Tree felling vids

True of course, but some coating is safer than none imo.

Ok a blast from the past ;) :

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Nice one Reg, wibbly wobbly that can mess with your head.
Many's the time I've finished with a handsaw, not as high up but for the same reasons :)
 
But here the plastic wedge would have been smashed to bits. 💪

To top the skinny wobbly stems (but sound and not near as high !) I like to place myself on the intended lay, a bit to the side, so my own weight creates a lean or at least counter-cares an eventual backlean. Of course I can't push, but if needed I pull with one of my slings. The top passes by the side of my shoulder. It works well in the trimmed Lombardy poplars.


Sending the pics promises to be complicated. The new forum is all messed up on my tablet. I can't even read the posts.
The pc doesn't care of the tablet when directly connected, the tablet don't want to send the pics y email anymore, the tablet can send the pic by blutooth and the phone agrees to receive it but the phone doesn't want to send the pic by email and I can't find the access to the phone's storage card anyway.
That pisses me off.
 
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Frankie said:
Thought @Burnham said nogo with steel wedges 😉

:lol:
Click to expand...
Nope, not quite, anyway...I said nogo for using splitting wedges, which happen to all be steel, instead of felling wedges, which may be plastic, may be plastic and steel hybrids (hardheads), or may be steel. It's the wedge angle that matters for felling, not the material.

Though we all will readily agree that hitting a steel wedge with your saw chain is a very bad thing...plastic is far more forgiving, obviously.

But there are times when a cutter might need a thin, long, low angle steel wedge when felling or bucking. When a kerf closes super tight and you have to open it up to retrieve your saw, would be a great example. In that situation, you'll likely just smash a plastic to mush...might have a little better luck with a hardhead, but if it's really bad, the only solution to open that kerf is what I always heard hereabouts called "razor wedges". Mine are small ones, about 10 inches long and less than 3/4 inch of rise. I've seen some as long as 15 inches.
 
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Looks to me like Stevie gotr done with a “splitting-wedge” ... and a bionic right arm:dontknow:
 
Burnham said:
But there are times when a cutter might need a thin, long, low angle steel wedge when felling or bucking. When a kerk closes super tight and you have to open it up to retrieve your saw, would be a great example. In that situation, you'll likely just smash a plastic to mush...might have a little better luck with a hardhead, but if it's really bad, the only solution to open that kerf is what I always heard hereabouts called "razor wedges". Mine are small ones, about 10 inches long and less than 3/4 inch of rise. I've seen some as long as 15 inches.
Click to expand...
Or bore a slot(s) with another saw to insert a normal wedge(s).
 
Sure, Sean...if you aren't a third of a mile down an 90% slope from your truck parked on the landing, where your other saw sits.

Y'all arbs don't have a clue how easy you have it regarding access, compared to cutters out on the harvest units :).
 
Sure we do Burnham! I watch Axmen.

The new series isn’t too bad as it goes, less staged drama, lots of woods stuff, machines etc. Amazed to see Dwayne Dethleff alive and kicking.
 
I was going to say that, Burnham.
Then I thought, nah.............Nobody here is going to understand it anyway.
 
Who carries those razor wedges with them?

I wonder if your ax could chip off a wedge-width from the rear side of the tree, enough to get to the kerf of the back-cut exposed, where you might set and drive a plastic wedge.
 
Mick, being a good faller means having a such a good eye for binds, that you can work with one saw only.
Knowing when to tap that crucial wedge in, while doing a buck with end bind, makes such a difference on the paycheck.

The trees we are in right now are in the top end, diameter wise, for the 500i, but I'll rather spend some time beavering away than have to drag two saws with me through the dense mass of second growth.

That is simply the reality for a faller.

To arbs, it matters shit, since the other saw is always right there.
 
In Maine and CT we'd frequently leave our saws in the woods overnight to save some lugging
 
SeanKroll said:
Who carries those razor wedges with them?

I wonder if your ax could chip off a wedge-width from the rear side of the tree, enough to get to the kerf of the back-cut exposed, where you might set and drive a plastic wedge.
Click to expand...

If I was cutting on steep or really convoluted ground, where hard end or side binds come up fairly often...the answer to your query would be..."me, and many other wise fallers".

Only once can I remember needing the razors on a fall, as opposed to bucking. That was something I never will forget, and never have figured out the cause. I put in a perfectly normal conventional face on a stone dead (but not so long dead as to have lost it's structural integrity) 40"ish Doug fir in a campground.

I had a nice lay down a graveled road in the CG, and only needed to miss a new and expensive vault toilet by 15 or maybe 10 degrees at half the tree's height (200'+or-) out there on the other side of the road/lay :). All well so far. Started the back cut, and maybe 12" short of hitting my intended hinge thickness, that bastardo set straight down on my 36" bar pulled by my Stihl 066. No warning. Just cutting strong, then bound dead.

Lucky for me, this was a campground job, so the pair of razor wedges where in the truck only 300 feet away. With them, and FOUR 8 inch hardheads, and TWO 12 inch double tapers, I was able finally to stand that tree up and finish the back cut, then send it on it's way. Missed the $9k vault toilet by 25 feet, just as planned :).

Stump autopsy showed some relatively minor heart rot, but over a foot of solid wood all around the stem. I still don't know why that one set down. To be clear, it did not just set back...the whole width of the backcut of the tree settled straight down, then shifted to the rear. It was weird, and still seems so after many a replay in my mind of the scene.
 
That sounds weird.

Sometimes trees don't obey. Last week we were taking down 9 hemlocks in a row, 12" dia x 40' tall, they all needed at least some pull and all had side weight or side lean toward the house and the last 4 needed compensation pulls which we couldn't get at full 90* or so, but enough so they all obeyed until the last one which didn't even have the worst side lean of them all. Well it went sideways some and hit a gas grill which, happy days, turned out to be defunct and didn't have to be replaced by me. Missed the house gutter by 12". As it was starting to go over and then broke off sideways, I freaked a little and kind of chased it trying to save it by pushing lol. When it landed, the middle of it hit a another log on the ground causing see saw action which popped the butt end high enough that it would of removed my jaw had I been 6" closer to it. SMH. Stump forensics told nothing. The thing just didn't obey unlike it's 8 brothers did.

Bullet dodged by dumb luck
 
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