SkwerI
Treehouser
Woah, that's pretty slick. 
Whizzy
- Thread starter sotc
- Start date
- Replies 254
- Views 45K
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
Wow, that little bit of whizzy swung the tree.....must be some strong fibers. The whizzy makes me dizzy.
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
Same here, just cases where people tell me it's ok to smash things.
CurSedVoyce
California Hillbilly
Have yet to try it myself.. Been either climbing everything, straight fell, or something leaning so off the lay, it need pulled over... 
Well, since it is logging season, I basically just kill trees all day right now. Gives me a lot more opportunities for experimenting with fancy cuts than most of you have.
If I'd lost control of that last beech all that would have happened was a couple of hours wasted clearing the road. No property damage.
That makes one more inclined to experiment.
Anders tried it out on one of the snowcovered Doug firs we felled yesterday, just for fun. He said that with the strong fibers that Doug fir has, opposed to oak or beech, it worked incredibly well.
Eventually we'll have to show it to some of the teachers at the forestry school and blow their little minds.
If I'd lost control of that last beech all that would have happened was a couple of hours wasted clearing the road. No property damage.
That makes one more inclined to experiment.
Anders tried it out on one of the snowcovered Doug firs we felled yesterday, just for fun. He said that with the strong fibers that Doug fir has, opposed to oak or beech, it worked incredibly well.
Eventually we'll have to show it to some of the teachers at the forestry school and blow their little minds.
SouthSoundTree
Treehouser
So it it correct that the whizzy helps to keep the tree going to the faced lay? It doesn't swing the tree at all?
Burnham
Woods walker
It is a swing producing cut if the fibers are sound and the tree species holds a hinge well. It can mitigate against poorer holding wood giving up too early on one end of the hinge, too...so just helping to keep the tree to the lay.
Final answer...it can do both depending on the wood.
Final answer...it can do both depending on the wood.
flushcut
TreeHouser
Just watching I am going to have to try this cut.
Really cool thread! I think Jerry above summarized alot of it above.
Stig, boring the center out of the hinge to separate the compression wood from the tension is fascinating! So you think that technique alone will swing a tree better than not boring it, right? Imma have to try that!
sierratree
TreeHouser
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2011
- Messages
- 171
how does using a wedge come into play with a whizzy? including a swing dutchman; or any other wood fibre inhancement? Would you still use wedges to help bring the tree around or simply as a safety wedge, once the offside is cut?
I don't use a "normal" dutchman at all.
Like Willie says, too hard to tame. You get wildly different result depending on the fiber strength of the particular tree you're falling.
I fall a lot of valuable logs and there is a clause in our felling contract stating how big a percentage of those we are allowed to wreck.
( so far our going rate is a bit less than 1%, I can only think of one other outfit in the country that can match those numbers
)
If I have to manipulate a tree to fall away from it's lean, I'll use a Whizzy.
If I don't want it to go all the way towards the initial direction of fall, I'll set a step dutchman ( those I love and use a lot. Thanks to Jerry's book, we are the only loggers in Denmark who have ever heard of them. That book has made me so much money and fame over the years).
Like Willie says, too hard to tame. You get wildly different result depending on the fiber strength of the particular tree you're falling.
I fall a lot of valuable logs and there is a clause in our felling contract stating how big a percentage of those we are allowed to wreck.
( so far our going rate is a bit less than 1%, I can only think of one other outfit in the country that can match those numbers
)If I have to manipulate a tree to fall away from it's lean, I'll use a Whizzy.
If I don't want it to go all the way towards the initial direction of fall, I'll set a step dutchman ( those I love and use a lot. Thanks to Jerry's book, we are the only loggers in Denmark who have ever heard of them. That book has made me so much money and fame over the years).
gf beranek
Old Schooler
Ha!
No kidding, Jer!
Example: I was asked by a state forrester to fell an oak tree next to his house. The thing had a bad side lean and there was not much of a lay to put it into, so he asked me if he should call in a skidder with a winch.
I told him not to bother, felled that thing with a German and a step dutchman, making it go in a ½ circle as it came down and tripped it into the only lay possible.
As I was doing it, I explained to him, step by step, what I was doing and how I expected the outcome to be.
He was blown away. He said that none of his own fallers possesed that kind of tecnique.
That is what started the State forest service on calling my outfit for their tricky trees.
The German was taught to me by a former apprentice of all things, but the rest I got from you.
Your book taught me to think out of the box.
The box being what is traditionally done here.
One of the great things about this place is that it exposes people to a vast amount of different tecniques, schools of thought and ways to do things from all over the world.
Those with an open mind and the will to experiment instead of accepting dogma can really learn an incredible lot here.
Not to mention having instant access to some world class capacities in the field.
The Treehouse ROCKS!
Example: I was asked by a state forrester to fell an oak tree next to his house. The thing had a bad side lean and there was not much of a lay to put it into, so he asked me if he should call in a skidder with a winch.
I told him not to bother, felled that thing with a German and a step dutchman, making it go in a ½ circle as it came down and tripped it into the only lay possible.
As I was doing it, I explained to him, step by step, what I was doing and how I expected the outcome to be.
He was blown away. He said that none of his own fallers possesed that kind of tecnique.
That is what started the State forest service on calling my outfit for their tricky trees.
The German was taught to me by a former apprentice of all things, but the rest I got from you.
Your book taught me to think out of the box.
The box being what is traditionally done here.
One of the great things about this place is that it exposes people to a vast amount of different tecniques, schools of thought and ways to do things from all over the world.
Those with an open mind and the will to experiment instead of accepting dogma can really learn an incredible lot here.
Not to mention having instant access to some world class capacities in the field.
The Treehouse ROCKS!
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
I can totally agree with that excellent conclusion!
gf beranek
Old Schooler
I love it when things work out the way they are supposed to. Especially when you have an audience.
flushcut
TreeHouser
I like that. I may have to use it some time.
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
I think that there might be some question about how the "German" is performed, at least in my mind. Would you go over it, Stig, sorry if it is asking you to repeat. "Step Dutchman", without going to my shop to check, I don't recall mention of that in Jerry's book. Is that the "soft dutchman that was in those vids that we discussed before? The one with the series of kerfs in and below the face. I think 'Hotsaws' put up the vids.
pantheraba
More biners!!!
thanks for asking, Jay...I was thinking of how to track it down, too.
Burnham
Woods walker
German cut is the vertical bore parallel with the hinge and directly under the apex of the flat and sloping cuts forming the face. It allows more flex in the hingewood. If you bore partway through, the tree holds better on the bored side, which can counteract side lean and generate a bit of swing. If you bore completely through, the hinge functions better, but uniformly.
pantheraba
More biners!!!
I backtracked/searched some...I think your discussion was on gypoclimber.com. I found references to it in Burnham's post...unless someone was forward thinking enough to copy it, it is gone:
***********************************************************
Seems like you could easily make the block less that the bar width, Stig. Obviously the bore to set it will be that dimension, but then you could just bring the horizontal cut in not as far down. It would be like taking out the whizzy block and leaving a shallow german cut below it. Not to say there'd be any good reason to do so.
Anyway, something tickled my mind about the whizzy when Willie first put up this thread. Today I found it in the archives. I posted a thread about working with a pair of wise old custom cutters working on a hazard tree removal project a couple of years ago. That's the thread where we first started talking about the bore below the apex of the face cuts that you call a german cut.
I looked it up, and heckfire, right there in my own words I reported that that sawyer who used the bore, told me that "if you take a block out there, it works even better". That's got to be a whizzy he was talking about.
Here's a quote from that thread, my post:
"...When I asked him about the bore, he didn't go into an explaination of how it worked, he just said something like "makes the hinge hold better on that side". He also said, "if you take a block out right there, it'll hold even more". It took me about half an hour of chewing it over in my mind to figure out WHY it worked...but I'm pretty sure I have it right. "
Here's a link to the whole thread...we talked about the bore, aka german cut, between posts #9 to about #50, though we derail off and on .
http://gypoclimber.com/showthread.ph...ntract-fallers
That was a great thread, btw. A worthwhile read and fine pics for some of the newer members, perhaps.
***********************************
***********************************************************
Seems like you could easily make the block less that the bar width, Stig. Obviously the bore to set it will be that dimension, but then you could just bring the horizontal cut in not as far down. It would be like taking out the whizzy block and leaving a shallow german cut below it. Not to say there'd be any good reason to do so.
Anyway, something tickled my mind about the whizzy when Willie first put up this thread. Today I found it in the archives. I posted a thread about working with a pair of wise old custom cutters working on a hazard tree removal project a couple of years ago. That's the thread where we first started talking about the bore below the apex of the face cuts that you call a german cut.
I looked it up, and heckfire, right there in my own words I reported that that sawyer who used the bore, told me that "if you take a block out there, it works even better". That's got to be a whizzy he was talking about.
Here's a quote from that thread, my post:
"...When I asked him about the bore, he didn't go into an explaination of how it worked, he just said something like "makes the hinge hold better on that side". He also said, "if you take a block out right there, it'll hold even more". It took me about half an hour of chewing it over in my mind to figure out WHY it worked...but I'm pretty sure I have it right. "
Here's a link to the whole thread...we talked about the bore, aka german cut, between posts #9 to about #50, though we derail off and on .
http://gypoclimber.com/showthread.ph...ntract-fallers
That was a great thread, btw. A worthwhile read and fine pics for some of the newer members, perhaps.
***********************************
Burnham
Woods walker
Gone...all gone 
.
.Similar threads
