Tips on felling oversize Trunks

[liamjordan]

Spot on Tom!!

 

If I had cut the buttresses of this Beech it would have flatend the neighbouring house!!

nice pics huck, reminded me of this ash we did

[Big 'Ammer]

Here's a few pics someone took of me felling a beech stem.

 

Tree had meripilus.

 

We dismantled the canopy to avoid damage to the surrounding trees and get it short enough to fell without the top damaging a sports pitch.

 

Put the gob in to make the hinge at the widest part of the buttresses.

 

Because meripilus rots the centre, I didn't cut into or square off any buttresses to maintain the most strength at the edges of the hinge.

 

I cut a letterbox to make sure the centre was removed, as the bar wouldn't reach from both sides and also to feel how far the centre was decayed so I could judge how much hinge to leave and whether one side of the tree was more decayed than the other, so I knew what to expect.

 

I prefer this way on decayed trees.

 

If you just wade in with a long bar from one side and then find there's no strength where you need it, its not as easy to adjust your plan of action.

 

Trunk had a good forward lean, so cut in from both sides and set the hinge, then released it at the back.

 

Last picture is me talking the cut through afterwards explaining what I had done and why, with Dave, who was my apprentice at the time.

[Big 'Ammer]

The rest.

[Big 'Ammer]

If you have a really outsize tree and are double cutting with a long bar, make your initial cuts with a shorter barred saw.

 

This will guide the long bar in better, as someone pointed out earlier, long bars flop downwards when on their side, so this helps as you arn't straining the chain sidewards trying to force it upwards to counteract the bend.

[agg221]

I find this thread interesting as it's what I end up doing - most of what I take down is woodland grown oak for milling. It's felling single dead trees rather than clear felling so they're full height (no climbing) and the gap between adjacent trees is sometimes narrow. I'm in a similar position to the original poster - they fall where I want but the ends don't look as nice as I'd like, which matters as it's not my wood so I like to leave it looking tidy. Usually trying to get maximum length, so I'm felling amongst the buttresses, up to about 3ft6 with either a 2ft or 3ft bar.

 

These aren't really hints, as I wouldn't claim to have enough experience of this to get it how I'd like it and some of the ones I've felled end up looking shocking (although they land right), so it's more observations for comment in respect to some of the above hints already given.

 

I don't really like working up to the hinge, as if it starts to go when you're still taking the cut from the second side the hinge remains heavy on that side and it throws it off line.

 

I've tried the suggestion of setting the hinge first as if it was a heavy leaner. I like the advantage of having a well formed hinge, but I find that boring with a long bar (particularly the 3ft one) I can't quite tell if it's dead level and there's nothing to support it. If it goes off line there's nothing you can do about it and you can't 'feel' when you meet up the cuts, so I tend to end up boring full depth from both sides, which means making a lot of the cut twice as you fan out from it. If there's a risk of it going off line, I prefer to have the handle definitely high on both sides, rather than risking high one side, low the other - at least then the cuts will definitely intersect (and since this is for timber you get more that way than both low).

 

Big 'Ammer's beech above looks like what I'm trying to achieve, but don't usually manage!

 

Alec

[Mark Bolam]

Some great tips and great pics.

 

Personally I don't really care.

 

If it goes wrong I just move to a different area.

[john p]

Some great tips and great pics.

 

Personally I don't really care.

 

If it goes wrong I just move to a different area.

 

:lol:

[ukminch]

Spot on Tom!!

 

If I had cut the buttresses of this Beech it would have flatend the neighbouring house!!

 

Was that tree where I think it is, access through a field??

[skyhuck]

Was that tree where I think it is, access through a field??

 

Yes I got to it though a field, not my job, I was subbed in for the fell and some of the processing.

[ukminch]

I thought I recognised that butt, I got the pleasure of clearing it up on a boiling hot day