Whizzy

[gf beranek]

It could always be worse.

 

[Burnham]

That's the truth...having to drag the brush an extra 6 feet isn't the end of the world .

 

[Burnham]

Another bump. This one Stig mentioned.

 

[MasterBlaster]

You're on a roll!

 

[Burnham]

I see several more likely suspects in the archives, but will hold off to see what you and the rest of the crew want to do with these, first.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Go for it!

 

[FireFighterZero]

Sheeit, Burnham's gonna break the internets!

 

[MasterBlaster]

 

[Burnham]

If it can be done, I'm likely to find a way Jim .

 

[SouthSoundTree-]

Its interesting to hear about Whizzy/ Sizwheels/ German Cuts being discussed in other old threads under a cloak of mystery and challenge of description by words.

I take for granted, to a degree, how much variety of technique I've learned through forums.

 

[sotc]

No doubt, you accumulate stuff over the years from a hundred different sources and forget where the ideas and details came from.

 

[ianwhite]

I'm so grateful that I can catch threads like this. The bump gave me a lot to think about. Read the whole thing today! Thanks everyone! Lotta knowledge outta you guys. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

[pantheraba]

I just re-read this whole thing. Hope I don't break something trying this out now.

Great discussions.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Since the subject has come up again in another thread talking about the triple hinge, I thought I would bump this and share one.

I was trying to demonstrate the cut for Mike on a tree we had to fell into a slot that required a little swing off a multi leader oak we wanted to save. It had some head lean but was quite crispy. He video'd the fell to keep it in his tool kit.
Results. The tree did not quite swing as far as I wanted. I did bore in behind the hinge to give it a little more flex, but not a triple.
Tree did take one leader that was leaning out hard from the oak that had a poor attachment anyway. No great damage, good scenario for trying something out I am not proficient with as yet.
What I think prevented the total desired result.....

Tree was damn crispy, hardly any flex left in the holding wood to the point of failure on the side I wanted the corner to hold on.
Cut to high on the side I wanted more to let go on. Back cut should have been more level to take advantage of the whizzy. Instead, the higher cut compensated opposite the effect of the whizzy a little.
A narrower face gob might have helped, swinging the tree sooner possibly.

Positive result was that the tree did rotate off the oak some minimising any damage to it; and since the wrong side held longer, it kept the tree more up hill of the burn spots. Easier clean up and less chance of ignition since they were still warm in the middle from the previous day.

Here is the vid, I forgot to get stump forensic pics, but will when I got back after the holidays.
Any other input, critique etc, appreciated.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wI2_4z7gSpk" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[stig]

Two things.
Gut the hinge. That makes it act like two blocks of wood, instead of one block of wood with schizophrenia.

Burnham recently made a post in answer to one of mine, saying something like, since it is the corners things happens, what do we need the middle for.

Between Burnham and myself, we actually make for a pretty decent faller

Second thing is that on a leaner like that, I cut it wit a bar that is less than half the length of the diameter of the tree.
So I bore in in the side opposite the whizzy and go around.
This allows me to snad at the whizzy side as the tree falls, look at how the hinge is acting and cut more of the hinge if needed.
If, of course, I'm not felling in a " Get the hell out of Dodge" situation.

Does this make sense?
Otherwise, let me know and I'll try to do a diagram.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I read ya. Makes sense. This was a poor tree to try it on, but one has to try to learn. If I had done it with a gutted hinge in this case, corner I lost on the whizzy side still would have failed. Once I bored in behind the hinge and saw the dust of death coming out, I was pretty sure I best not bore any more or gut anything. If that makes any sense.

 

[stig]

Ah, I didn't know the tree was rotten.
Whole 'nother scenario.

Anyway, I'm glad you posted the result.
I wish more people would do the same, looking at each other's work is the only way we can learn and get better at felling trees.
Eventually some day I'll learn how to do video and be able to post some "how I do it" stuff.

We work in VERY different trees ( Mine are only rotten when I do hazard tree removals for the forest service) but the main princiuples still apply, which is how I was able to gain so much from Jerry's fundamentals.

 

[Buddy]

I have never found it to work real well on older pine (yellow pine). I have actually had people tell me it won’t work at all but I have used it enough to know that it does help sometimes, it definitely doesn’t seem to hurt anything. Where it really shines is with doug fir. I don’t know that I will try the triple hinge technique anymore...

 

[CurSedVoyce]

A lot of times I'll use a soft Dutchman and nip the corner off if I have a good escape route. Most of what we have here now, you hate to pound on for fear of a top or large limb breaking out during the process. Most I'll shoot a line in to help or be able to set wedges and walk a distance before it is pulled over. The fungus and lack of moisture have made these trees damn brittle. Not so long ago I could climb a 2-3 year old dead pondo or grey. Not these days. Lucky to climb one just a year dead. Checked all to hell.

 

[Buddy]

Dead trees are my least favorite. I see your pictures and videos and I don’t envy you at all.

 

[Burnham]

Two things.
Gut the hinge. That makes it act like two blocks of wood, instead of one block of wood with schizophrenia.

Burnham recently made a post in answer to one of mine, saying something like, since it is the corners things happens, what do we need the middle for.

Between Burnham and myself, we actually make for a pretty decent faller

Second thing is that on a leaner like that, I cut it wit a bar that is less than half the length of the diameter of the tree.
So I bore in in the side opposite the whizzy and go around.
This allows me to snad at the whizzy side as the tree falls, look at how the hinge is acting and cut more of the hinge if needed.
If, of course, I'm not felling in a " Get the hell out of Dodge" situation.

Does this make sense?
Otherwise, let me know and I'll try to do a diagram.

 

[sotc]

Not really sure what you were trying to do. Looks like it leaned uphill and you were trying to keep from breaking off uphill? Hard to see but it looks like it went right to the gun? No real swing, just held on for the lay? I think I would have had half the height of the back cut you had, gutted it and skinnied up the hinge on the uphill side first if I was really trying to pull it further down the hill.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Every time I see the title of this thread, I feel the need to drain the lizard...

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Willy, it about went to the gun. You are correct in not wanting it up hill. Wanted it to swing off the gun down hill. I cut way too high. Gutting the hinge on this tree would have been fruitless. When I did the vertical cut behind the hinge, I found out how bad the condition of the wood was. Only holding wood left was the wrong side of the tree and the center. Gutting the hinge, it would have broke off even sooner and smashed the oak stand more center instead of the edge.
In other words, I got some degree of swing, but hardly any. Shit was what it was. I could have just faced it to the same point.
Need a "greener tree".
Face cut showed some pretty punky wood too. But, I wanted to try anyway.

 

[Burnham]

Therein lies the weakness of all these gimmick cuts. They appeal to our desire to make things go "better". I totally get that, and followed down that path many a time in my years as primary hazard tree faller on a big National Forest in even bigger tree country. But in the end, I found my way back to more traditional methods, more often than not. From time to time, sure, I still used the gimmicks, and fairly often got something close to desired results. But more often, I didn't really get what I was after.

So truth be told, that means next to nothing. Maybe I just don't have the chops to make it so. I don't really think so, plenty of evidence otherwise over more than 30 years of felling uglies...but it could be.