High Back Cut, Burnham Style!

I've had to resort to my harness and a rope on a few occasions. Those have been some fun ones. Never know whether the roots will hold when you tip them.

No critique here! That's the prettiest stump I've seen in a while.

Do you align your back cut by eye when kneeling?

Looked like a real good candidate for the high cut Jay.. Scary when they are that close to the edge. I've been known to also chain the butt to the stump for JIC on ones like that

inbredJed said:

Do you align your back cut by eye when kneeling?

Click to expand...

Thanks, is there another way to do it?

Is that a cryptomeria?

I think you would call it sugi in Japanese.

I can't tell from the picture. Did you cut that with a humboldt face or did you snipe the bottom out of a conventional face in order to make it as open as possible?

CurSedVoyce said:

I've been known to also chain the butt to the stump for JIC on ones like that

Click to expand...

A good technique to use on slopes imo.


Looks good Jay.

Thanks, Squish.

Right, Stig, Cryptomeria. People mistakenly call it 'Japanese Cedar', but it's really a Cypress. Conventional face with a snipe, is my recollection.

I 'm by no means an expert with wedges. I only use them to help assist or to hold the tree in place until it can be pulled over. At what degree back lean on lets say a 100' tree 2 to 3' in DBH do you think wedges can still lift over a tree? Givin it's a reletively straight tree.

Assuming sound wood, there's a couple of ways to look at skinnning that cat, Greg. If you go with the standard back cut, just dog in and cut up towards the hinge until you have room to set a couple or three wedges, bang 'em in and keeping 'em tight as you progress to complete the back cut, then alternate whacks until you stand it up...maybe 5 degrees back lean is doable. Maybe you could improve on that with hardheads, or better yet with mags...but not by much, maybe another degree at the very most.

You can deepen your face cut to something over 1/3rd of the tree diameter, shifting the center of balance forward a smidge...might get another degree out of it.

Now if you gut the hinge on that 30 inch tree, leave about 6 inches of hinge on each corner, otherwise do everything the same, you could up your chances another little bit...say another degree. So we're up into the 7-8 degree back lean range.

That's getting pretty intense, but not impossibly insane.

There is another way to progress the back cut on a back leaner that can give you another bit of advantage in standing up that tree with wedges. The key here is never let the tree shift back into it's lean even a tiny bit, which will happen when you back cut from the rear until you have room to set the wedges. If you keep the tree from doing this, you don't have to overcome that extra bit of additional back lean, which is the part of the wedging job that demands the most power.

Sooo...make your face up per normal, or a bit deeper, say 40% of diameter. Now gut the hinge, leaving 5-6 inches of hinge on each corner...do this from the front and only gut deep enough to get past your planned hinge thickness. Now bore in from the side aft of your hinge and set the hinge thickness all the way across. I do this with the belly of the bar facing the hinge.

Now, pull the bar and flip it over so the belly is facing out towards the rear of the tree. Cut out towards the rear keeping the bar pretty close to parallel to the hinge (dog in and sweep forward a inch or two, then pull the dogs and progress the powerhead aft an equal amount). Do this until you have about two bar's width of back cut.

Now, leave the saw in the kerf and set a wedge on each side of the back cut, between the bar and the hinge. Bang 'em in tight as a tick. Keep the load balanced between the two wedges.

Then progress the back cut again in the same manner, 'til there's room to set another pair of wedges, one each side, right beside the first two. Drive 'em in tight, re-drive the first pair, then re-drive the second pair...tight and balanced.

Do this another time, same operating plan. Your objective is to get the back cut in completely while never letting the tree set back even a tiny amount. Three wedges on each side should be enough for a 30 inch tree, because you want to finish the back cut with enough space between the tips of the last pair of wedges to drive a pair, or three even, into the back cut and directly towards the lay. I have been known to intentionally saw off the tips of that last pair once they were set to make enough room.

Drive wedges alternately, and always keep an eye out overhead when driving wedges...stuff gets vibrated loose and will fall on you. Drive wedges in an irregular rhythm, and let the vibrations die out after a few thumps.

All this, and you might get another 2 degrees, max. Bottom line, you would be very hard pressed indeed to stand up a tree that had anything over 10 degrees back lean with wedges alone.

That's my take on the subject...love to hear what others have to say, too.

Burnham said:

Drive 'em in tight, re-drive the first pair, then re-drive the second pair...tight and balanced.

Click to expand...

This seems like too much lift too close to the hinge, especially with mags. Could you tell me your thoughts on my thoughts?

Sure, Willie...I didn't make myself sufficiently clear. I'm not trying to lift, only keep the tree from setting back, making the eventual lift effort more difficult. So set those side wedges tight, but don't try for lift. There is no way you are going to get lift anyway, not with sound wood in a good hinge and with the rearmost portion of the back cut still intact. Once the back cut is complete, all the wedging takes place with the rear set of wedges, you can forget about the side wedges at that point.

I wouldn't use mags here, standard plastics are plenty, and like I said, you might need to sacrifice the tips to allow room for the rear wedges to slide in between those ends.

I see, I was just thinking if someone used a slicker wedge on an already back leaning tree and beat to hard that therewould be slight potential to lift off the hinge and fail backwards. Maybe I give my wedge driving guns to much credit

Hmmmm ...thanks Burnham....Interesting.....I will have to improve my wedging skills as the opportunity arises. Most the time I'm near houses, targets and with my moderate skills in wedging, I wont take the chance. So, I always set a tag to insure the lay.

Greg

I like to set myself a little challenge now and then, set the tag, and then try your best to not have to use it....

Sharpens up your wedge skills, and still leaves you a plan b.

I'll only pull out all the stops with wedging techniques on a back leaner if it has the potential to save me significant labor in the long run...say by tipping a road hazard removal back into the stand where I can leave it lay instead of taking it across the road, where I have to limb, buck, and move all the wood. If the consequences of misjudgement, i.e. you fail to be able to wedge a back leaner over to commit to your desired lay, carry significant negative ramifications, like having to back fall the tree into a pretty little cabin...well then, you'd best not start down that path.

The only way to get good at estimating whether you can wedge a certain tree over is experience, and the only way to get that is by trying. Peter's method makes great sense.

Minimize risk as much as possible in my play book....

Screw that. Life is short.

Hahahaha.....
I think I could have been more specific...

sotc said:

I see, I was just thinking if someone used a slicker wedge on an already back leaning tree and beat to hard that therewould be slight potential to lift off the hinge and fail backwards. Maybe I give my wedge driving guns to much credit

Click to expand...

That potential does exist, I reckon. I guess it takes a bit of "feel" to be sure you don't do that.

Burnham, what you are describing is pretty much the way we always set wedges.
Since we normally can't reach all the way across the tree with our puny lil' bars, we bore in behind the hinge and cut our way around the tree.
As we go around, we set the wedges.

Slightly different procedure, same result.....................no setback.

Nothing new under the sun .

Say, Stig...what do you think is about max degree of back lean that you can stand up with wedges and plates, as y'all do it? Getting back to Greg's initial question.

Since I'm mostly a hardwoods faller it is not so much a question of degrees, since backlean on those are mostly caused by branches.
So that would be hard to say. I go by gut feeling.

On the conifers, I'd agree that 10 degrees is absolute maximum, unless it is a short, wide based tree.

Alrighty, then. At 10 degrees, you have a battle, usually winable but no walk in the park.

I think its one of those things you have to learn by trial and error, there are so many factors to consider, lean in the stem, shape of the crown, weight distribution in relation to height, wind speed, direction, and gustiness, limbs crossing other canopies.

The hallmark of the experienced faller is quickly assess each tree by eye, decide on the most effective method for putting it down where you want it, and executing it correctly. It is inevitable that a few mistakes will be made in the learning process.

I remember beating two hi-lift wedges mercilessly with a fencing maul into the back of a big poplar, without any result at all. Tried everything I could think of, thinned the hinge as much as I dared, looked at the tree rom every angle, couldnt understand why it wouldnt fall. Finally beat the wedges in some more, there was an almighty pop as the tiny piece that I missed in the backcut snapped, literally only about an inch or two square, and the tree practically catapulted over! I think Ed has a pic of the stump somewhere.