Short bar techniques.

Thanks Willard: Really--to me--fascinating point about the insulative quality of the snowpack. I wonder: is the top part of the log much harder to save out because of the extreme cold, or is it easier because of the snow cushion?

Jerry: Sublime stump as always. Are you marking your corners to do something that beautiful, or busting out a gap just so that you can keep an eye on the bar-tip. I had to fall a 50" Lombardy stub today with a 28" bar, and my hinge, of course, sucked. Didn't mark the corners. Foreman: "Quit f***ing around with that G** Dammed stump and cut that f***ing thing Jed, that takes too long! So at least I busted a gap to keep an eye out, but I still ended up with a disgusting parallax V hinge. I don't care how far away my gunning target is--it could be the moon, and I'd still have that nasty V in there. How the heck to you do that!!?
 
Squaring a hinge just comes with time and experience. A light bulb will come on some day and you will realize that it is not so difficult to achieve. Just a simple understanding of view angles is what it boils down to for the most part. Least on the stump anyway.

Applying our technique at the stump with the balance of the tree and environmental factors is another thing all together.
 
Yeah, the 046 can cover a lot of territory. I wonder if the guys who constantly use the 650 and 660, if in many cases the 046 wouldn't do the job? I think the weight difference would be noticeable over a day, about 2lbs or so.
 
My 066 feels a tad neglected since I put that 044 together :/: I would Imagine the 046 would make it feel about the same. But boy does she shine when she needs to come off the truck :D
 
Ive run a few of them here and there and like I said, I own one that Ive never really seen. I just dont have the heart to take it off my dad. I am a husky guy for the most part.
 
Thanks Willard: Really--to me--fascinating point about the insulative quality of the snowpack. I wonder: is the top part of the log much harder to save out because of the extreme cold, or is it easier because of the snow cushion?

Jerry: Sublime stump as always. Are you marking your corners to do something that beautiful, or busting out a gap just so that you can keep an eye on the bar-tip. I had to fall a 50" Lombardy stub today with a 28" bar, and my hinge, of course, sucked. Didn't mark the corners. Foreman: "Quit f***ing around with that G** Dammed stump and cut that f***ing thing Jed, that takes too long! So at least I busted a gap to keep an eye out, but I still ended up with a disgusting parallax V hinge. I don't care how far away my gunning target is--it could be the moon, and I'd still have that nasty V in there. How the heck to you do that!!?

I don't know if this will help Jed, but it might. Look at my diagram in the linked thread, and remember that even when gunning to the moon, you still need to be gunning at two slightly different points way out there when double cutting.

A lot of the discussion in this thread is about the differing preferences we have as to whether we make our first face cut on the horizontal or the slant...not really part of the issue for double cutting in my mind, but Stig makes a reasonable case that it does. Worth a read.

https://www.masterblasterhome.com/showthread.php?11314-Parallax-problems
 
Jed, I didn't read Burnham's linked post, but thought I'd mention two points, which may have been covered.

1. shoot it like a rifle, not a shotgun from the hip--get down behind the saw and look horizontally across the gunning line/sight if you are gunning using the horizontal kerf.

2. If you are double-cutting a 50" spar, your two "targets" for your gunning sights should be 50" apart.
 
Jerry: Sublime stump as always. Are you marking your corners to do something that beautiful, or busting out a gap just so that you can keep an eye on the bar-tip. I had to fall a 50" Lombardy stub today with a 28" bar, and my hinge, of course, sucked. Didn't mark the corners. Foreman: "Quit f***ing around with that G** Dammed stump and cut that f***ing thing Jed, that takes too long! So at least I busted a gap to keep an eye out, but I still ended up with a disgusting parallax V hinge. I don't care how far away my gunning target is--it could be the moon, and I'd still have that nasty V in there. How the heck to you do that!!?


Your right Jed it looks great but can like Jerry said be achievable when the penny drops but it seems so hard at times to make two lines parallel!!
I certainly would use a sighting point in the distance to sometimes help facing a tree and to say I wouldn't reference it whilst putting in the felling cut would be a lie however if your happy you have faced/gunned your tree correctly then personally i tend to concentrate more on the saw moving towards the hinging point by reading off the face cut than looking down the lay. (Trust your face cut) Trainee's regulary struggle with the hinge so I usually just get them to put a small straight stick in the face cut to extend the hinge line and just tell them to stop regulary if the tree allows and pull the saw out the cut and reference the stick with the guide bar ( I tell them to imagine an ever decreasing gauge train track)and then just move towards your hinge corners. The only problem with long bars can be the amount of lift on the nose so people read a straight line off the bottom handle of there saw in the tree not realising the guide can be a few degree's off from this causing the tapered hinge again. I always called the pointed hinge a witch's tit!
 
Thanks so much SouthSoundTree for the point about the 50". Good stuff.

Thanks tons Jerry for talking to me at all. It's like a ciber autograph.

Thanks Heaps Husky D for the excellent point about the generally beneficial results when putting in the back cut about trusting the face and just squaring up the back cut to the face by simply sighting down the saw longitudinally--meaning from pistol-grip to bar-tip if I understand you rightly. Excellent help. Also, thanks heaps for forever denominating (at least in my own mind, if not in the whole crew's) the V'd hinge as a "witch's tit". Unforgettable.

Special thanks to Burnham for the expenditure of time and knowledge to do the whole ciber-diagram-thing. It helped. If I get the gist of what you're trying to communicate with the three different colors it is: "Don't trust your gunning target, however far away as a moral absolute, but leave the sights a 'hair-bit out' on either side to account for the parallax thingy." Not that a man like you would ever use a rather feminine expression like "thingy".

Yeah... I did--maybe by mere chance--a little bit better today. I guess this Boeing site was built on the land from a defunct "drive-in movie theater" so the idea--in the theater days, was to plant Lombardy Poplars to grow up in a huge hedge-like ring around the screen so that the locals couldn't watch the flick for free. Cheap bastards. It came back to bite the Boeing folks in the tail, because the darn things shed deadwood and--in the winter with a little snow-load and freezing temp.--giant leads like you can't imagine, right over their jogging path. They're removing all of em'. I'll get a bit more practice before we're all done. I do very much appreciate the help from all you guys because we can absolutely get away with murder, as far as big stubs or entire trees are concerned if we have the ability to fall well--which none of us do. Let's face it we're "res-arbos" as the Australian guy coined us. Sorry about the length of this post Darin: I drink two strong ales after work and then just run on at the mouth.
 
Even shaving the bark off this one I just barely reached the center from both sides. 36 in bar.

View attachment 31571

Back in 91 in Salmon Creek with John Ciro. I had a couple of broken ribs and after this tree was bucked I called it quits for the day.

Reading your book H C & Timber fallers it seems like John Ciro was an "interesting" guy to work with or by. Is he still cutting or has he retired now. I recall you said he had suffered his far share of injuries over the years too.
 
John is retired now. Three fused vertebrae did it. Same with his younger bro, Steve. Rodney is still at it in the woods. Oldest and tallest of the three sons, and with a strong back.

Oh, John Ciro is as much of a character today as he ever was. I see him at the watering hole pretty regular.

People like the Ciro's have made my life a lot richer.
 
Glad to hear you still see him, he is a good man in your book to read about (i like how you describe him as squirrely!) and how you said he could put the timber on the floor too. Like you say characters like that in life can give lasting memories.
 
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