Tree felling vids

That's a curious point, Jay. The cutter put in a humbolt face, not a normal sort of thing a know-nothing HO would do, and banged on wedges...also not the usual for knowing little.
 
He just plain "F" up. All the hints and clues are there. I feel pretty certain of this as I've "F" up a few times myself,, the very same way. Out in the woods though. Big dif.

Now whenever around infrastructure I was always a lot more careful.

Sad to screw up like that though.
 
Pertaining to some earlier discussion.... Perhaps it could be said that slow pulling with alternative cutting is an underrated technique. Once the tree is committed to the lay, traction with a pulling device isn't much a concern, and with the tree cut up enough you aren't going to lose it. Reaching the point where you have positive lean, sound hinge wood or not doesn't much matter either. It seems to me one of the most useful methods in tree falling.
 
A fair standing tree, balanced on the stump, coupled with expertise... with just a tap of a wedge should go whatever direction you want.

Now unbalanced forces across a stump, hinge, is another thing. The details of which can be written and spoke in volumes.
 
I'd have put a standard face in the tree, tightened up a bit with the truck, come through the back, when the cut started to open a whisker, I'd have whistled to the driver to pull, and finished my cutting. Easy peasy. Then I would have marched on down to the bank and deposited the check. Based on what little the video showed, that's how id have done it.
 
There are so many vids on youtube where trees hit cars/houses/etc, that it makes me wonder if some of them aren't staged. Junk cars, houses that are to be demoed.....I don't know though, there ARE lotsa stupid folks out there.
 
I had a Zelkova come back and clip a temple roof. Very lucky for me that the temple was scheduled for reconstruction. I think it made me less stupid.
 
I lost a tree sideways once and missed the house by a hair. A blue spruce it was. 60' tall. Bought some wedges that day and figured I was smart enough to use them. Nope. It was a horrifying site to watch that tree go sideways. I don't know to this day what exactly I did wrong. I wasn't experienced enough to really read the situation. I avoided wedges for years after that until I took up logging and coming to the treehouse. Logging taught me a lot. It let me make a lot of screw ups that had no devastating consequences provided I got myself out of harms way. Man did I learn a lot in the woods.
 
I've never not had a tree go where I wanted, with a line set and people/equipment pulling.

Not once.

I don't use wedges for felling. All my gigs are residential... 95%.
 
Burnham said:
Fair enough :).

By far the more common scenario in which a pull rope is used in the arb world does not include power that can be reliably accelerated, without loss of traction, to keep ahead of the speed the tree gathers from gravity. Manual pulling, or with a winch, or by block and tackle...those sorts of arrangements are the norm. It is to those cases that I primarily direct my cautions about over-confidence in what a pull rope will provide, thinking it exceeds that of a well-deployed set of wedges.
Click to expand...

Its a common misconception that pulling with a vehicle will keep the pull line tight well into the fall. From reviewing video in slow motion, its clear that the pull line goes slack very early in the fall, even with a vehicle. Pulling by hand is that much slower.

I know you west coast faller types have all kinds of tricks... How much side lean can you handle without a rope?

I only use wedges on easy trees, so little experience with their limits and capabilities. From a suburban arb's perspective, it seems that wedges can't do nearly as good a job as a pull line on side leaners.

I have had a lot of success on side leaners by adjusting the direction of pull to compensate for lean. As long as the hinge wood is sound, it seems like once a tree gets started to the lay, there is a lot less chance of the hinge failing. When a good hinge does fail, it takes a second or two for the fibers to separate. So from the time the pull line goes slack, that extra second or two is enough time for the momentum to overcome the side lean and take the tree to the lay.

Also a high pull line on a vehicle allows the faller to leave a thicker and therefore stronger hinge, especially on poor hinging wood like willow and silver maple. You're not going to get that kind of force out of wedges. There is also a little energy stored in the stretch of the rope and the bend in the tree, that wedges do not afford.

And if the tree has too much side lean, it usually easy enough to set a right angle retainer line...
SO from a suburban arbs perspective, ropes are MUCH better than wedges for side leaners...

What can a good west coast faller make happen with wedges?
 
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