Murphy's Step Cut

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I guess it's my 12 years in the woods that keeps me production oriented but I'm not into over complicating things. From what I've seen I see a lot of rigging and pulling and fancy cuts on trees that could be put on the ground with three cuts and some wedges?
 
Squisher,

That's your confidence in your experience talking...it takes proper experience to build that confidence.

It's a building process...I see some trees that part of me says, "that oughta be easy...just a few cuts here and there".

Then I get in the tree and the targets are suddenly closer to the drop zone than they seemed from the ground...or more "what ifs" are noted than were obvious from the ground.

Over the last few years I have gotten to drop more and more whole trees; trees that in the past I would have pieced out. It's good to see that whole tree go where you want it. But I am sure I still piece out some that other folks could do whole. C'est la vie.

I applaud and admire youse guys that send the whole big stick down in one swell foop...I swoop more than I used to but it's a slow process to build up that confidence.

I enjoy reading about Sizzes, Wheels and German cuts...and don't forget the Dutch...but for the most part I keep working on the basic face cut, Humboldt, back cut, occasional bore cut.

You guys with the basics down keep the yah-yah going...it's good reading and pondering material.
 
squisher said:
On a maple or a fir? How about a cottonweed? I don't mean to sound to sarcastic but if you look around its all been discussed to death for the most part. I'm a traditional cutter. On a side leaner ill leave a little extra meat on the tension side and gun accordingly but I'm still not a fan of a fatter than necessary hinge type of guy.

Side leakers are a whole ball game to themselves with a myriad of techniques that one can employ.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by "fatter than necessary"?
 
squisher said:
I'm still not a fan of a fatter than necessary hinge type of guy.
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When you're pounding wedges, "fatter than necessary" means beating away 'til yo9u're out of breath, with nothing to show for it..


Different jobs, different tools, different perspectives = differences of opinion... as a logger it makes sense that a fat hinge is nothing but a ball buster at best, and potentially serious trouble.. backyards are a much different story... Here's one that no one in the world could have made the lay with just wedges...


<iframe width="640" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/p04sxvuZu7E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


I think we made close to 200/man/hour on this job and still saved the homeowner $5,600 over the next lowest bid....

One crucial difference between loggers and arbs is the frequency of falls/dollar.. we did a $6,000 job last week that had exactly 4 trees coming down... took 2 days.. how many trees does a logger drop in 2 days? The frequency of falling in logging scenarios makes it crucial to hone each falling cut to its fastest... "wasting" 30 seconds per fall could cost a logger an hour or more per day.. Where wasting 5 minutes on a falling cut would only cost me 10 minutes per day.. Its a huge difference between the professions that few seem to take into account in judging others' work...

Its rare that I drop a tree without a rope int it.. a logger may laugh at that or call it a crutch, or think its a sign of low skill level..... to me its cheap insurance.. so what you might consider "all that fooling around" is just a learning experience to me.. one that pays for itself over and over ... we all do what works and that's gonna be different for each one..

Bix... that's a great consideration... what is "fatter than necessary" and why?
 
murphy4trees said:
We have a different point of view... I have plenty of experience and experimentation to back mine up... maybe its a difference in species... I mostly go with thick hinges in the poor hinging species.. never really needed them on anything else... they hold remarkably well if you have enough power to get the piece moving... also fiber pull on the stump/log clearly shows that heartwood has as much holding power or more than sapwood, as long as trhere is no heart rot.. sounds like a good case for mythbusters
Click to expand...

Fatter than nescessary was in response to this and other comments like it made a couple of pages back.

I logged for 12 years I've been residential for about six now. I work everyday 80 to 90 percent wrecking big ones. It's my companies specialty.

I rarely to never watch vids so sorry I won't be starting up tonight. I use whatever is nescessary to get the job done. I pull I rope whatever it takes.

Late here. I just finished picking my last 100 bales off
My field by myself. Makes 421 in my after hours time. Today was a typical day for me. Wrecked out to decently big cottonwoods to finish up a five tree job.

I'll be back to spread my logger turned arb crotchetiness another time. Lol.
 
squisher said:
I guess it's my 12 years in the woods that keeps me production oriented but I'm not into over complicating things. From what I've seen I see a lot of rigging and pulling and fancy cuts on trees that could be put on the ground with three cuts and some wedges?
Click to expand...


I don't see the two as being mutually exclusive.

I am a production logger 6-7 months a year and the more trees I can put on the ground, the more money I make.

But if I can use a "fancy" cut to avoid dumping a tree on a forest road, bike path or riding/hiking trail and save myself a couple of hours of manually clearing it away, I will do so.

Mostly it is 3 cuts and wedges, though.

Actually 4, since us short bar fellas gut our hinges most of the time.
 
I hear what you're saying Stig. I don't think they're exclusive from one another but compliment one another. Still I know many times I think man in the woods I'd just send that sucker but because its near valuables you end up setting a line just in case.

My main reason for jumping in here was due to the step cut for the reasons I posted a week or so ago. And then the thicker hinge stuff kind of got me going again. To thick of a hinge even if you have the power to pull it is no good IMO more of a chance of having the hinge break instead of hold on like a properly cut up hinge will. I think of it like when pulling a top. A nice easy pull on a back or side leaning top where the hinge gets cut up nice and thin has a much better chance of making it to its lay than a hard pull with a thick hinge. Pop goes the weasel when it's cut up to thick or pulled to hard. So how's that any different at the stump?
 
I know a on a tall, rotten, backleaning hemlock we did in the Parks, we used a thicker hinge because of the heartrot. Almost too thick, as the tree started to split/ barberchair rather than just tip. I was hesitant to get back in there and cut more because of communication difficulties over 200+' through the brush and the noise of the truck powering the hydraulic winch. When he was already pulling the tree over, I doubt he would have like to gotten a radio call to have a discussion while the rotten thing was leaning over a CCC kitchen shelter. A good thickness of hinge with a steady pull, whether fast or slow.
 
squisher said:
I guess it's my 12 years in the woods that keeps me production oriented but I'm not into over complicating things. From what I've seen I see a lot of rigging and pulling and fancy cuts on trees that could be put on the ground with three cuts and some wedges?
Click to expand...

Yes. THIS. Half the folks in this conversation could stand to work as a logger.
 
We do have at least one person that worked as both a logger and a commercial fisherman, and somewhat miraculously he is still alive.
 
squisher said:
A nice easy pull on a back or side leaning top where the hinge gets cut up nice and thin has a much better chance of making it to its lay than a hard pull with a thick hinge. Pop goes the weasel when it's cut up to thick or pulled to hard.
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We have a difference of opinion on this one.. I have no idea why you would say that. I have found over many trials on some tricky falls, the exact opposite to be true. You and Stig obviously have a lot of experience..... Have you done a lot of pulling with the skidder winch? There has to be some reasonable explanation.. difference in height of the pull line, species of wood, or maybe just a loggers bias against thick hinges from using wedges for so long (and fiber pull).. I do know that when I have a nasty side leaning silver maple, its gonna make the lay with a 5-6" hinge, and A LOT of pull... I've seen the hinges (and heard them on video).. they work very well...

I heard a talk in 2006 by one of the big wigs in arbormaster canada, saying something to the effect that "we don't know if thicker hinges work well or not"... Apparently there is still some disagreement in the industry.. I've seen enough to make up my mind... nothing anyone says is gonna change it.. you gotta show me..
 
I suppose this example is just about typical of a conventional type fall except on the left coast with those Humbolt under cuts .It was a pull btw because of a little back lean .There's only about 1" of hinge and the back cut is an RCH higher than I usually do.That's a 30" plus ash about 75 feet high and damned if it didn't go exactly where it was aimed .No fiber pull ,just snapped off slick as snot on a doorknob .

Really not a big deal ,bore cut the back out half at a time and kept it up on two wedges and gave it a little tug .I don't want to bore people but I could show 50 pictures of what some might consider thin hinges.WTH they always worked fine for me .
 

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We'll have to agree to disagree. I wouldn't interpret success with your preferred techniques as being a better way to cut a tree up. I look at it quite differently. You need to pull hard/guy/rig in some fashion to make your step cut with a thick or thicker than nescessary hinge work. My style of cutting is the polar opposite. I start with cuts that can put the tree on the ground by themselves, then a pull/guy/rigging of some sort only become nescessary.......when they are actually nescessary.

In theory a tree could be rigged and pulled hard enough to make it go where it needs to go with just about any kind of cutting.

Edit. This is a response to Murphy not Al. As usual I'm a computer genius!
 
SouthSoundTree said:
I know a on a tall, rotten, backleaning hemlock we did in the Parks, we used a thicker hinge because of the heartrot. Almost too thick, as the tree started to split/ barberchair rather than just tip. I was hesitant to get back in there and cut more because of communication difficulties over 200+' through the brush and the noise of the truck powering the hydraulic winch. When he was already pulling the tree over, I doubt he would have like to gotten a radio call to have a discussion while the rotten thing was leaning over a CCC kitchen shelter. A good thickness of hinge with a steady pull, whether fast or slow.
Click to expand...

I had the exact same situation yesterday with a red oak punky to the core with about a two inch wall of sap/heart wood. I left a 4" hinge and ran, radioed in for the pull she split up the middle, but she came down safely away from the house and a true specimen of a white oak.
 
Al Smith said:
I could show 50 pictures of what some might consider thin hinges.WTH they always worked fine for me .
Click to expand...

Me too Al.
I use thin hinges on backleaners, 1" or so on many, and gut if needed... thick hinges are for side leaners.. check out 5:15 of this vid.. silver maple, notoriously waek hinging.. side leaning stick over a little apple... You can see and hear, especially ion slow motion, how well the hinge held.. I have pics of the hinge somewhere... 5" thick and major fiber pull... took a skid loader pulling HARD to get it moving... that's the best example I can think of and not a very good one, as its hard to tell from the video what's going on...

Pulling backleaners is always preferable to pulling side leaners... we'll often compensate for side lean by adjusting the angle of the pull with a redirect if needed,. having the pulling power of a skid loader at your command is a quantum shift in residential GTW...

<iframe width="640" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/isj8N5o6IkU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
squisher said:
You need to pull hard/guy/rig in some fashion to make your step cut with a thick or thicker than nescessary hinge work.
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I don't recall ever having used a step cut with a "thicker than necessary" hinge.. the two have different uses and do not combine well... if you took the time to watch a few videos, you might get a different impression.. I use what is needed in any given situation... with a few extra tricks in the bag..
 
I can see in a cirumstance like that leaving a fat hinge .I thought you were going to pinch the saw there for a moment though.

Those soft maples were planted about the turn of the last century and they last about 100 years it seems before they go funky .Unusual to see a multiple to get that large because usually a big wind comes along and splits them apart .Of course Pa. with those hills it probabley was shielded from the wind
 
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