Tree felling vids

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Never let them see you sweat, just keep a straight face and act like you know what you're doing.
Click to expand...

Haha, no doubt!

I have learned that you gotta trust you face and hinge. If you think it is too close to something important, fix it rather than nipping a corner. Cut it for where you want it as long as you know the tree will commit and stay on the stump
 
Well... I appreciate that Brian, and I know that I have to be more assertive with the skill that I do have, but I was a little out of my league in those sticks.

Willie: Double thanks for the quick advice. I think that will become my new policy for as long as I continue to fall, however, that one had just enough limb-lock to get me too scared to stay and gnaw on the butt... kinda forgot to mention that in my super-long post. I was amazed that my foreman didn't mention my change of plans there, but since he really doesn't fall anything bigger than a stob, I guess he let me slide.

Tucker: I have no doubt about what you said. I'm just really ignorant of East-coast or European stuff. The hardwood work intrigues me very much, I'm just not around it.
 
Jed, I had a partner for about 5 years who would let me fall all the difficult trees next to buildings, lines, whatever.
He had just as much falling experience as I did, but simply didn't have the nerves for it.
Where I would decide on a plan and then just do it, he would start second guessing himself and end up running in circles around the tree, covered in nervous sweat.

If I'm in doubt whether my hinge will hold, I fix it by setting a German/whizzy/block face, taking the top out first or setting a line, so I can pull the tree over or guy it to the lay.

If I'm the slightest bit in doubt, I don't just fall the tree.
But then I don't have a foreman looking over my shoulder, I am the foreman:)
 
stig said:
If I'm in doubt whether my hinge will hold, I fix it by setting a German/whizzy/block face, taking the top out first or setting a line, so I can pull the tree over or guy it to the lay.
If I'm the slightest bit in doubt, I don't just fall the tree.
But then I don't have a foreman looking over my shoulder, I am the foreman:)
Click to expand...

There are very few arbs around here with that type of confidence.. Its actually amazing.. you get far enough away from logging country and no one knows how to cut a proper face... My log loader, who picks up wood for A LOT of companies, big and small, tells me that everyone else just cuts a tree down to 10' (til it can't hit anything) before the fall.
 
Jed, Doug-fir are the best to work with. Trust the face. Set your gunning sight to as distant an object as possible! Good even hinge. It'll go.

We've pounded over dead back leaners with laminated root rot that go right into a tight spot without really thinking about it. Doug-fir are good to go. Don't sweat it so much. Sweating it doesn't change physics or wood fiber. Calm is key.
 
Sounds like you were under a bit of pressure. Also, it is pretty difficult to counter wind movement. A light breeze can move that long lever pretty easy after the hinge wood breaks off giving you drift thats hard to compensate for.
 
In the woods I experimented with the possibilities of free falling side leaners practically everyday.

Validating the many reasons for using rigging to fall these kinds of trees in the private sector.

Working in the woods provides a wonderful opportunity to experiment and learn with problem trees. And for me it paid off greatly in understanding what I was dealing with and needed to do in the private sector.

I can only imagine learning all the things in the private sector alone. So many people have.
 
In 23 yrs I have only taken three trees in the woods. Very simple Poplars over a creek to make a snowmobile bridge. Easy peasy. I am sure you folks don't see those days at all though.
 
gf beranek said:
In the woods I experimented with the possibilities of free falling side leaners practically everyday.

Validating the many reasons for using rigging to fall these kinds of trees in the private sector.

Working in the woods provides a wonderful opportunity to experiment and learn with problem trees. And for me it paid off greatly in understanding what I was dealing with and needed to do in the private sector.

I can only imagine learning all the things in the private sector alone. So many people have.
Click to expand...

Just between you, me, and that fence post...many of those many, never learned much.

Present TH company excepted, of course.
:D
 
I dropped some biggish lombardy poplars today, some of them were as sound as a pound, some of them were so decayed I'm amazed they were still upright. Set pull lines high and pretensioned by hand so the stem bent in the direction of fell, and even the really rotten ones ended up more or less in the right place. No vids though.
 
That's funny gentlemen: I wld expect that Lombardies this side of the pond wld be much the same, but perhaps not. That is: I take it that the climate of the Washington Puget Sound area wld produce a Lombardy almost exactly similar to those found in the U.K. We've removed an absolute ton of them around here, and I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever seen a hint of rot in any of em'. Do you folks get super dry summers on occasion? If so, I might wager that that cld be to blame for the rot.

We removed over 100 of them for Boeing, along the Duamish river, and they where all about 120' tall, but only about 3' to 4.5' D.B.H. I used a fairly wide gap at the hinge, and they all fell fairly true to the gun. I hated dogging into those pigs though! It seemed that you had to do any amount of carving-off of buttress root-flare in order to get something decent to dog into. Tons of nasty "V's" in the stump (included bark) too. But, for a Popular, I thought they held fairly well.
 
Our summers are not that dry. They are crappy trees, usually rot from the bottom up, which, makes for some exciting climbing on ocassions. I don't care for them too much & try & avoid pruning them wherever possible
 
Crappy indeed Pete. Interesting what Mr. Beranek said about the Lombardies down in Nor Cal. Course, I've never cut one that old. We do have some over 100 years at the St. Michelle Winery in Woodinville, but I've never cut on anything like that. It'd be interesting to see. :/:

Ah.... What the heck am I talking about!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just remembered some huge 6.5 DBH ones we took down about four years ago--tons of rot in those pigs. I'm going soft in the head. Not that I was ever too firm.
 
Too much inbreeding will do that.

The ones we have here are usually pretty solid.
One of my favourite trees to take down.
The Hobbs or GRCS really makes it fun.
Lots of trips up and down for the climber, though.

We were called out to do one a few years back, where someone else had bailed out.
And man, had he bailed out. We found his climbing rope still in the tree.

Never seen that before.
 
Stig: I'd love to say that I blame the guy, but I don't. I took down a group of five or six between some houses exactly a year ago. It was my new forman's first time using the GRCS, (he was only used to a porta-wrap) and he took too many wraps on a top I roped out. Biggest swing I've ever taken in any tree ever. I had never been that scared in my life, and haven't since. If I wld have had any idea that he was capable of such a novice mistake, I wld have run a second block in the neighboring tree.
 
I did some nasty ones about a year ago, 75' ish, topped at 20', topped again at 35', with big rot pockets at both. All had to be rigged, no bucket access. A few twitchy moments but got em done.
 
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