dadio

I actually learn a lot from watching my videos.. slow motion helps.. Youtube is a great tool for moving this industry forward.. I didn't mean to sound harsh or ugly.. the mistakes he made were something even a good and experienced climber could make, just by a small lapse in attention... We all feel for him.. so no disrespect intended... a thorough criticism of the video is the best way to learn from it.. whoever put it up on youtube no doubt intended for it to be an aid to the rest of us.

There are a few times when its good to leave a stub as a step or rigging point, but in general most stubs are left as a matter of poor work habits. His cutting technique looked questionable (as mentioned) looked like bad body positioning, and the cut at the top of that big bit looked "funny", though hard to say for sure with the picture clarity so poor. As with most accidents it was a combination of mistakes that culminated in the injury.. Leaving the stub, not checking the line prior to cutting, poor body positioning and maybe others too.. perhaps if he had a dedicated groundie, that man would have seen the line snagged, in time to prevent it.

That's a good lesson about the dangers of leaving stubs... DON"T DO IT! Looks like his line was on the stub from the start... It can happen that quick when you forget one little detail.. Speedy recovery and glad he'll be OK. Looked like his left arm might have been under the tree.....

Interesting discussion. The only large cut on that, which may have been close to 6" was on a limb that had been broken in an early snow in October, when the tree still had leaves. I made the cut just behind the rip. I did mention that on tape but decided against including it for time. I just focused on the main idea. Another issue that wasn't mentioned is that the neighbor's (to the right) wanted to remove all the limbs back to the property line, which would have been a disaster. They wanted light and safety. I had to lobby hard to get it reduced as seen. So I could have gone a little smaller on the near and left sides. I don't expect it to sprout wildly or catch its death of disease. Hopefully there is enough live tips to keep the tree from responding with a lot of latent bud growth. We'll see.. Pretty sure it'll be OK, with the reduced limbs growth retarded. I'll keep an eye on it and report back..

OK check back in 4 years!...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5EVCqsb_Vk]Proper Tree Pruning Paoli PA 19301 .mov - YouTube[/ame] Here are a couple of big oaks we pruned a month or two ago... voice over and comments on the scene combined with some good climbing/limb walking and using the 75' altec bucket truck.

ps... he's no doubt rethinking his career choice...

I think the big limb caught his life line on that stub, which tried to suck him around the limb, but he got caught, so the line coming through the stub became the "tie off point" on the limb and it just hung there balancing from that point, with all that weight tugging in his saddle..

Nice work as usual.. what's the biner for on the eye of the rigging block sling?

Again..very impressive video.. showed it to my GF... she liked it a lot... only possible suggestion would be on the shirt... tight shirts are less likely to get snagged etc...

That is a great piece of film work.. a three minute EPIC.. Very inspirational and wonderful feel to the whole thing.. Great climbing moves and finess... SOOO GOOOD... Every once in a while I take my woman climbing and make love in a tree... Its a very good thing...

you cut a real nice humboldt..

That's why its always good to use pull lines! if you have em and can set em.. I have dropped a tree on a house that was set for demotion.. I actually didn't do the climbing.. bombing huge multi-thousand pound pieces through the roof... into the kitchen etc.. only request was not to hurt the hardwood floors as some of the house was getting saved...

Steve, though the second point is well taken in many cases, I must wholeheartedly disagree with the former.. Yes he blew out the hinge.. however this was not an easy cut, and whenever faced with a challenge it is best to use every thing possible to your best advantage.. depth of the notch is going to effect the length of the hinge (which is an important advantage) and also as mentioned earlier can often be used to great advantage by placing the hinge back farther towards or even beyond the center of gravity of the top. Certainly not much effect of this particular tree, but something to keep in mind.. I didn't criticize the depth of the notch.. I criticized the guy that said it was too big..

Ya.. it simply refers to making the back cut higher than the apex of the notch.. called that in the doug Dent book "professional timber falling" .. pg 68.. even though he has the diagram slightly off..

More wood to cut through doesn't give any more control.. this isn't a timed event.. That makes NO SENSE!!! My 12 year old son can understand that the wider the hinge, the more control it will have in fighting side lean.. The widest possible hinge is going to be dead center.... So a deep notch, tapered hinge, with no stump shot would offer the most control of that side leaner.. combine that good cut with a high pull line, lots of pulling power, directionally offset to compensate for the side lean and he stood a good chance on that cut.

You seem to have an excellent understanding of the effects of notch depth Good to see someone does...In light of that it makes no sense that you say "If he'd cut a smaller gob he'd have had more time and more control. " Absolutely no sense..

exactly and his back cut was too deep because (in part) it was too high.. a higher back cut requires more pull to trip. Also the angle of the pull line and amount of pull is critical such situations.. And its good to know that the brits understand A LOT more about the reasons for the depth of the hinge than do Americans.. I wasn't aware that the guidelines had been changed to 20-25% depth, which is plenty for the average fall IMO.. you can even go quite a bit less if there is no side weight, and you have sufficient pulling power in place..

don't get your panties in a knot.. simple question: in the brit training courses do they explain the reasons why the notch is cut to 1/3 depth or 80% width.. if so ... what was the explanation?

OK GAME ON!!!! This subject just came up recently at 2 of the American sites.. First of all I TOTALLY disagree that the gob was too big... The tree simply had too much side lean for the hinge, he didn't have enough pull to get it moving to the face.. the back cut was a bit high, and there was no taper to the hinge. So he kept cutting til he took too much out of the hinge to hold. If he had a good bit more pull on the top and had cut a proper hinge, he might have been able to overcome the side lean.. None of this has anything to do with the notch being too big.... IF ANYTHING, a bigger notch would have left more wood across the hinge to fight the side lean.. That is beside the point here.. We have a man criticizing a gob for being too big.. IMO most American arborists.. like 99+%, cannot explain why we cut the gob's 1/3 the diameter or so deep as to make the hinge width 80% of the diameter of the tree.. People follow this rule religiously and make high judgments about anything done outside the "rules", without having the faintest idea of why the rules are there.. If you understand the why of the rule, then it becomes clear as to when it is best, or at least better, to break the rule.. I AM just wondering how many brits understand the why's of this rule, which governs what is probably the most basic task in our industry... Brits clearly have much better training than americans, did anyone ever explain the why's of this rule during all of that training?

90 seconds, shows extensive interior damage while very little indication on the bark is showing

I don't put pressure on the back stroke.. just drag it back across the tooth to eliminate an unnecessary move.. does that dull the file? I never noticed if it does..

Not sure what that means exactly.. forward and back... not up and down right???

Finally got some action on a vid here.. took 4 tries... hey one more youtube subscriber will hit the 500 mark.. any takers?

its been kinda quiet around here so its time to post this exciting new vid, about how to sharpen a chainsaw.. prepare yourself for all the action before watching... [ame] [/ame]