Wedge pounders for big trees.

A few thousand mistakes.... you have to figure that a couple might have had very undesirable consequences. Got to have some luck in this trade as well. Lucky charm always in my right or left pocket, something I picked up at a famous old Buddhist temple. It would never go in the wash.
 
Ya, I believe in Jesus, and pray lots.
Just Too much can happen for me to go it alone.

But, the fact is that most people get hurt or killed when they loose focus on what they are doing, in the moment and over all ...
I think they are equally important.
Get too tired and your mind either starts to wander or you stop paying attention. One of the first things that get forgot is to look up!!!!!!!! . At least when they are production falling.
 
At the stump calls for a lot of concentration when you get to that point close to where the tree starts to fall. Observing that, getting yourself out of there when it does start to go over or cutting longer in cases where you need to continue further, looking up, it is a lot of things to pay attention to at around the same time. Probably too much. After a recent incident in crowded woods, I am thinking that making tracks farther from the falling tree than I usually had been doing before, is essential. Broken limbs can really shoot back, or leads. It's a critical moment.
 
:thumbup:
Yup. Gettin outa Dodge is real important.
Another thing that I see guys not doing on different vids is looking up when they are wedging.or jacking. . . . Its important . I hav e snapped dead limbs off from a good lick on a Hard Head with a 5 lb ax. And had dead tops break off. Plenty of good western hemlocks have a dead spike top. Much of the time they are rock solid. Sometimes they r standing there by a thread. . Usually you can't see the actual top when at the stump.
 
For people not so used to wedging, the only real way to build experience is by doing. Butch, I gather you are a get-it-on-the-ground-and-go treeman working for tree service, who May not want to pay to see you spend extra time on a particular tree.

If people can set a line to help tip the tree, if the wedges don't do it easily enough, its the best way to learn (in non-critical situations). Sometimes, wedges can be 10x's (arbitrary number) faster than setting a line (where one should still be backing up with wedges), and you never have to try to get wedges from under the tree, like a rope. Ropes are expensive if cut, and can get crushed between the spar/ tree, and bunk logs or rocks, etc.

You've got your residential niche, Butch, where setting a line is frequently best, and pretty much in place if the rigging-line turns pull-line, and you tons of experience. Not positing a one-vs. other point here, just more tools. I recall BrendonV being a pull line guy, and having a similar discussion a while back. Don't know if he started wedging more. Adding other niche's tool and techniques to our own simply adds more tools. You'd never see loggers pulling most trees, and they get wood on the ground.

Pounding trees over helps a person to feel how their hinge is working at different thicknesses. My late friend would never wedge over trees, and was in fact scared to wedge versus pull-rope, on easy trees. He wanted to leave thick hinges on spars, even, 'just to be sure', which to me was being sure that he was overloading his ropes, and increasing the risk of barber-chairing.

One benefit of the pull line with a vehicle is speed to help it have momentum to the lay. Each situation is its own.
 
I go with " what ever it takes" motto: pull line, wedges, jack, crane, dozer, black powder, or any combo of the previous. :what:
 
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