How? Best safe approach

[drinksloe]

3 hours ago, Stubby said:

Single wind blown with root plate still in the ground is ok just take rings off until it slowly stands back up again . Multiple wind blown is a different matter . Tensions and compressions that are sometimes hard to visualize . With you wanting to cut a section out of the stem could bite you if you are not very careful .  .

 

I wouldn't entirely agree with the above with out seeing the tree.

Yes it may only be a single but could still be bent round a tree to put unknown/seen side tension.

Or on a slope where root plate could come down on top off u.

 

Yes a single windblown stem can be a doddle but it can also catch u out if ur not prepared and looking out.

In all likelihoods it will be easy but old be dangerous advice telling someone else that when they don't have ur experience or all the things u look out for as u approach stem.

 

Not cut a lot of popular, infact very little ( althou actually milling a couple of windblown ones at moment, and still on root) but would brittle Ness not also make it more unpredictable if any tension on it?

[richyrich]

1 hour ago, stuckinthemud said:

Yeah, I'm gonna walk away, I deliberately didn't mention the 30 degree slope and poor footing (slippery clay  with wet rotting leaf litter cover) cos I didn't want that to influence the conversation.  But. No, I don't know anyone with better gear or more experience than me. I've felled enough trees and carved enough logs to know when to ask for help, hence this chat

Willow is hard work to cut along the grain. Find a nice piece of poplar. Also i would think poplar is fair bit lighter than willow when dry and very different sound be achieved than from willow. Alternative- hollow a cricket bat.🎻

[richyrich]

Ok- misread - tis a poplar.

[drinksloe]

Does it need to be black popular??

Got some slabs of pop milled, good bit wider than 12" but some are 3 or 4" thick by 10ft, couldnae lift them out wood at 12ft.

 

If u ever pass throu SW Scot u can have them for nowt.

But realise with things now not going to happen for a while.

Just not sure wot variety off pop it is.

 

Even with the slope and ground conditions probably only a 2 min job for an experienced forestry cutter, but as someone said could've a costly mistake if u don't know wot ur doing.

Ur 14" bar could do the job if only a 2ft butt, it's the experience that's needed.

 

[stuckinthemud]

So, what is it about the root plate that makes the job so dangerous, I get it that a stem hung up over a branch is dangerous for all sorts of obvious reasons, and I've had a stem flat on the deck sag and jam the saw in the wood when I didn't spot it was hung up an inch above the leaf litter, but I can't spot the hazard in the root plate

[openspaceman]

13 minutes ago, stuckinthemud said:

So, what is it about the root plate that makes the job so dangerous, I get it that a stem hung up over a branch is dangerous for all sorts of obvious reasons, and I've had a stem flat on the deck sag and jam the saw in the wood when I didn't spot it was hung up an inch above the leaf litter, but I can't spot the hazard in the root plate

Did you have any of those wobbly toy figures which when you flicked them always wobbled back upright?

 

A tree is like that, the soil entrained by the root system is a great big weight hanging over the hole from which it has come, this is counterbalanced by the stem and top, so there is a massive bending moment in the area between root and stem waiting to release a lot of force.

 

Sometimes the tree falls over with a shallow roots and ends up jacked off the ground with the rootplate towering over the stem, cut it on the wrong side of it's balance and the stem drops to the floor and the rootplate falls the wrong way burying you.

[stuckinthemud]

Thanks drinksloe, if I'm up your way, I'll look you up

[Stere]

This thread is no good without pictures 😏

[stuckinthemud]

Thanks openspaceman, I hadn't realised there was a bending stress in place,  I thought all the stresses were dissipated in the fall, I can see how that would be a problem. I'll post some photos tomorrow.  

[drinksloe]

Has that video been posted on here?

The boy standing on the end of windblow as his mate sevres it, tree stands up and throws boy into the pond.

And it was a fairly slow steady release and also a fair lump off wood Rostand up, if that was shorter would off been quickier/more sudden

 

U can also get side pressure/tension if it somehow got twisted round other trees as it fell. 

Seen trees spring meters to 1 side or other, if ur standing the wrong side very easy to get wiped out.

At same time u have already accessed wether root plate gong to squash u and were the tension and compression is in the tree which could be side critical as well as vertical.

Not rocket science but a lot to watch out for at same time and evebp experienced boys get it wrong but watch and feel for it mid cut

 

Bizzarely wot most folk would think are the easiest trees, heavily leaning felling with lean and windblow u'd expect to be easiest but are actually the most dangerous