NPTC felling small trees upto 200mm diameter

[Dan Maynard]

4 hours ago, Doug Tait said:

I'm like you, can't really remember what was required

I don't remember these either. Maybe I do need to go on that refresher course!

[5thelement]

The step cut, spear cut, 80-20 front cut have always been in this schedule( the split level and v-cut are extra in the CS31 schedule).

They are to be described rather than being demonstrated in CS31.
The purpose of these cuts in this situation was dealing with small diameter trees, dense/tangled canopy with no real bias or felling direction option, stuff you would be removing from your escape routes to allow access to the larger trees you intended to fell, or to remove trees from your felling direction.
The 80% cut would be made horizontal, the remaining 20% would be expected to hold the tree from trapping the saw, the final cut would be angled (like the last part of the dogs tooth), if the tree sits down it shouldn’t trap the saw as it is angled, not flat. 
The tree is then lifted and walked out.

I rarely use these cuts on anything 8” diameter, my rule is if the tree is big enough to form a hinge, that’s what I will do to gain control of the fell.  
An 8” Birch or Sweet chestnut on a coppice stool can be pretty tall/heavy, I would rather deliberately hang the tree, reduce the hinge and roll it out rather than use any of these non hinge/attached to the stump methods.