Pecan Hinge Failure -- what did I miscalculate?

I can’t leave this alone.

All the stuff about hinges, dutchman, COGs et al is irrelevant.

A back leaning tree without enough pull will not go over the right way, even with the greatest hinge, wedges or nay without enough pull.

Because it wasn’t going over you cut through the hinge or the like.

I don’t know why you’re not listening to this.
 
It's not as simple as you're making it Mick. A properly cut tree will go over way easier than an improperly cut up one. With much less pull force I mean. Some bad cuts like a bad Dutchmen will break the hinge before it'll pull over so the harder you yank you're just screwing yourself.
 
It's not a matter of how hard you yank it - it's the power behind the pull. ANY hard yanking can break a hinge.
 
What carl said. It didn't fall with your choices of persuasion and so you did the same ole thing thats been done by students of the saw for thousands of years. . . You kept cutting the hinge.
See my video "Grayback" on Youtube.

Everything else notwithstanding, the reason the tree fell to the side is you "reduced" the hinge to the point of failure. The reason the tree didn't fall to the lay is because the pull didn't overcome the resistance from the weight of the tree and stiffness of the initial hinge.
 
Surely you've pulled many trees Mick? Improper cuts can cause the hinge to fail and the tree to go with its weight/lean. Or cause it to swing way off the lay. Or barberchair. Or need way more pull to commit. Or.......the list goes on and on. To say the cutting doesn't matter and the pull strength is everything is wrong.

What I'm saying is you put in crazy cuts like Robert did here(sorry Robert but it's been covered already) and there's no saying that tree would've gone to lay no matter how much pull he had and if he hadn't nipped off the hinge. The extra pull may have just broke the hinge before committing. But properly cut up a ton of backweight can be overcome with the proper pull. It's a combination of the two, not just having enough pull. But forming a hinge that that pull can be leveraged against successfully without failing.
 
The Center Of Gravity is very relevant to pull the tree over.

At least in your wording, Robert, you don't seem to have it right about that:
i.e. even the doubled wedges (~2") unable to push tree past COG ...
No, you don't push the tree past the COG.
It's the tree's COG you have to push/pull past the equilibrium point of the hinge (combined with the folding resistance of said hinge, plus wind's force...). The tree's COG is the center of mass of all the thing. It's a point representing all the weight of the tree. At least the moving part above the cut.
When you play with the tree, you deal with the COG, and its surrounding structure. In a back leaner, more with an uneven crown, the COG is way back behind the hinge and you must pull or /and push really hard to move it past this point. Actually, the COG makes a circular trajectory around the hinge and have to rise during the forward movement. This rise is the main part of the difficulty to pull your tree. It's literally as if you have to lift the whole tree many inches to get it moving forward, exactly as if you want to push your truck over the curb.

The wedges alone with a good hinge can do it but it can be a hard work, due to the poor leverage. You need a lot of wedges to get it right, either horizontally to overcome the tree's weight and vertically to get enough lift. The rope is easier. Should be...

I had to fell a pine, small (less diameter than your tree) but with almost all its limbs on the back side. No anchor point for a rope, but a good hinge capability and no critical target, so I tried with my wedges. It didn't want to go until I drove in two 5" stacks of wedges (1" and 2" wedges). It's the first time that I used all my set in one tree. But it was risky because such a stack is prone to spit out or slides sideway. It took me a moment...
 
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  • #138
i think this is a do-over line, not a scribed line to build on >> lets go for perfectly machined carpentry in the cuts:
Burnham points out to concentrate on cuts, would mean make them text book pix i think/no forgiveness/be very harsh on self, don't pay this price again!
>>machine correctly to ALLOW it to work/flow, not bind against.

Yes, sir... go for "machined" precision in felling cuts....
...in fact on my current job I did that this Saturday even on little 5" trees....
... GO FOR...
-- perfectly matching, level intersection, face cut planes
-- level back cut.... not too high... even hinge thickness
-- spent all necessary time and care of cuts..... even on the smallest trees, aiming at perfection.

Great pictures/diagrams! thanks! (I left them out to save space, no disrespect)

Thanks for taking the time to explain and illustrate theses concepts/realities!

As for that t-shirt.... its pithy (and profound) wit certainly seems to ring very true, especially coming from the voice of experience.
 
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  • #139
17% thickness of hinge should be more like 5-10%. Easy to split a tree with too thick of a hinge and too hard of a pull. You pull the tree apart, rather than pivot it over, on the hinge.

The bore-cut to set the hinge is great protection to a bad hinge, if you know what the hinge should look like, and if you know how to bore-cut (hint: STUDY, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE).

......

If you need a how-to-fell checklist to review, step-by-step,
-shaving the bark off to see what the wood fiber is doing (is it starting to split from too hard of a pull and too thick of a hinge, or perhaps jacking the tree off the stump with wedges), and being able to see exactly how thick your hinge is,
-checking that your cuts are accurate before carrying on with them to the end
-maintain a hinge
and

If you can't climb a tree, so resort to dangerous alternatives,
and
If you don't immediately judge that the crotch you chose for the throwline was too low, or see that you could attach the rope in the middle to the truck, giving your a leg of rope for a high pull-line (leverage), and a low-pull line (back-up to concern of breaking out a high pull-line crotch)...

Then, this may not be for you.
Tree work is NOT for almost everyone on the planet. I tell everyone I hire this same thing. Most professions are not for most of everyone.

Thanks Sean.

Yes.... those cuts and "hinge" are looking worse and worse to me...

SHAVING OFF BARK to clearly see hinge --- that step I had vaguely intended, but forgot in the excitement --- NO MORE!

Yes.... BORE CUT.... I used to do this all the time, for (most?) all leans, but wanted to learn to make a "real" back cut... I was much more consistent with the bore cut.

... I believe I have learned a lot from this fiasco.... thanks to your and everyone's feedback.

Question please....... what means?.......:

you could attach the rope in the middle to the truck, giving your a leg of rope for a high pull-line (leverage), and a low-pull line (back-up to concern of breaking out a high pull-line crotch)..
Thanks!
 
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  • #141
As my friend Sean so accurately notes, "Tree work is NOT for almost everyone on the planet."

Robert, so far I have seen many a fine attribute in your personality...but precious few in your skills, or ability to learn these skills, as they pertain to treework. It's not just the saw work. You seem to be deficient in native ability at reading lean and limb weight, at setting rigging appropriate to loads, at basic use of a blinkin' trailer, fer gads sake.

I like you, sir. You are the most willing new and inexperienced member to put their questions out there, admit mistakes, and gracefully take criticism, that has come across Butch's site in quite a while.

But I greatly fear you are heading down a road that will perhaps lead to a very sad end. I'd hate for that to happen, Robert. Please consider my at times rude cautions as they are intended...no ill will, only a wish for your long term welfare.

Thanks a lot, Mr. Burnham.... this is life and death...
...and even I know enough (at least "on paper") that for someone like me this is no place for ill conceived pride/hubris, stiff-necked refusal to listen to words of wisdom from those with much more (some much, much, much, etc. more) knowledge, experience, skill, talent than I do, etc.

... so I try to be "defenseless" and all ears

And I thank you and everyone else for continuing to engage me with these things.

Seeing more and more what a FIASCO this was..... but it also appears a relatively small price to pay to learn so much from --- thanks to The Treehouse and all you guys and gal(s)

But as I said before, sir, from you I have derived encouragement and direction .. AND .. a measurable goal in this endeavor:

IF (I CAN LEARN TO MAKE PROPER/GOOD FELLING CUTS) THEN
CONTINUE...
ELSE
GIVE IT UP!
END IF

Thanks again

.... a vain attempt to knowingly ignore the laws of physics, that's why God gave us a BRAIN...to use it!
good one, Bermy, Thanks.

You. Didn’t. Have. Enough. Pull.

ha, ... heard you loud and clear this time...Thanks Mick... and MB

That isn't a MA here. If you judge your rope not strong enough to be in the safety margin for the intended task, an easy way is to fold the rope in 2 and use this doubled rope as if it was one plain rope. Two times stronger, but also two times shorter. An important point is to rig that with the same load on both parts (less a concern with a stretchy rope tough).
If you need a MA to get enough force, the doubled rope has to go throw the set of pulleys the same way as if it wasn't folded.

The rope can be folded in 3 or 4, but it becomes very short and equalizing the loads between the legs begins to be really tricky.

Got it! Thanks Marc.

I can’t leave this alone.

All the stuff about hinges, dutchman, COGs et al is irrelevant.

A back leaning tree without enough pull will not go over the right way, even with the greatest hinge, wedges or nay without enough pull.

Because it wasn’t going over you cut through the hinge or the like.

I don’t know why you’re not listening to this.

Mick, Thanks. I'm totally listening.

NEXT time your comments will be in there bouncing around in my head "MUST. HAVE. ENOUGH. PULL." ... which will hopefully help me past this.

BUT... one reason I didn't have enough pull this time was because I badly misjudged (ignored) the back force of the lean and canopy....
... IF I had properly taken that back force into account by...
-- removing some back branches.... and/or
-- putting pull line higher in tree
-- using heavier rope I wasn't afraid of breaking
-- made hinge thinner/better
Then I might have had enough pull this time.

but for next time: MUST. HAVE. ENOUGH. PULL.

thanks!

Sometimes you just gotta know when to grab that towel and toss it.

Yes

It's not as simple as you're making it Mick. A properly cut tree will go over way easier than an improperly cut up one. With much less pull force I mean. Some bad cuts like a bad Dutchmen will break the hinge before it'll pull over so the harder you yank you're just screwing yourself.

Thanks Squisher. This says it better than I was trying to say it...the truth of Mick's words, notwithstanding.

What carl said. It didn't fall with your choices of persuasion and so you did the same ole thing thats been done by students of the saw for thousands of years. . . You kept cutting the hinge.
See my video "Grayback" on Youtube.

Thanks August! ... will do.

....
What I'm saying is you put in crazy cuts [... ha, noted! no prob :) ...] and there's no saying that tree would've gone to lay no matter how much pull he had and if he hadn't nipped off the hinge. The extra pull may have just broke the hinge before committing. But properly cut up a ton of backweight can be overcome with the proper pull. It's a combination of the two, not just having enough pull. But forming a hinge that that pull can be leveraged against successfully without failing.

Thanks Squisher and Mick!

I'm cutting that sucker off here!!!

Looks like you are executing an advanced technique, MB!

The Center Of Gravity is very relevant to pull the tree over.

At least in your wording, Robert, you don't seem to have it right about that:

No, you don't push the tree past the COG.
It's the tree's COG you have to push/pull past the equilibrium point of the hinge (combined with the folding resistance of said hinge, plus wind's force...). The tree's COG is the center of mass of all the thing. It's a point representing all the weight of the tree. At least the moving part above the cut.
When you play with the tree, you deal with the COG, and its surrounding structure. In a back leaner, more with an uneven crown, the COG is way back behind the hinge and you must pull or /and push really hard to move it past this point. Actually, the COG makes a circular trajectory around the hinge and have to rise during the forward movement. This rise is the main part of the difficulty to pull your tree. It's literally as if you have to lift the whole tree many inches to get it moving forward, exactly as if you want to push your truck over the curb.

The wedges alone with a good hinge can do it but it can be a hard work, due to the poor leverage. You need a lot of wedges to get it right, either horizontally to overcome the tree's weight and vertically to get enough lift. The rope is easier. Should be...

I had to fell a pine, small (less diameter than your tree) but with almost all its limbs on the back side. No anchor point for a rope, but a good hinge capability and no critical target, so I tried with my wedges. It didn't want to go until I drove in two 5" stacks of wedges (1" and 2" wedges). It's the first time that I used all my set in one tree. But it was risky because such a stack is prone to spit out or slides sideway. It took me a moment...

Thanks a lot, Marc.

Kyle had a good post earlier here on calculating the COG and lean forces.

I had not thought to take into consideration the *upward/circular* movement aspect to be overcome.

I had been taught (and in Jeff Jepson's "To Fell a Tree" as I recall)... to stand back 90* to the lay, visualize (e.g. with your outstretched fingers) the front and back boundaries of the canopy.... then bring your fingers together evenly in front of you.... drop them straight down.... and if that point falls behind the tree, then that is the "back lean" that must be overcome.

In your pine tree example do I understand you stacked your wedges 3 high?

Thanks!

Mathew 9:26-27

:thumbup:

also please see John 9 (entire chapter) too!
 
The eyeball trick works if you have a plumb line to help you actually see what's level a loosely held ax does a wonderful job. That way you have a vertical reference point, and trunk lean, hills, etc are easily noticed. You have to supply enough force to torque the tree over, and so the higher you apply your force, the more torque you will generate. If you are getting excited at all, you need to stop immediately and double check everything. Make a written list if you think it will help, and check each step off. You need to pull on your pull line first too, before any cuts are made, to see if you are moving the tree at all. If not, do not pass go.

Having the proper hinge and clean cuts are what's important, especially at this phase. Bore your hinge, and make it perfect. If you are pulling a tree or even using wedges, or not, take the time to do it perfect, everytime. Later you can build the knowledge base to simply do a backcut, but boring to set a hinge will never be wrong. If you are in the middle of no where, dropping firewood trees that can't possibly hit anything, then you can work on your different cuts, same as when you are in the tree dropping small stuff that can go anywhere safely. You will learn ironically that you have to bore cut the heavy head leaners because not doing so will result in barberchair and the tree punting your head across the yard.

You handle corrective criticism well, that bodes well of your character. I'm sure you've heard the saying "knows just enough to hurt/ kill himself" that's where you are right now. Please get someone who really knows this stuff to work under. If they are putting angled backcuts in, they don't know what they are doing :lol:
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #144
What carl said. It didn't fall with your choices of persuasion and so you did the same ole thing thats been done by students of the saw for thousands of years. . . You kept cutting the hinge.
See my video "Grayback" on Youtube.

cool, sad, solid, heroic video from several aspects. thanks.

* "pulling trees" [i.e. vs. not pulling] -- "a great way to stack the deck"
* understand importance of the hinge [as everyone here has emphasized]
* G.O.A.L -- Get Out And Look ----> i.e. step around to other side of back cut and see where you're at
---> [and get down on all 4's .... inspect... pre-mark.... cut off bark... WHATEVER it takes to get hinge right.]
* "somebody that got themselves believin' their a logger" [OUCH]
* Back to Basics -- usually a good place to start.

Much of exact same things many have already emphasized.... packaged into a really moving and memorable production.

>> "Grayback"

The eyeball trick works if you have a plumb line to help you actually see what's level a loosely held ax does a wonderful job. That way you have a vertical reference point, and trunk lean, hills, etc are easily noticed. You have to supply enough force to torque the tree over, and so the higher you apply your force, the more torque you will generate. If you are getting excited at all, you need to stop immediately and double check everything. Make a written list if you think it will help, and check each step off. You need to pull on your pull line first too, before any cuts are made, to see if you are moving the tree at all. If not, do not pass go.

Having the proper hinge and clean cuts are what's important, especially at this phase. Bore your hinge, and make it perfect. If you are pulling a tree or even using wedges, or not, take the time to do it perfect, everytime. Later you can build the knowledge base to simply do a backcut, but boring to set a hinge will never be wrong. If you are in the middle of no where, dropping firewood trees that can't possibly hit anything, then you can work on your different cuts, same as when you are in the tree dropping small stuff that can go anywhere safely. You will learn ironically that you have to bore cut the heavy head leaners because not doing so will result in barberchair and the tree punting your head across the yard.

You handle corrective criticism well, that bodes well of your character. I'm sure you've heard the saying "knows just enough to hurt/ kill himself" that's where you are right now. Please get someone who really knows this stuff to work under. If they are putting angled backcuts in, they don't know what they are doing :lol:

Great advice, Kyle.... excellent ideas... e.g. "make a written list"
.. yeah the heavy head leaners is where I originally learned (read) and practiced the importance of the bore cut to prevent barber chairing... also in my chainsaw class from Tim Ard, the bore cut was basically all he taught for all leans because of the relative ease of establishing hinge and predictability.

haha, as for taking criticism, see my remarks to Mr. Burnham.

yeah, thanks. It is on my radar to try to find someone with experience to work with/for.
 
Micks advice is the same as my uncle used to love hollering when we worked in neighbourhoods with all the old dittys watching. "Pull hard, it'll come easy".

:D
 
You didn't have enough pull, or pulling power or rigging for TOO thick of a hinge. A proper hinge would have pulled much more easily.

If you tied a bowline with a bight at the mid point, you would have two loops to put over your bumper ball (barring grease) and two legs. If you tied at the midpoint of a 200' rope, you'd have about 97' legs to work with, each taking part (ideally half) of the load.

NO MA.




If you pull a tree hard enough with too thick of a hinge, you will split it. In my state parks day, we had a rotten, bad-leaning hemlock, 150'+, over the historic CCC kitchen shelter from the Great Depression era. We could only put the rope at 60' from the bucket, and had the 1/2" amsteel with tensionless anchor on the tree. I was cutting. My boss was pulling with the hydraulic winch on the bucket truck. With the concern of cutting the hinge too thin, I left it a bit thicker, as the heart was rotten ("hem-rot"). As he pulled, the tree started to split. I don't recall how we changed stuff up, suddenly. I this was pre-SENA. He was 200' away, and I couldn't stop him from pulling, IIRC, so just had to step back in and cut it a bit more, moving the rear of the hinge away from the fibers that were splitting vertically.

Its not just about pull harder.

Lots of tree guys (usually the climber) get beat up because of "if in doubt, pull harder".
 
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