mharlos
Treehouser
Hi there,
I've been learning a lot from this great site - what a wonderful resource!
We recently purchased a cottage in Northwestern Ontario with about 1.2 acres of mostly aspen, with some birch, bur oak, white spruce, and balsam fir. It will be a great place for our new grandson to explore as he grows up! I decided I needed to learn the basics of chainsaw use and tree felling. There are a number of standing dead or dying aspens, and a couple of hung-up blown down trees.
The only trees that I intend to take down are the dead/dying ones or the hung-up blown down ones. This is a bit of a dilemma, as they are also the ones that people advise be left to the pros.
I have a healthy respect for the importance of knowledge and safety in such work, having had a family member die in a tree felling accident in his 20s. I've had a small Stihl (MS250) for about a decade, which I've only used to cut up smallish logs that end up on our riverbank every spring thaw in the back yard of our house. To prepare for dealing with the trees on our property, I've been reading as much as I can get my hands on (including Dent's Professional Timber Falling; Jepson's To Fell A Tree; and I have Mr. Beranek's Fundamentals of General Tree Work on the way - I recognize his incredible contribution to these forums and to the general knowledge base that we all benefit from).
I've watched some good, bad, and ugly YouTube material. There's actually quite a lot of good information out there (e.g. BC Faller Training Std; Workplace Safety North; Chainsaw Basics; Murphy's channel; Terry Hale; the Stihl and Husky videos, etc.). Even the bad and the ugly can be learned from, if you can get through some of the ones where people remove the very limb that is supporting their ladder, or various other misadventures. I didn't video the experience below, lest I tempt fate and become one of the "epic fail" series.
I don't do anything without chaps, helmet/face shield/ear protection, cut-resistant gloves, and steel-toed boots. I bought a Stihl MS261-CM, and have used it quite a bit (for me, that is) bucking fallen trees, and practicing face cuts and bore cuts on stumps. I took down the hung-up blown-down aspen, following the method described in this video, which gave me lots of wood to buck and split for the stove.
I wanted to share my recent experience with my first time felling a tree that was of any significant size. It was a 52 ft aspen, 16 inches diameter. It was pretty much dead, and was near the lake shore where kids play; I was afraid that in a good wind it would come down, or a dead limb might. It was about 15 feet from an outdoor sauna, but leaning (about 5-10 degrees) towards the marshy lake front. I was concerned that there might be a a rotten core (it sounded rather hollow), and that the dead limbs/trunk at the top might come down on me as I worked. I kept a close eye upwards as I cut, and my son-in-law watched from a safe distance up the hill.
I cleared an escape path. It may have been overkill, but I decided to hook up a line to reduce its chance of falling on the sauna (see pics). There was very little tension on the line - mostly just pulled up the slack.
Here's the base of the tree, the escape path, and the line that I set up:
As it had a bit of lean, and perhaps not much integrity at its core, I decided to make a shallow face cut, then a bore cut, then cut the back strap. There was also a bit of a side lean, and I put a wedge in that side after bore cutting, hoping to encourage the fall in my intended direction. I'm not sure if wedges have any effect when the back strap is still holding things together? I thought it would at least create some pressure in the right direction when the back strap was cut. It the picture, you'll see it wasn't the best face cut in the world - part of the problem was the rotten wood, but most of the issue was the fact that I need more practice.
I was surprised to see not only wood dust in the centre, but it was mixed with a lot of insulation from the nearby sauna; I couldn't find any entry point to the trunk, but something had been using the insulation for nesting (i.e. squirrel). You can see the insulation in the detail pick of the stump.
Anyways, just wanted to share this early experience for me, and express my gratitude to those who own/run, moderate, and contribute to this site! I've made a donation to contribute in my own small way!
I am embarrassed to say how much I thought and planned about this tree, and how much I worried - especially when I see the kinds of things you all do! Part of my angst may have been the knowledge of what can go wrong and how unforgiving physics can be when heavy things fall.
In the end, it fell exactly how I hoped it would, and where I intended it to.
Regards,
Mike
I've been learning a lot from this great site - what a wonderful resource!
We recently purchased a cottage in Northwestern Ontario with about 1.2 acres of mostly aspen, with some birch, bur oak, white spruce, and balsam fir. It will be a great place for our new grandson to explore as he grows up! I decided I needed to learn the basics of chainsaw use and tree felling. There are a number of standing dead or dying aspens, and a couple of hung-up blown down trees.
The only trees that I intend to take down are the dead/dying ones or the hung-up blown down ones. This is a bit of a dilemma, as they are also the ones that people advise be left to the pros.
I have a healthy respect for the importance of knowledge and safety in such work, having had a family member die in a tree felling accident in his 20s. I've had a small Stihl (MS250) for about a decade, which I've only used to cut up smallish logs that end up on our riverbank every spring thaw in the back yard of our house. To prepare for dealing with the trees on our property, I've been reading as much as I can get my hands on (including Dent's Professional Timber Falling; Jepson's To Fell A Tree; and I have Mr. Beranek's Fundamentals of General Tree Work on the way - I recognize his incredible contribution to these forums and to the general knowledge base that we all benefit from).
I've watched some good, bad, and ugly YouTube material. There's actually quite a lot of good information out there (e.g. BC Faller Training Std; Workplace Safety North; Chainsaw Basics; Murphy's channel; Terry Hale; the Stihl and Husky videos, etc.). Even the bad and the ugly can be learned from, if you can get through some of the ones where people remove the very limb that is supporting their ladder, or various other misadventures. I didn't video the experience below, lest I tempt fate and become one of the "epic fail" series.
I don't do anything without chaps, helmet/face shield/ear protection, cut-resistant gloves, and steel-toed boots. I bought a Stihl MS261-CM, and have used it quite a bit (for me, that is) bucking fallen trees, and practicing face cuts and bore cuts on stumps. I took down the hung-up blown-down aspen, following the method described in this video, which gave me lots of wood to buck and split for the stove.
I wanted to share my recent experience with my first time felling a tree that was of any significant size. It was a 52 ft aspen, 16 inches diameter. It was pretty much dead, and was near the lake shore where kids play; I was afraid that in a good wind it would come down, or a dead limb might. It was about 15 feet from an outdoor sauna, but leaning (about 5-10 degrees) towards the marshy lake front. I was concerned that there might be a a rotten core (it sounded rather hollow), and that the dead limbs/trunk at the top might come down on me as I worked. I kept a close eye upwards as I cut, and my son-in-law watched from a safe distance up the hill.
I cleared an escape path. It may have been overkill, but I decided to hook up a line to reduce its chance of falling on the sauna (see pics). There was very little tension on the line - mostly just pulled up the slack.
Here's the base of the tree, the escape path, and the line that I set up:
As it had a bit of lean, and perhaps not much integrity at its core, I decided to make a shallow face cut, then a bore cut, then cut the back strap. There was also a bit of a side lean, and I put a wedge in that side after bore cutting, hoping to encourage the fall in my intended direction. I'm not sure if wedges have any effect when the back strap is still holding things together? I thought it would at least create some pressure in the right direction when the back strap was cut. It the picture, you'll see it wasn't the best face cut in the world - part of the problem was the rotten wood, but most of the issue was the fact that I need more practice.
I was surprised to see not only wood dust in the centre, but it was mixed with a lot of insulation from the nearby sauna; I couldn't find any entry point to the trunk, but something had been using the insulation for nesting (i.e. squirrel). You can see the insulation in the detail pick of the stump.
Anyways, just wanted to share this early experience for me, and express my gratitude to those who own/run, moderate, and contribute to this site! I've made a donation to contribute in my own small way!
I am embarrassed to say how much I thought and planned about this tree, and how much I worried - especially when I see the kinds of things you all do! Part of my angst may have been the knowledge of what can go wrong and how unforgiving physics can be when heavy things fall.
In the end, it fell exactly how I hoped it would, and where I intended it to.
Regards,
Mike
