Tree felling vids

[Tucker943]

I cant take an instructor seriously if he is so fat he can hardly walk.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I can't believe that in over 35 years I haven't needed that.

What is wrong wid me?

 

[NHlocal]

I cant take an instructor seriously if he is so fat he can hardly walk.

 

[Cfaller]

I cant take an instructor seriously if he is so fat he can hardly walk.

I don't know why he is fat, with all the walking around and wedge pounding he is doing. He must only cut a couple of trees a day. But the way he is doing it, that is all he'll get done anyway.

 

[Jack]

I don't know why he is fat, with all the walking around and wedge pounding he is doing. He must only cut a couple of trees a day. But the way he is doing it, that is all he'll get done anyway.

It's all them 12oz curls ...

 

[stig]

'Bout the most ridiculous way of felling a tree I've ever seen.
And running apprentices for 20 years, I've seen a few.
Absolutely no reason for farting around with wedges like that and not enough wind to make bore cutting necessary.
No wonder he couldn't wedge it over with that chunk of hinge wood he left in the right side.

Any logger worth anything would have had that stick on the ground, limbed and bucked in the time it took him to get it to fall.

And Chris, I'm totally with you on the fat-boy instructor thing.

 

[NHlocal]

 

[Burnham]

Whack.

 

[woodworkingboy]

It seemed odd that the guy seemed to be waving away people towards the back of the tree in the event the tree set back hard or whatever, but he allowed those people to remain standing off to the side in front.

 

[Burnham]

There's a lot of oddness in that vid.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Some of the old timers working in the woods here are kind of wild. I sometimes help out another Japanese guy that looks similar in physique. He had to have his knees replaced and much slimmed down and was looking good, but now he has ballooned up again. His wife is an excellent cook. He is over 80 and when he calls me, I feel compelled to help him out for that reason, plus we go back twenty years, and I have to respect his wanting to still do it. He does some things with reckless abandon at times, and by the end of the day will have yelled at me more than once. I keep my mouth shut, and am only good for about a day before i can't take it anymore. Usually after only one day i go home with a headache. Still, I work on his dirty saws and call him my friend. I could never work with a guy like that on a daily basis, after two days I am really wanting to claw my way out of there. Not a bad guy, just a number of eccentricities, like only speaking in partial sentences, and my not understanding is one of the reasons that he gets pissed. Torn between wanting to help out the elderly and a who needs this. What can you do?

 

[cory]

Good story, Jay. He's lucky you can appreciate him and life in general like that.

 

[gf beranek]

Hoo rah

 

[woodworkingboy]

Thanks, I appreciate that.

 

[gf beranek]

Automatic

 

[Cold Logging]

This is interesting..I'll be hcurious to hear comments:

at 2:00 as the instructor is placing wedges a tree about 20- 30 feet away falls without anyone near it. Apparently it had been cut to fell and then left to fall on its own?

And at 2:30 he makes some kind of stepped up bore cut for a center wedge

at 4:10 he make an even higher bore cut for another wedge at the side of the back cut area

The observers are only about 10 feet away...so much for being 2 spar lengths from the tree.

He buries the wedges, gets ready to place another and the tree finally goes over.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/vAXgWxQmegk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This vid just goes to show there are people who can run a saw who should not be allowed to. By his 3 rd cut I would have fired him on the spot. .
Its pretty easy to make falling a tree complicated, inefficient, overly laborious. .
And stupid looking. Looked like a small red cedar but might have been a sugi or yaka sugi or. . I yi yi. .

 

[Cold Logging]

There's a lot of oddness in that vid.

Funniest thing I've read in weeks. .. Thanks Burnham.

Tru dat!

 

[woodworkingboy]

Plain old Sugi, I'm sure. About everywhere.

 

[sotc]

I bet he's good at croquet since he brings his mallet in the woods with him

 

[SouthSoundTree]

deadblow?

 

[stig]

Deadbeat more likely!

 

[Burnham]

Something there blows, that's for sure.

 

[Tucker943]

We knock him because he sucks. But what occurred to me is the people around him are sucking at life just as much. Look, professional or not, most people with a will to survive don't want to be in the general direction of a falling tree. They stand well clear of palling pianos, trees, boulders, etc. Not them. That video was loaded with people sucking at life.

 

[woodworkingboy]

One thing that might help put it into perspective, is that the number of countries where tree work has evolved to an advanced state regarding methods and safety practices, is much fewer than the places where such an evolution hasn't taken place. The country where that was filmed is also one of the lesser fortunate ones as well, still moving along remedial lines. Lots of people doing the work or learning to, may have never even heard the basic concepts spelled out in a clearly legible form. You would think that it doesn't require an education to know to not stand in the vicinity of a tree being cut down, and certainly people running the show should know that and inform. I'd be yelling at them to use their brains, try to make a lasting impression. I wouldn't be surprised if there may have been one or two guys that might have wondered to themselves if that was a safe spot or not, but since everyone was there and none of the instructors said anything, why be different? Yeah because...., but it is a different culture and people tend to be more followers than original thinkers (kamikaze mentality). The guy banging the wedges, I would say is more dufus than what is the norm with people experienced at falling here, but having worked with a lot of different people in these parts, some with long term experience, it is the rare bird that has been able to acquire falling techniques beyond the basics. Fortunately, the basics will mostly get you through, especially if you become good at them, I think you guys would probably agree. I really think that people should know about the merits of a gap at the hinge, but without my making it my mission to try and inform everyone, skeptics included, it isn't going to happen. There are no sources of that information, aside from 'The Fundamentals' that I have passed around, but people can't really read the text. I'd love to have it translated.

I would like nothing better for Burnham to come over here and give instruction to the instructors, and I have really tried to get Jerry's vids introduced into what degree of training regimen that does exist, but so far i have failed to navigate all the hurdles and hoops that might get appropriate people interested. You would think it would be different with serious minded individuals, and with JB's permission i made some copies of his vids and took them to a guy that I know that is directly involved in prefectural tree falling management, the same one that tells me of the large amount of injuries going on since they directed tax dollars to mountain management projects. I really had hopes with that guy because I know him and he is sufficiently intelligent, at least I thought so. The vids sat on his desk for six months and he never watched them, so I went and picked them up, a bit dejected about it because they are such great instructional tools and would be a wondeful aid. I really don't understand the problem, so it is hard to come up with a solution. Stuck in a rut? I haven't given up on trying to make something happen, but it is still really a shame that things are so slow to progress.

 

[Tucker943]

America is loaded with sheep too.