Stupid question

[APC]

Ello,

 

This is a bit of a rubbish question and I feel a little stupid asking it. I had a leaning ash today, about 20" diameter. It was leaning in the direction i wanted to drop it so I attempted a dogs tooth with it. My bar was 15" so after doing the gob cut then boring in from the compression side, I went around to the other side to bore in from that side too. This part went well, I felt the saw meet the cut on the other side so I was happy as it all seemed to be going to plan. I cut forwards to the hinge and then back to the final piece of wood. Then I cracked on with the final cut and was dismayed when a gust of wind took the tree back, pinching my saw. It wasn't going anywhere, totally stuck.

 

Question is, what would be the best method of retrieving the saw? Wedges into the boring cuts perhaps? It surprised me that a tree with the obvious lean was able to sit back!! My boss took over at this point and dropped it back. It was my first medium tree done with a dogs tooth, I don't have CS32. I was initially chuffed when I married up the boring cuts from both sides. Now I'm annoyed!

 

Any guidance would be well proper please!!

 

Thank you!

[Stephen Blair]

it obviously didnt have the lean that you first though it did, or it was very windy.

re-calibrate your brain with the new info and keep going. If it was tall then this has a lot of leverage, sometimes what your eyes see and your brain computes is diferent.

As for stuck saw, in this situation you have to NOT make the mistake and prep the fell diferently. If you whacked in some wedges on the bore cuts you would pop the hinge and tree goes over your shoulder.

When working on thin tall trees there is very little room for bar, wedges, hinge and gob. Simply stick in a pull line on every fell from now on until you are more experienced.

[bob]

did the stem lean rather than the head of the tree

you need a centre forward from the back of the sink cut.

Hope that makes sense

[APC]

Thank you for the replies, maybe you're right Stephen, perhaps I made bad judgement on the lean. I've been mostly spot on in the past though, perhaps I was complacent with this one and should have looked for longer. The wind was definitely blowing a fair bit where I was. It's possible it was more evenly balanced than I thought so only needed a gust at the right time. And wedges, glad you said that, I thought about them at the time and it dropping sideways did cross my mind.

 

Bob, I can't remember whether head or stem led, I get what ya mean though.

 

Thank you for the ideas guys, I thought it would be something as simple as judging lean poorly. Sometimes I find it better to ask and look temporarily thick than sit in bed pondering it all night.

 

[skyhuck]

If your cut is good, you don't need to panic, it will sit there (obviously take care incase the wind drops and the tree goes where you first intended) just throw up a line and pull it over.

[Matt Butler]

im not a fan of the dogs tooth, that exact thing happened on my assesment, instructor asked me to demo a dos tooth on what he said was a heively weighted tree, i thought to myself he must be looking at a different tree, told him i thought it wasent necessary, anyway he made me do it and when i put the back cut in the tree stayed where it was, managed to get it down with wedges

[APC]

If your cut is good, you don't need to panic, it will sit there (obviously take care incase the wind drops and the tree goes where you first intended) just throw up a line and pull it over.

 

Didn't even think to bring a line down with us!! That would have solved everything really.

[Stephen Blair]

There is nothing wrong with what you did today, what you did was be human.

Life is 10% of what happens to you, 90% how you react to it. I bet this incident was about 5 minutes of your life today, dont beat yourself up. Calling yourself stupid and thick is you telling me you dont think much of yourself.

To me you come across as a young lad who has got the common sense to ask a question but at some point you have been called names for doing this, probably at school by the folk that saw you as a threat because they themselves were very insecure. This needs to stop now. Say to yourself, i can, i will.

You have explained what yo did perfectly, all i did was remember back to when i did this last, it was last year, felling 80 foot Thuja about 14" wide, 3 in a row i messed up, they sat back, i got another saw, felled them where they wanted to go, i was in a wood so it didnt matter about damage. I have been felling for 16 years, if i hadnt done that that day i could of messed up some where else and couldnt give you this advice.

chin up and charge on:thumbup:

[Brushcutter]

If it doubt put a pull line on it. When felling near anything valuale or in a tight spot i'll always put one on.

 

Ash can be tricky trees to fell. I once saw a ash with a massive lean on it, only going one way lean pinch a saw. Gob was in and they'd done a bore cut when the tree grabbed the saw. I then took over and put in another gob and felled the tree. I did everything the same as them but their saw pinched mine didn't. Left a perfect impression of the chain in the wood.

[Mesterh]

If it doubt put a pull line on it. When felling near anything valuale or in a tight spot i'll always put one on.

 

Ash can be tricky trees to fell. I once saw a ash with a massive lean on it, only going one way lean pinch a saw. Gob was in and they'd done a bore cut when the tree grabbed the saw. I then took over and put in another gob and felled the tree. I did everything the same as them but their saw pinched mine didn't. Left a perfect impression of the chain in the wood.

 

 

I put a pull line in probably 90% of the trees I fell.

 

But then Im not that good a felling