Better odds to keep trees from getting hung up

woodworkingboy

woodworkingboy

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I posted about the current thinning work on ground where a lot of trees stand a good chance of not falling clear to the lay, due to limb interference from trees that won't be cut. Must have had at least five or six happen today. Walking them down after getting blocked sure eats up a lot of time, and there can be an element of risk involved, particularly with the inclined footing. I'm wondering if folks might suggest specific approaches to trees that stand a good chance of getting hung up, to put more favorable odds in the situation to get a clear fall. What I am doing is an in line to the face back cut to get more momentum, sometimes a Coos bay with a face, and since the vast majority of trees are on a relatively steep hillside, either using a Humboldt style face or a snipe to drop them off the stump quicker, it seems to help, though a number don't get that far before stopping. Not a lot of opportunity to direct the fall besides a bit of aiming at gaps, as most of the trees are head leaners towards directly down the slope. Maybe swing them a little, but not much.

Thoughts appreciated, thanks.
 
How about boring to set your hinge and then tripping? That way the tree can pick up speed a little quicker.
 
I'm not sure there is a good way .Try to hit a hole with the best odds of not tearing stuff up is all I can say .

I've got a similar deal on some of these ash back in the woods .Best I can hope for is to do the least damage possible .No big deal to smash a couple pecker poles on the drop but it would be another thing to hang up on a 100 foot hickory or something .That would kinda suck .:(
 
What I do is gut the face as much as I dare, leaving just a little square of sapwood in each corner to hold the tree.
Bore in and set the hinge as thin as possible, then trip or wedge the tree.
On smallish trees using a long felling bar instead of wedges is a great advantage,since it allows you to accelerate the speed of the tree better. ( no pics of PNW big stuff, Burnham, please:lol:)
The thing that has the best effect is not to aim the tree in the middle of the "hole" you want to ease it down into, but a little to one side. Then as the tree is committed to the lay, snip away the little square of hinge on the side you are aiming at. This'll make the tree rotate into the lay when it hits the branches on the tree next to the lay and sorta screw itself down into the lay.
I normally aim to the left of the " hole", because it is easier for me to step off to that side and snip the hinge with the top of the bar tip.

This is not a thing for rookie treefallers to attempt, it'll cost you a saw or worse, if you miscalculate.
If the tree hits an obstacle on the opposite side of where you are snipping the hinge from, it'll roll towards you, capturing the bar and roll over the saw ( or you).

I proved that in 93 when I killed a 1 month old saw just that way.

With the years of falling you have, Jay, you should have no problems with this tecnique, I just wanted to caution those out there with fewer hours behind a saw.
 
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  • #8
Gutting the hinge does help a bit, and am doing that on the smaller trees to allow a through hinge for the wedge when seeing that it was likely going to hang up. Wedging is effective if you get lucky. Busted one right off the hinge that way though. Hung up and sitting on the stump, I think most here would know the scenario.

Interesting post, Stig, getting that roll off effect is to advantage, especially since the poor growing conditions make many devoid of lower limbs.

Snow fall really varies from year to year, Dave, recently a lot lighter than in the past. The eastern range as opposed to the lots heavier snow fall western, I'd say one to two feet on average now, considerably heavier in the past. Fifty-seventy years age for the larger Pines, some tall and spindly almost out of sight. Hung ups make a day long.
 
Well that won't work. When I used to do pre-commercial thins, we would leave just about everything hung, the snow would get it down that next winter. Sounds like your stuff is well past that age class.
 
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  • #10
On these government contracts they do get rather specific on some dos and don'ts, even though once on the ground, just bucked up and the limbs removed then left to rot. In this particular location I wouldn't exactly call it valuable timber, but things are changing now with removing the usable logs becoming more and more a requirement down the line, it is appearing. Not sure exactly how they are going to work that, with the thinning budgets already tighter than a fat lady's jeans, and the market way down for the wood. I can't say that I have never participated in thinning operations where leaving the logs almost made me sick, one point in favor of one side in the shouting match, referring to some environmentalists that have popped up about how the tax money is being used. Never specifically asked, but I assume that hung ups left as is are a no no in locations like this current one, a timber stand above a village where people coming up there, mostly to collect mushrooms or to look at deer shat, is a possibility. I ldid leave one completely up in the air though, deemed it unsafe to cut it loose, so screw it.
 
The order in which we fall trees in a select cut harvest plan is a very big factor in minimizing the amount of trees that get hung up, and with breaking them too. A before B except after C. or something like that. One crossed or hung up tree can change everything in a layout.
 
There are times when you can knock down a hangup with another fell. Depends on the thinning Rx in your case.
 
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  • #13
In this case, Jerry, thought given to cutting order almost becomes a mute point when the requirement calls for leaving alone all deciduous growth, of which there is a lot. Possibly take out the hung ones with another fall (same thought, Burnham), or make it more complicated. Hung ups with very large trees must be a real pain.
 
Some you can spin off the hang by harvesting a long pole (12-15 feet) and attaching it to the trunk of the hung trunk with a few wraps of rope. Lots of leverage available in a setup like that...more than most imagine.
 
Been killing trees in my ungodly way for a long time:D

If you want to use Burnham's trick with a long pole and find yourself without a rope, simply bore through the log about 3 feet up in such a way as to take out a square block of wood all the way through the middle of it.
Then stick the end ogf your pole through that.

Obviously this doesn't work on valuable logs, only pulp/firewood stuff.

Rather, it'll work fine on any wood, but boring a hole through e veneer log doesn't get you any popularity points with either forrester or mill:lol:

When I thin 50 year old oaks which REALLY love to get hung up, I'll often ( almost always) get a situation, where I have to work ahead, that is in order to make room for a certain tree, I'll have to fell another one, but in order to make room for that, fell yet another one first etc, etc......
My personal record was having to go 16 trees ahead of the one I was going to fell, in order to solve the puzzle.
Working that far ahead, it is aesy to forget the sequence, one just decided on, so when I stand at a tree and decide which way to fall it, I make an arrow in the bark with the chainsaw, pointing in the intended direction.
Then when I hit the end of the chain of trees and fall the one that 8is blocking the whole sequence, all I have to do is look at the arrows as I work back through the chain of trees.
 
I'v been felling field edge windbreaks recently, mostly spready poplars. Most of the time you can sort of punch a hole in the row, and then fell into the gap to avoid dropping them on the field. (Nightmare cleanup/ unhappy farmer if they drop in the field.)

Sometimes though you have to fell into the row, so I'v been experimenting with Stig's hungup technique, ie bored hinge, getting the tree hungup in the next one in the row, and then cutting one side of the hinge to make the tree rotate around the crown of the standing tree and bring it back into line. Sometimes you can get the tree to land almost underneath the next tree, when it rolls all the way round with the two crowns sorta meshed into each other.

Very satisfying!
 
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  • #19
Peter, I think that Stig was referring to nipping the corner as the tree is going over, before it gets hung up. Interesting to read of your results from a stationary situation. Sure seems worth trying. Getting mid size on up trees moving again once they are motionless, seems to require a bit of luck.
 
Yes, ideally its all done in one flowing movement. Sometimes it settles though, and then its cant hook time!
 
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  • #25
Lots of walking trees down with this current job, I notice that when first cutting through the compression side, if done at a relatively steep angle downward, you can generally get further through the tree before the cut starts to close, compared to cutting straight across. The trip and slide off goes easier too with less backchaining, just don't have any body parts in the way as it drops off quick..
 
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