tripping a hung tree

[Bolt]

Will someone please answer this question:

 

Waht is the only scenario where the butt will not drop straight down when a widow maker is tripped with a vertical snap cut, as shown in this vid?

 

ps. the movement of the stump after release will not efect the movement of the butt as it drops.

 

I dunno about the only one, but how about this one?

 

Excuse the picture, I drew it in windows fingerpaint

 

 

Rootplate drops (arrow A)

 

Topend heavy tree dips into adjacent crowns (B) Causing the butt end to Lift slightly ©

 

Then follow rootplate back (D)

[Bolt]

discuss :-)

[dadio]

That's right..

the only tine the butt is not going to drop straight down, is when the pieces is tip heavy.

Rare to see that when hung in another tree unless the trunk catches a low fork in a nearby tree. Rare in cases of storm damage, even less likely in cases of tree falling gone wrong.

 

More often seen in large storm damaged tree on houses, as when a 100+' tree blows onto a house and there is 50+' of top hanging over the peak of the roof. On houses the butt will most often not go up, it will come back and down (unless a branch gets caught on the peak of the roof and won't allow the tree to drop). So the arrow C pointing up is a force not a movement. This upward force will be overcome by the force of gravity pulling the whole tree down , leaving a resulting movement of down and back.

 

That is the only time you need to worry about the butt coming back. You are safe from the falling butt, so as long as you are standing behind the cut, and the tree isn't tip heavy. So escaping from the butt is not needed.. escape time comes into play after the butt drops, from either falling debris or once the tree gets straight and the whole top lets go and falls, which is where most people get killed tripping widow makers. That can get very dicey and may best be done with a pull line of sorts.. NOT and issue on this particular fall.

Edited September 28, 2010 by dadio

[tommer9]

I love the way that someone with your wealth of experience still refers to a hung up tree as a widow maker....Widowmaker (forestry) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

maybe its different over your side of the pond....

[Steve Bullman]

Daniel, what bothers me is how you refer to things with such absolute certainty. I may not have done as many windblowns and hung up trees as some of you guys in the states, but ive certainly done enough to know that at best they are unpredictable.

[Bolt]

.......or maybe you are wrong about only there being 1 scenario.

 

hows about this then?

 

Again, thanks (or not - as the case may be to microsoft fingerpaint )

 

 

As you can see, as rootplate drops (A), the windblown tree AKA "widowmaker" will attempt to follow it down in the direction arrowed (B) due to pressure exerted by the adjacent tree.

 

whatever happens, it won't be dropping straight down will it?

 

or will it?

[dadio]

Unpredictable to the inexperienced. This is all physics.. its scientific. there are a lot of variables. So many it is often hard to explain them articulately. However when you understand the variables and how they all interact, then it becomes very predictable.

 

The more you do it, and the better you observe, the faster you learn.

 

The first time I ever saw a hurricane slam into a residential neighborhood with big trees, it dropped my jaw. Total devastation.. trees down everywhere, sometimes four or more big trees on a house.. that was before we were using cranes.

[Steve Bullman]

so now you are suggesting im inexperienced because i disagree with you?

[Mesterh]

Unpredictable to the inexperienced. This is all physics.. its scientific. there are a lot of variables. So many it is often hard to explain them articulately. However when you understand the variables and how they all interact, then it becomes very predictable.

 

The more you do it, and the better you observe, the faster you learn.

 

The first time I ever saw a hurricane slam into a residential neighborhood with big trees, it dropped my jaw. Total devastation.. trees down everywhere, sometimes four or more big trees on a house.. that was before we were using cranes.

 

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes" ie your only experienced when you have made plenty.

[tommer9]

Unpredictable to the inexperienced.

 

Unpredictable to anyone, and only predictable to those with grossly overblown egos and who are too blinkered to accept when they may be mistaken...

 

so now you are suggesting im inexperienced because i disagree with you?

 

And the other many many arborists all over the world who disagree with you.