Swanson or snipe?

Who came first, Mr Swanson or Mr Snipe? Is there photo evidence of the olde time loggers in the days of axe and crosscut saws using a snipe?
 
Good on those old boys for trying to save fiber way back in the day when the resource must have seemed inexhaustible
 
I’ve seen old (40’s) footage of redwood fallers using the snipe. It was used but I don’t know if they called it a snipe at that time.
 
The snipe actually serves an honest to goodness purpose / function in the design of the felling cut. If you have the knowledge to foresee the need for a snipe it can perform miracles.

And even if the snipe doesn't work the way it was originally intended they make a stump look good, and make people wonder too.
 
Doesn't offsetting the snipe to a side induce a roll in the tree, breaking the hinge first on one side, then the other?


I don't know if I read that in FOGT or someone showed me.
 
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Depending on the slope of the undercut, I would think the hinge is already broken by the time the snipe comes into play
 
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That’s awesome Gerry, even if it didn’t work, it’s a good looking stump 😀 Once the log is gone, unless there’s crazy carnage, the default is to assume it worked as intended…
I’m guessing that the use of a snipe may have developed independently at different locations way back when?
Anyone out there saying Swanson?
 
Interestingly, I have also been using this method since 1992. No one has shown me this option. It just occurred to me one day. I call this method a springboard. It is also interesting that apart from me in Russia, perhaps, no one uses this option. When other Russian dendrologists see this method, they are surprised and perplexed) This option is my favorite, and I use it almost always. 33C26F0A-03CD-4278-8DC9-6962C3FF4EE3.jpeg
 
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You're right, Sean. Obtuse snipe set cockeyed to the hinge. Why would you want to use such a method? Well, a lot of theory and fact goes into it all. And if you can foresee the need you can perform miracles.

Like Max says a lot of this knowledge just comes naturally after years of observations and watching how it all works.
 
Swanson is a very open humboldt (opp. of pinch) or a steep snipe. Used to get the butt to drop fast as it slides off the face vs jumps. There are a few examples in the BC fallers videos and pub.s and one or two Buckin’ videos (he uses the Swanson snipe version).

I regularly use aloft: get a top to land dead flat depending on ratio-weight-species etc., or the last log when there isn’t enough room for it to do a full rotation but want to take a saw log length. Since we aren’t loggers working on varied terrain needing to save logs etc I can’t think of when we would use it falling.
 
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So Sven, is Swanson the preferred name up there in Maine? And it could just be a steep angle humbolt? Had to look up goose pen 😀
 
No sir, it’s a west coast thing. Search around the BC Fallers stuff and you’ll find an interview with the guy who coined the term (1970s in Vancouver??). I just read a lot and the name jumped out as Swanson is the bastardized/Americanized version of Svenson. The video series in the undercuts section of BC Fallers has an example if you are interested.
 
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