You're not doing so. Enough said, bro :).
 
stig said:
Merle, what would prevent you from simply sticking a couple of wedges in a tree with that much backlean, to hold the kerf open, while you completed the cut.
Then after setting whatever hinge thickness you deemed necessary, step out of the danger zone and signal the skidder driver to pull.

That is how I do it.

Also, if I know something is going to barberchair while I'm near, I wrap a logging chain around it. I keep a short, selflocking one in the truck during logging season for that purpose.
Click to expand...

Stig, possibly only inexperience kept me from doing that. This is 15 and 20 years ago and I’m working mostly from general recollection as opposed to having the exact picture of a particular tree in mind. Lets call these adrenaline induced recollections.
These were Blue Gum Euc.s. We would be taking down groves or hedge rows of dozens or hundreds. Some 3 and 4 foot dia. some down to 8 in.. Usually we had a timber faller come down and do most of that while I set trees up in advance. At times he wasn’t there and I would do some falling while my friend operated the skidder.

So, all the stuff that will fall is on the ground and processed. By the way it’s all going out to be chipped and shipped to Japan. I think the only specs were, shorter than 45 ft., nothing bigger than 3 ft. dia. or smaller than 6 in.. All the trees that have some back- lean, and all the trees that have some back limb weight but are comfortable pulls are done. (Used wedges all over the place so far.)

Most of the trees that are left I would vote that I climb them and take them apart in some form. No, my buddy wants to pull them, ”no problem” he says. At stake are things like 5 and 10 thousand gallon water tanks, high voltage power lines, neighboring vineyards in full production, and county roads with occasional traffic. Between his ‘no problem’ attitude, and my ‘can do’ attitude, I feel like we are pushing at the boundaries pretty hard.

My friend used to want a big open face. So I am already a little over one third into say an 18 in. dia. tree. (One of my concerns was that we were going to rip a tree right off it’s stump and it would continue falling in the direction of it’s lean.) I already had him tension the tree and watch the top move some feet. Face is in, add a little more tension, start the back cut. We were often breaking over a lot of hingewood on a tree like that, 6 in. minimum maybe up to 10/12 inches. Not infrequently I wanted to start a hard pull at 12 inches of wood and stayed on the cut, relieving the back of the hinge to prevent a barber chair and loosing a tree into X. (No significant room for wedging and I already knew the skidder had it barring catastrophic failure.)

Today I still wouldn’t say that I would be entirely comfortable with the idea of falling those trees. If I were willing to do it without taking the tree apart first, I would do things differently. I would like to practice the ‘Step Cut’ on some easier pull trees. Then when I got to the harder ones I believe I would hold for moving the big open face back to one third of the tree or slightly less. I am envisioning that I could bore in leaving 5 or 6 inches of ‘backstrap’ and cut forward to my finished hinge, maybe 8 inches of wood. Out and down a little and make the back step cut. (I would even look at the idea of leaving a fraction of an inch of holding wood there that needed to shear as the step broke away.) Of course all of these trees would be sporting a logging chain ‘barber chair restricter’.

What I would get by this method in my estimation would be a tree set up to fall without me needing to be on the stump, stability to hold itself while I get out of the way, and a tree that will go in the proper direction without barber chairing by virtue of a reasonable hinge and a chain as a safety measure. I’m not doing this today but, any thoughts?
 
IMO you'd gain nothing that setting a couple of wedges wouldn't give you.

But then, like Burnham, I'm a logger type treefaller, so I practically sleep with a wedge under the pillow.

Best I can do is to explain how I'd go about pulling a tree like that as safely as possible.

I would make a block face cut and gut it, in order to add as much fiber flexibility to the hinge as possible, then chain the tree about a foot above the face. Then I'd have the skidder pretension the wire.
Start my backcut ( being a proponent of short bars, I'd bore in behind the hinge in one side and cut around, but if my bar could reach, I'd simply cut from the back towards the hinge) and start banging in a couple of Hardhead wedges as I proceeded to keep the kerf open.
When I had set the hinge thickness that I wanted ( and bear in mind that a thinner, more flexible hinge may well hold better in this scenario, than an unflexable beefy one!) I'd walk away and leave the rest to the skidder driver.
This method has served me well for over 30 years of pulling big hardwoods, some of which have been so valuable that it has not just been a question of saving my self and the surrounding structures, but the log as well.

In short, by using the stepcut, you are adding something that needs an unknown force to break, whereas wedges simply hold the tree up.
 
Burnham said:
Chris asks a reasonable question.

I'll throw in another, one of my regularly argued and hopefully helpful criticisms ...most of the time Bix, you fail to practice one of the basic tenants of safe sawyer habit. To gain the strongest grip possible from the human hand, and thus benefit from the best chance of maintaining control of the saw available to you, if kickback or other miserable occurances should come to pass, you must wrap the thumb in opposition to the fingers when gripping the saw with your left hand.

You're not doing so. Enough said, bro :).
Click to expand...

You're right Burnham, I've been meaning to work on that. Bad Habit. I know where it comes from too. I'm a golfer turned treeworker. When I grip a club my thumbs run damn near straight down the shaft. Usually with saw work I go by feel, I hope that I subconsciously wrap my thumb properly when it counts. So far, so good... but one of these days I'll be catching it in the teeth if I don't listen to you. Sometimes it can take me a while to get it, but I'll get it, from one B to another... thanks for the heads up as always.
 
Stig, Thanks for your reply. Searched “block face cut” am not getting to where I can see exactly what you mean. I will read the results for that more as well as “gut it”. Can you point me to exactly where I can find what you mean easily? Is there one book that you think best covers falling cuts/technique?

So 18 inch Euc. 40 to 50 foot tall, 30 degree back lean. (Think I know what you mean by “block face cut” but want to be sure, came across ‘german cut’ too?) Loggers chain I have figured out and will get some. Realize you are not at the base of the tree but, how far in would you say you would take the block face cut? Any other specifics are great and then how much holding wood would you say you might leave? Thanks again.
 
stig said:
IMO you'd gain nothing that setting a couple of wedges wouldn't give you.

But then, like Burnham, I'm a logger type treefaller, so I practically sleep with a wedge under the pillow.

Best I can do is to explain how I'd go about pulling a tree like that as safely as possible.

I would make a block face cut and gut it, in order to add as much fiber flexibility to the hinge as possible, then chain the tree about a foot above the face. Then I'd have the skidder pretension the wire.
Start my backcut ( being a proponent of short bars, I'd bore in behind the hinge in one side and cut around, but if my bar could reach, I'd simply cut from the back towards the hinge) and start banging in a couple of Hardhead wedges as I proceeded to keep the kerf open.
When I had set the hinge thickness that I wanted ( and bear in mind that a thinner, more flexible hinge may well hold better in this scenario, than an unflexable beefy one!) I'd walk away and leave the rest to the skidder driver.
This method has served me well for over 30 years of pulling big hardwoods, some of which have been so valuable that it has not just been a question of saving my self and the surrounding structures, but the log as well.

In short, by using the stepcut, you are adding something that needs an unknown force to break, whereas wedges simply hold the tree up.
Click to expand...

Well put, Stig.

Once the Murph gets in a discussion, I fear my patience with the back and forth wanes rapidly, a moral weakness of mine no doubt.
 
Merle, if you don't already have it, get Jerry Beraneks " Fundamentals of general treework" That is the bible for treeworkers. Jerry covers most of what there is to know in it. His treefalling video covers the rest.

If you use the search function for "German cut" there is a whole stack of threads that pop up , where we have discussed the merits of different face cuts.

https://www.masterblasterhome.com/showthread.php?13702-Whizzy&highlight=german+cut about the whizzy

https://www.masterblasterhome.com/showthread.php?16127-best-face-for-dead-trees&highlight=german+cut about best face cut for dead trees

https://www.masterblasterhome.com/showthread.php?14908-SNIPE/page7&highlight=german+cut about the snipe

All these are great threads that have stayed on course as a sober discussion of safe, time-proven falling tecniques, where we have been able to exchange knowledge and experience, without Murphy, the self proclaimed God of treework, trying to show us what ignoramuses we all are.
 
They are 3 different threads, I don't know why they have the same heading in my post.

I've tried to correct it now.

Merle, by "gutting it" I mean cutting the center out of the hinge.

I prefer having a hinge as two separate blocks of wood that are able to work with or against each other. Also the newer wood in a tree, near and including the sapwood is more flexible and stronger than the older heatwood, so by gutting that out I can make the hinge a bit thicker and still avoid a possible barberchair.
Does this explanation make sense, or shall I try to rephrase it?
 
Here's a comment I just got on a youtube vid of pulling a backleaner.. no step, just a couple of wedges to keep the bar from pinching on the release, just as Stig suggests..

"Seriously, what the frig good do you think it was putting those wedges in?! Then standing in the pie that the wedges are meant to close while pounding on them!? Retarded!"

<iframe width="640" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/N_z9Lkw8sbI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I can see using a step and a thick hinge on a backleaner, if you have plenty of pulling power... may not be necessary, AND if you have done your homework, its not an unknown force. It can be judged and adjusted to the situation, just like any other factor in setting up a good hinge..
 
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