Felling leaning trees

[iainarkle]

Think it going wrong was due to species . . .

By the sounds of it, id have gobbed in desired direction, triangle hinge, pull line pulling at 135degree (if lean is 0 degree, fell is 90, pull line another 45 degree round)

 

This is pretty much it!

Seems a European trick is you can also achieve this by playing the angles. Put a smallish gob say 1/8 or 1/9th in at 135, start your back cut as normal until you get to about half way then lead the rest of the cut with the nose of the bar. The result is you are in control and the tree swings on the fat hinge.

I have been playing with this for the last year on trees up to 14" or so and now am pretty confident with it. It did go horribly wrong the first, oh.....xx number of trees!!!

Good luck!

[APC]

gob cut in direction you want it to go. cut a quarter (pizza slice shape) out on compression side. bung a felling lever in. go around to tension side, line up saw so tip undercuts the horizontal cut by about an inch and engine end of bar sits at or just above level of hinge. cut from back, keeping bar parallel to hinge, keep at it until you get to your hinge (don't go through it though!). use lever to push it over.

 

that seems to work for me and is what they teach on cs31. There will be limits to what you can put over with it, mainly you won't get a back leaner to go opposite way to lean in most cases.

[mikecotterill]

Although if it goes straight why not spike up a few feet and gob it out there?

 

This is near enough what I did, except not by using spikes. My point of view was to get a gob in as straight a part I could. The top of the tree was about a foot away from the base of the tree if that makes sense, due to the curve. So if it's felled at the bottom the weight of the tree is surely using the curve as a lever, putting more stress on the hinge,and so morelikely to snap out. This is what we were disagreeing about, rather than the cut itself. Wether it should have been felled from the base or further up.

[Stephen Blair]

just because the tree grows straight at the point you stick your gob in, there are still the same stresses running through it, so although you think there is not as much tension at that point upwareds there is down towards the base of the tree.

maybe further up the trunk but not at the point it straightens, thats the worse place if you ask me.

Think of a 3 strand rope, bend and kink it, at the point where is bends, it is all buckled up.

[Brushcutter]

Depends on how much side lean and how big the tree is. Split levels work well if its but useless on bigger than 15". I always fell low for leverage and as the expression goes if your knuckles aren't grazed you aint low enough. I've been using pre tensioned pull lines for leans the last week. With just a standard felling cut. I quite like the tapered hinge but you've got to be confident with your cuts and your plan to get the best out of.

 

Without seeing the tree its hard to say what i've of done. I'd of gone with a quite wide angle face cut so the hinge holds as possible. The real problem is that it was a Sycamore. Brittle stuff.

[Matthew Burton]

I've saw a leaning tree (ash) felled at 90 degrees to the lean, not sure if it was by luck or judgements though. The gob cut was about 25% of the diameter then the hinge was left parallel roughly another 20% which left the tree still standing. Then a small triangle of the hinge wood was cut away from the side of the hinge towards the lean. It worked a treat, tree folded over perfectly. I've not had chance to try this out since to see if it was simply luck or theres something to it...

[bareroots]

i've always thought a hinge should be straight with parallel edges. if it's leaning have it thicker. Otherwize it won't work as a cleanly. Please correct me if i'm wrong.

[slasherscot]

i've always thought a hinge should be straight with parallel edges. if it's leaning have it thicker. Otherwize it won't work as a cleanly. Please correct me if i'm wrong.

 

if its leaning to the right, u can leave it thicker on the left, helps to pull it round

[Stephen Blair]

Mathew, ash is a lot easier to work than sycamore, it holds well. The king of bendy fibres is birch imo.

[Brushcutter]

i've always thought a hinge should be straight with parallel edges. if it's leaning have it thicker. Otherwize it won't work as a cleanly. Please correct me if i'm wrong.

 

Tapered hinges are old skool. They have their place in the tool bag but 99% of the time i'd use a parallel hinge. Norway is a nice to fell as it hinges really well.