murphy4trees
TreeHouser
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Hoping this day finds you and your families well...
Rico and I are getting into it over at treebuzz again (ain't life grand?) And think this one is worth presenting to the community here...
Regarding the tapered hinge, I will often cut off the entire compression side corner on SMALL TREES... when they don't have enough weight to compress the gap... I've cut these corners countless times and it works well. Now this may not be reliable enough to teach as an approved method because: how do you know when the tree is too big or you've taken off too much of the corner.
So here are a couple posts and pics... hoping there is some insight to be had here, perhpas getting some thinking outside the box or helping a newbie understand the limitations of a tapered hinge etc!
That said, there is a pic in the article similar to this hinge, which I will defend as being very effective at controlling against side lean... this one worked very well, better than I expected... Removing the entire compression side corner on a hinge might be problematic on a bigger tree, where the shear weight of the tree could collapse the compression side corner. But on this relatively small, but significant side leaning ash, it worked...
and then another reference to the same picture:
Those hinges that you called "gawd awful" worked PERFECTLY!!! The hinge on your 48" red had RELATIVELY little holding power as evidences by the lack of stringy fibers on the stump (even though it may have been plenty strong to get the tree to the lay).... The broken fibers sticking up out of the locust stump show unquestionably that the hinge held until the face closed... and it did....
Here's the important distinction to understand. If you cut the compression corner (downhill as you call it) of the hinge on a BIG tree, the weight of the tree will tend to crush and close that empty gap. When that happens the tree leans just a little farther to the side, which is no bueno. One way to handle that situation is to off-center plunge the hinge (aka gutting the hinge or as the brits call it a letterbox). When gutting the hinge most of the fibers are removed on the compression or downhill side of the hinge, leaving just enough fibers intact on the downhill corner to act as a post, propping up that corner to keep the tree from settling there and leaning even further to the side. This allows the faller to keep as many fibers in tact in the hinge as possible on the tension side of the hinge, which is optimal when using the tapered hinge.
With smaller trees (this ash and locust are in the 12-14" range) the tree doesn't weigh enough to collapse on the compression or downhill side of the hinge , so there is no need to center plunge and preserve a post on the compression side corner of the hinge. In the case of this ash, I was trying to keep the tree off the neighbor's fence. That cut was made as high as I could reach (over head high) with a 201T top handled climbing saw) to shorten the fall, with the idea that even if I lost the tree to the significant side weight, shortening the fall could keep only the tips hitting the fence, which would probably do no damage. I think I was standing on the bucket of the skid loader in order to get this picture. That cut is over 6' in the air. So it would have been very awkward to plunge this hinge and more importantly there was no need...
The tree stayed on the stump all the way til after the face closed, and ended up 10-15 from the fence. Look at the stringy fibers on the broken hinge, a clear sign that the hinge held well..
And that is another important distinction between logging and suburban arb... when you are working in the woods and getting paid for the timber, and that but log has the greatest value of all the wood, you try to PREVENT fiber pull.. Those long stringy fibers sticking out of the stump are money out of your pocket....
In my world, the LAST thing I think about is getting paid for the logs. I'm trying to make 3-4K/day, the mills are 2+ hours away and I'm cutting trees by the onesies and twosies.. and the trees usually have problems or I wouldn't be cutting them.. Bottom line is I've gotten paid less than 5K for logs in the past 10 years.... What I care about is getting these trees to the lay reliably. Those long fiber pulls that loggers disdain are a source of pride. They show that my hinges held all the way until the face closed....
Pictures coming:
Rico and I are getting into it over at treebuzz again (ain't life grand?) And think this one is worth presenting to the community here...
Regarding the tapered hinge, I will often cut off the entire compression side corner on SMALL TREES... when they don't have enough weight to compress the gap... I've cut these corners countless times and it works well. Now this may not be reliable enough to teach as an approved method because: how do you know when the tree is too big or you've taken off too much of the corner.
So here are a couple posts and pics... hoping there is some insight to be had here, perhpas getting some thinking outside the box or helping a newbie understand the limitations of a tapered hinge etc!
That said, there is a pic in the article similar to this hinge, which I will defend as being very effective at controlling against side lean... this one worked very well, better than I expected... Removing the entire compression side corner on a hinge might be problematic on a bigger tree, where the shear weight of the tree could collapse the compression side corner. But on this relatively small, but significant side leaning ash, it worked...
and then another reference to the same picture:
Those hinges that you called "gawd awful" worked PERFECTLY!!! The hinge on your 48" red had RELATIVELY little holding power as evidences by the lack of stringy fibers on the stump (even though it may have been plenty strong to get the tree to the lay).... The broken fibers sticking up out of the locust stump show unquestionably that the hinge held until the face closed... and it did....
Here's the important distinction to understand. If you cut the compression corner (downhill as you call it) of the hinge on a BIG tree, the weight of the tree will tend to crush and close that empty gap. When that happens the tree leans just a little farther to the side, which is no bueno. One way to handle that situation is to off-center plunge the hinge (aka gutting the hinge or as the brits call it a letterbox). When gutting the hinge most of the fibers are removed on the compression or downhill side of the hinge, leaving just enough fibers intact on the downhill corner to act as a post, propping up that corner to keep the tree from settling there and leaning even further to the side. This allows the faller to keep as many fibers in tact in the hinge as possible on the tension side of the hinge, which is optimal when using the tapered hinge.
With smaller trees (this ash and locust are in the 12-14" range) the tree doesn't weigh enough to collapse on the compression or downhill side of the hinge , so there is no need to center plunge and preserve a post on the compression side corner of the hinge. In the case of this ash, I was trying to keep the tree off the neighbor's fence. That cut was made as high as I could reach (over head high) with a 201T top handled climbing saw) to shorten the fall, with the idea that even if I lost the tree to the significant side weight, shortening the fall could keep only the tips hitting the fence, which would probably do no damage. I think I was standing on the bucket of the skid loader in order to get this picture. That cut is over 6' in the air. So it would have been very awkward to plunge this hinge and more importantly there was no need...
The tree stayed on the stump all the way til after the face closed, and ended up 10-15 from the fence. Look at the stringy fibers on the broken hinge, a clear sign that the hinge held well..
And that is another important distinction between logging and suburban arb... when you are working in the woods and getting paid for the timber, and that but log has the greatest value of all the wood, you try to PREVENT fiber pull.. Those long stringy fibers sticking out of the stump are money out of your pocket....
In my world, the LAST thing I think about is getting paid for the logs. I'm trying to make 3-4K/day, the mills are 2+ hours away and I'm cutting trees by the onesies and twosies.. and the trees usually have problems or I wouldn't be cutting them.. Bottom line is I've gotten paid less than 5K for logs in the past 10 years.... What I care about is getting these trees to the lay reliably. Those long fiber pulls that loggers disdain are a source of pride. They show that my hinges held all the way until the face closed....
Pictures coming: