Also, that Escape Rule should not be ignored. The hickory tree's fibers slipped, and I stayed in place to get my video. A tap on the head is always a reminder that you should have been somewhere else.
aaa
Springpoles smack down chainsaw novices. The key things to remember are to find the apex between the ascending and descending sides and then attack on the inside at that point. Shave it, notch it, or make a face in it. Stand aside and cut on the tensioned side. I like to make a hinge sometimes, but it usually won't be necessary. I demonstrate that here, so you will have that little method in your toolbox. Attack it from the tensioned side, or too high or low, and you are likely to be injured. Do it right and the danger disappears.
About thirty years after we (Susan and I) planted this little patch of timber I am now doing a much needed thinning. Can you bring yourself to drop trees you planted with your own hands? Sure you can! If you don't, your plantation will stagnate, and trees will drop out one by one from overcrowding. Thin it yourself and you choose the best ones to finish out. Now you just have to live long enough to send them to the mill. Let's see, these trees need another thirty years; I am almost 72 right now. Piece of cake. I just have to keep on with clean living and break that statistical ceiling!
I have been told all of my adult life that you can steer a tree by making the hinge thicker on one end. I believed that early-on, but never had any luck making it work, and have never actually seen anyone successfully "turn" a tree once it is released to fall, but I still hear this method promoted.
If we set up a pointer at 90 degrees to the front of the hinge cut, we should see the treetop to the left of the pointer. OOPS! The treetop landed slightly to the right!
The treetop lies to the left. I have yet to see this method work the way its promoters say it does. You can watch loggers doing this on YouTube if you check out the tree falling videos. I have seen write-ups that tell they are using a "swing cut," but the tree goes in the direction it starts without turning. Putting a tree where you want it is simple, and doesn't require any magical skills. Go to the spot you want the tree to land on, look back at the tree, and if it is vertical in relation to you, aim straight on with the sighting line on your saw. Correct right or left in the opposite direction of side-lean, up to your side-lean limit. If the tree has more side-lean than the hinge can hold, pick another spot to drop your tree into. You can handle about half as much side-lean as you can back-lean. With back-lean, all of the hinge is holding against it, but with side-lean, only half of the hinge is holding against it. 
In addition to being an ineffective method of aiming a tree, thick hinges destroy value in the most valuable part of the tree. Those long splinters should have remained in the log to become part of the lumber produced, but defective lumber will be cut now from an otherwise good log. One of the skills a logger needs is the knowledge of how thick he can make a hinge without causing fiber to pull as the tree falls. You can see on this stump that pecan begins pulling fiber when the hinge is a bit thicker than 1/2 inch.
Another common mistake you will see in timber operations is the tall stump. The wood in this stump is perfectly sound, and the logger should have cut this tree just a few inches off the ground. In this case, about forty board feet of the butt log was left behind, which would have been worth around $5.00 to the landowner at junk hardwood prices. After thinking on this a while, I think Susan and I planted these trees between 1995 and 2000. We are going to toss a bunch of walnuts in here and hope that the squirrels plant them for us.
The Bradford pears have been here for a bit more than 35 years, and it is time for them to go. We started today, taking off limbs that throw off the balance or tangle with a neighboring tree. Stand back a bit and be ready to step back when out-of-balance stems pop as this one does. They move fast!
Have you ever had a tree sit back on the stump so you can't insert a wedge? It has happened to me a few times, and here is the trick to get you out of this jam. After you get it lifted a bit, you can put wedges in your kerf and put that tree on the ground.
or, Don't stand there when the wind blows! I was reminded of the reliability of gravity yesterday when cutting an ash tree in a young stand. The limbs tangled, as is usual in young trees, and a hefty limb came loose and beaned me on the hard hat. You don't need old, decadent trees to have wood drop from the sky on your head. Gravity likes to win.
Eaton Rapids Joe sent a link for a chainsaw story in the UK Daily Mail (clikc the link), and it is an educational article and video. Much of the information in the article is obviously wrong if you have spent any time on our chainsaw posts. Matt Charland, the man who is nearly killed, is no lumberjack, though he may have cut trees before. He said the tree had a weird angle, but the tree appears to have forward weight and it should have fallen right if he had made the proper cuts. The tree is dead, and that is one of the failure factors. Dead trees can be brittle and lose fiber strength. So, what did Mr. Charland do that was wrong?
You always should evaluate weight and lean on every tree you cut from two different angles, and assess whether the tree will need to be wedged, and if so, how much lift you need to provide. Wedging a dead back-weighted tree is risky because the hinge is likely to part when you lift with your wedges.
seconds shows the tree tipped forward. Then the hinge fails. This is the real failure in the process. The hinge was obviously not strong enough, and probably was cut too thin. The back cut on any tree you fall should be perpendicular to the stem, which usually is a horizontal cut, not angled as this one is. Many novices cut on an angle, and the explanation they always give me is that it will make the stump push the tree over. At best, you cut through more wood to make the back cut. At worst, as in this case, the hinge failed, the tree slid on the sloping back cut, and the butt of the tree was propelled forward by about three feet, totally changing the balance of the tree, brittle wood was jarred loose from the treetop and rained down, and the tree which had started forward, changed direction and fell opposite of the planned direction.
Always wear your safety gear and make a plan that includes looking for hazards and your escape route!
Susan and I planted this spot in 1976, and it does feel a bit funny seeing trees you planted that are now sawlogs. These died last year, and we already have wood from the first drop in the stove. It is burning great.
This shingle oak is dry and brittle! Watch the spears fall out of the top when this baby goes over. We will be making wood tomorrow and stacking this one at the house. I watched the seconds tick by, and from the time I turned to escape until the first spear dropped in was four seconds. A small limb dropped in at six and a half seconds, and a really hot spear comes in at seven seconds. Don't stand around watching the tree fall, because part it may be falling on you!
A long-time friend asked us to look at a dead blue spruce. They were thinking about using a ladder and a battery powered chainsaw, and you know how we feel about mixing ladders and chainsaws. It was easy. It leaned a bit toward the house, but not enough to be a hazard. A front opening, a bore cut to make the hinge 3/4" thick, and out the back, then an easy push over. We also cut some big dead branches off their old trees and pruned up a Bradford pear that had interfering branches. We chunked it all up and they picked up the pieces. Saw is the Husky 550 XP. The weather is cooling down and we will be lighting the upstairs stove in a month, so I see more wood cutting in the future. Back To The Old Grind!
