How do you align a diagonal?

Jed

Jed

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A) By "gut feel" from the corner and then sweeping all the way to the far corner.

B) By gut feel from the "side" (This is Beranek's terminology meaning a few inches from your near corner, then cutting up to it.)

C) By gut feel from the front. (dead center of the undercut, aligning "tilt" and "roll" simultaneously, then cutting up to both corners)

D) By eyeball from the corner. (This method--if used at all--is most commonly done in the tree on spurs and flipline. It involves extensive "cleaning out" of the horizontal undercut with throttle pulses so as to be able to see all the way through the back of the cut. The bar is then "tilted" by feel to provide the desired opening, but the "roll" is established by "sighting down" the [narrow] plane of the bar from the near to the far corner prior to starting the cut.)

I'm thinkin' I lost a few people with that last one. Anyway, what do you guys do? Do you align your back cuts similarly?
 
My "redneck, firewood style" is to make the horizontal cut first. I've been working hard on leaving low stumps so the mini can roll over them, it gets more wood out of the tree and leaves the woods a nicer place.
Anyway, I make the horizontal cut first, then look down the bar to line up to the two inside cuts. I try to use a bar as wide as the tree, out of laziness. But if you look down the side of the bar it will give you a "sight radius" much like a gun, to align with the bottom cut I already have.
I'm sure somebody can explain it better than that.
 
Pretty much b, but maybe it helps to have a mental image of how far you want your notch to cut into the tree. If you are shooting for a third, for example, you can get a feeling for that from the side you are cutting from.
 
Actually, is it how one aims the notch?

I do the top cut fist, and I align from the front or side.
 
I think Jed is asking how you go about aligning the angle cut with the horizontal cut. His description of the perceived options seem to indicate horizontal cut first.
 
I used to do 'D' but now closer to 'B' with 'A' tendencies. Sometimes I still clear the kerf and look if it's critical but usually not because the cut is closer to my waist than my eyes.
 
Could you maybe phrase the question diffrently.
I simply don't get what it is you are asking.
Bear in mind, I'm just a dumb scandinavian woodcutter with a poor understanding of English;)

But I really don't get it.
 
Stig, how do you make a perfect face cut. Do you eyeball and check it as you go, do it entirely based on feel and experience or some combination thereof?
 
I know what "align" means and I know what "diagonal" is. I have no idea what "align a diagonal" means.

The thread title is ... unclear and confusing. As soon as the OP comes up with a clearer title. Like, maybe... "How do you level up your backcut?"
 
When cutting a notch, how do you get the second cut to match up with the first cut? Practice, practice, and more practice.
 
Just keep cutting.
Eventually they'll cross each other.

In all seriousnes, now that I understand the question, I just go by feel.


Shit, I just reread the question and I still don't understand it.

From the side or from the corner??????????????????????????

Tilt and roll???

I don't get ANY of this stuff.



I just cut the damned thing, alright!
 
Tilt= angling the length of the bar up or down. Roll= angling the width of the bar clockwise or counterclockwise.

Say, for example, from the relative right corner you saw a level undercut then after withdrawing the bar from the undercut, keeping the lower dog near the corner, go ahead and tilt the bar up or down, but do not roll it. Your diagonal should match up pretty close.

Nearly all errors in matching the two cuts comes from rolling the width of the bar sometime or during the course of tiltling it.

It helps to imagine the lower tooth of the dog being a hinge or an anchor point that you base the alignment of both cuts from.

my 2 cents.
 
I go by instintive gut feeling, according to option B. It takes a while to develop the "feel" for how to line up the cuts, but after a while it's more efficient and more reliable than any trick I've ever learned.
 
Thanks, Jerry.
Now I've got tilt & roll.

What is the difference between side and corner, seems to me they'd be the same thing?
 
Stig, I think for most folks this side of the pond, the corner is the exact point where the horizontal and angled cuts that make up the face intersect...near corner is closer to where the sawyer is standing, far corner is on the away side.

The "side" is a less specific location...somewhat farther out along the diagonal kerf from the exact point of intersection. One way to think of it might be in relation to the direction of the intended fell...the front woulld be directly to the lay, and the side somewhere between there and the corner...usually closer to the corner than the front.
 
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