hinge pics

I can't 'read' your stump picture. Seems like a thicker hinge could just as easily have caught more moist fibers, and swung it more, unseen until the end. Yes? No?





Last I checked, thick hinges and hard pulls are not the answer to everything.

Yes, could have ended poorly thicker as well.
 
Stig, when you logged in Switzerland, was it steep ground?

What kinda trees where you cutting? Smaller pulp, at high altitude? Saw logs? Some of both?


If you were on steep, slippery ground, felling downhill, would you still do the horizontal-cut AFTER the Sloping-cut?

I can't imagine trying to aim my heavy saw, help up in the air in front of me. Longer bars are not helping, but in any case, holding up any decent sized saw and bar, without really being able to rest it on the tree (at least not in the apex of the sloping kerf, maybe to the side of the sloping cut nearer the sawyer).


Big trees on flatter ground (able to start at the apex of the sloping cut,
or,
small trees on steep ground (don't have to reach much or have as big a saw), I can see it working fine either way.



I'm not 100% positive, but I think the only time I really cut the sloping cut first, is when I'm going to also cut a sloping cut second, bird-beak/ wide-open-facecut. Clearly, not the only way for it to be done.


Do you also cut your sloping cuts first, in the tree? Humbodlts, or conventional?
 
Now I got it, thanks.
I schweiz I logged on ground so steep we put on climbing harnesses and lowered ourself down to the trees.
I sure as shit used a bar that would reach through on those trees ( This should really make Burnham happy)

I cut big saw logs in Beech , spruce and fir and I did the "Sloping cut " first.
Only way I know.

As for holding a heavy saw up in the air, I'm a logger, that is what I do.
Been doing that for 40 years, so even today, with leukemia, that is just another day at the office for me.


Sean, I can ( As my last video hopefully shows) make a perfect facecut every time, cutting from above.

Can't make a Humboldt for the life of me ( Not quite true, I use them aloft) and if I ever make a facecut doing the horizontal cut first Odin alone knows where that tree would end up.


My point is; I'm very, very good inside my box and pretty much worthless outside it.

If that sounded like bragging, come log with me sometime.
 
My point is; I'm very, very good inside my box and pretty much worthless outside it.

Folks can go a very long way with that thinking, in all sorts of different areas of life.

I would love to log with you. 99% chance it will never happen, but just sayin. :drink:
 
Thanks, Cory.
That goes both ways.

In fact, there is a lot of peeps ( As Bermy would say) here that I would love to work with.

I often wish I wasn't based on another continent from most of the folks here.

It would have been a fine thing to have Robert come work with my other apprentices for a month and really get him dialled in on falling trees with perfect cuts.
Being under my whip, he would learn for sure.

With the laws we have here, that is pretty much undoable, since we've set up a series of rules made to keep Muslims out ( Which I'm all for) that unfortunately hits every one else as collateral damage.
 
I'd love to head over to Denmark at some point & meet you Stig, but not sure about too much of the working thing - rather have a few beers instead ��
 
We could do both, no problem.
You are still an EU citizen, so it is doable.
Once you go Brexit, that is over and we'll have to make do with the beers.

I really thought that Britain leaving would pull a bunch of other nations along.
It was such a disappointment to me, that it didn't happen.
 
If I worked for free, I assume there would be no legal issues with it, eh?
 
There would be an insurance problem, but apart from that I think it would be ok.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #92
Dent called this cut a swing dutchman, saying something to the effect that there are a lot of variations, and it is a valuable technique...

This tree had a heavy side lean right over the fence. Norway maple has poor hinge holding ability. Tree fell close to 45 degrees off the notch's gun, but still managed to leave the fence undamaged. I would have set a pull line if I thought it was needed to clear the fence. Instead we just put two men on a pole saw pulling on a lower limb, so not much pull. Honestly can't say if the swing dutchman helped much over an adjusted gun, or standard tapered hinge on this tree, but i have seen it have a lot of holding ability on trees with both heavy front lean and side lean. This tree had all side lean.

Remember hearing some time ago that the swing dutch fell out of favor because it is too unreliable... I would agree with the unreliable part so will go another way when there is a house or other high value obstacles, but don't mind taking chances with low value obstacles like this fence... swing dutchman small maple by fence.jpg
 
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Swing Dutchman can be more unpredictable, and needs good species/condition as well; as stated.
Combination of Dutchman and Tapered together, w/o anti-swing.
.
Wider stump for this i think is better, giving harder Tapered Hinge pull
and heavier,fast as possible tree as well, for taking forces that usually stand against us and making work for instead
>>so more weight, leverage, speed, width work for not against you, slamming as hard and fast as possible into kerf (or high step) to get this rebound/stone skipping across face to other side affect
kinda deep kerf closing on fence side hard , like allowing it to throw that direction(hard from lots of weight) and slams into wall on kerf close throwing spar across
>>in concert with Tapered Hinge pulling across
Because not even a tuft of fiber on fence side, can allow violent swing.
.
So in normal hinge, always save some anti-swing tuft of fibers at each side , as leveraged positions of anti-swing.
So normal Tapered Hinge would be all the way across , pointed end as anti swing i think.
Perhaps face is center punched, but extremes preserved!
To in no way inspire or allow swing affect.
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Once again as with Tapered Hinge, learned at full load felling examples but carried into tree; played more with swing mechanix in horizontal limb swings across, don't need anti-swing tuft then, it won't swing up!
Most branches not wide enough, so trying to get long , heavy limb to think can close down hard/fast with all it'sleverage until double kerf closes, to then go for re-divert that force/skip across horizontally as upper Tapered pulls too. Kinda same thing as swing turned on side, not as violent.
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Any stretching Tapered Hinge effect, needs strong elastic wood species/condition.
Any slapping Dutchman effect needs strong rockhard wood species/condition.
Not all species, conditions present both at same time!
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To me i try to fake it out, like letting it go the direction it wants to go to build acceleration, so can turn that force against it like jerking a leash, as it slams Dutch close 1 side. Then have hyper push and hyper tension pull in opposite directions leveraged far apart for rotation, w/o the nominal tuft left, and w/uneven face slap(kerf face in a face close as offside still open) on offside(Dent)/non-lean side just the extreme positions of Tapered pull and Dutchman push, w/o the stabilizing counter checks! Get more spin on ball pushing outward on ball while other hand pulls inward, than 1 hand motion the other as locked pivot kinda thing in my imagery.

Work time (you are saved by the bell!)
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #97
I think dent said it was good for trees with front and side lean.. The above Norway maple tree only had side lean


I used the swing dutch on this ash which had a ton of front lean and side lean and it worked perfectly, when I expected the hinge to fail completely... ash is a very unpredictable hinging wood.... I still like to throw everything to my advantage, which is what I think the swing dutch does.. the only concern would be in a big enough tree with enough mass to close the kerf gap in the compression side of the stump, which would cause even more side lean... more of an issue in the woods than suburban settings
 

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I think dent said it was good for trees with front and side lean.. The above Norway maple tree only had side lean

Be very cautious in utilizing this technique.

Dent wrote that in his seminal book in the early 1970's. He was amazing in his abilities at dissecting felling and bucking into distinct actions and results, learned the hard way as an experienced contract faller, at only 23 years of age. Broke ground on many fronts.

I had the great good fortune to train and get USFS certification under his eye every 2 years, from the late 1980's, for nearly 3 decades on. And as anyone with a whit of brain should expect, D.D. Dent's perspectives, perceptions, and positions evolved over those 40 some years since his first publication of Procedural Approach.

And there is where I can offer some insight, having listened to his lectures, and even more so, stood at his side as I felled under his eye, and then endured his criticism and kudos, both.

So the point of all this is...by a couple of decades after his book was published, Doug had pretty much eschewed use of the swing Dutchman, in that while he was completely positive in his acknowledgement that the method worked in general terms, he also had decided that, as a method to teach, it was sufficiently unreliable to what degree the sawyer could expect so far as results, to trust much.
 
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