Stacking three wedges

[SouthSoundTree-]

Adding captions now...


Jed asked for a play by play on stacking three wedges for a hard back-leaner. I used this technique the other day to pound over a backleaning Doug-fir, a great hinging tree. I've pounded over dead backleaners a bunch at State Parks.

Basic face cut. Bore through face-cut on your horizontal plane of the conventional facecut, coming out the back. This is your top slot.

Shave off bark to see what you're doing. I do this a lot at hinges, and it helps your bar reach across when you remove 3-4" of bark between the two sides.
Bore from back-cut toward face-cut, approximately 3/8-1/2" below the top slot. This is the middle slot.
Drop down another fraction of an inch, boring horizontally, below the middle slot.

Insert three medium wedges that are in good condition (not overly mushroomed or missing tips.
Set wedges firmly, getting some compression in the wood. Listen to the pounding, and feel the rebound off the wedges. Alternate wedges, so they all sink equally, essentially.

Cut one side of the back-cut. Make sure that there is not an uncut strip between the wedge and the kerf from the nose of your bar. Establish the hinge on that side. Bang wedges a bit. Listen, feel. Cut the the other remaining holding wood on the other side of the back-cut. Put away the saw. Get your wedge pounder ready.

Shear off a wedge. Oops.

Beat them wedges. Get away from the stump. Don't stop and take pictures!

after

after

 

[MasterBlaster]

Did you yell "TIMBER!!!"

You gotta yell that shit...

 

[Mick!]

Thanks for the pictures and explanation.

I've seen some fairly heavy back learners (tall skinny ones let's keep it real!) knocked over with a couple of high lift alumininum wedges, what would you say is the advantage of this method over those?

 

[stig]

The plastic wedges have a smoother, less steep taper, so they actually lift better.
This is somewhat negated by the fact that they are soft and therefore absorb some of the driving force from the hammer/axe hit.

There is, however, a very simple way to get around that: Hardhead wedges.

They combine the hardness of alu wedges with the low taper of plastic.

I happen to have some 300 sitting aroud, since I'm the Danish imporetr/dealer.
If you want to try some, we can figure something out, that'll save you the expensive transAtlantic postage.


Sean, neat trick, but why 3 wedges?
2 would have lifted that tree high enough that you could slip another two into the back cut.

 

[SouthSoundTree-]

That was pretty vertical, Stig. The other day I had a hard back leaner. I took pictures of the tree that needed it, as an after thought, not sequential as a step by step. Jed didn't follow from the poor pictures from the other day. I had time yesterday.

 

[stig]

Ach so!

 

[FireFighterZero]

We sometimes use the Rail wedges. The ones with tracks and grooves can be stacked safely.

No, no Butch. We dont say Timber anymore. We yell, "tree coming down!" We have efficiently replaced one word with three! At least with the State anyway!

 

[SouthSoundTree-]

You can't stack three wedges on each other.

The one I broke, incidentally, is a barbed wedge. The barbs and grooves prevent sliding around, which is good. The problem is you can't pull them back out with a little side to side loosening.

Wedges being in good condition, no mushrooming, and matching the tree size are critical to good double stacking.

 

[sotc]

If you think one wedge is enough but it turns out not to be, don't try to bore directly under the wedge or the tree will sit on it. Instead snug up another wedge first to take the weight and then bore under most of the first wedge leaving a small bit uncut. Set another wedge in that groove and drive her away

 

[BOTS]

cool, thanks for posting that Sean!

I like to put a wedge on each side and start pounding em in there as I go leaving room to stack two in the middle...works like a charm

 

[MasterBlaster]

Good advice, Willie!

 

[sotc]

cool, thanks for posting that Sean!

I like to put a wedge on each side and start pounding em in there as I go leaving room to stack two in the middle...works like a charm

If there's room for 3, this is mostly for small diameter trees

 

[murphy4trees]

I took all the wedges out of my truck when I used it for snow plowing last winter.. Forgot to put them back in and so far this year only missed them a couple times... good pics and tips ... be a long time before I use them though... just goes to show how different this work can be depending on location, topography, size and species of trees, clients' needs, landscape and fixtures etc..

 

[squisher]

Wedges should always be used as a backup, especially when pulling hard on rig ropes with things like a skidsteer say. To not is just goofy. One of the cheapest and easiest 'safeties' you can put in place. For those that say you just back up your rope with another rope, that just sounds silly, ineffective(unless kept nearly as tight as the main pullline), and slow.

 

[Raj]

+1 on the wedges to back up a pull line. Wedges are cheaper and much less hassle then filing an insurance claim.

 

[sotc]

I take wedges to church with me.

 

[sotc]

Ok, maybe not, but everywhere else...

 

[pantheraba]

This just might get crazy....

 

[Raj]

well, if one but cheek is smaller than the other.....

 

[Burnham]

Remember this old thread? Wedge mania .

https://www.masterblasterhome.com/showthread.php?11179-Too-many-wedges

 

[Jed]

Man, thanks for that Sean. I have never done that. I Do shim trees using little slabs off of stumps and such. Do you guys ever shim if you don't have enough lift out of your wedges? I always thought that shimming was safer (than, say, trying to run a three stacker) but I heard Jerry B. caution against it once, stating that it screws things up from an angular perspective. I'd love to have some faller types weigh-in.

Hey Burnham! Where'd ya go!! You ever shim stuff over?

 

[Burnham]

I have on only a handful of occasions, Jed. For the most part, if you can stand a backleaner up enough to commit, two stacked wedges will give enough lift to tip it, especially if you have three or four sets of two spaced out a couple of wedge widths apart across the back of the backcut...the pair closer to the hinge give more lift than the center stacks. Just keep the tension equal so you don't tear out one side of the hinge.

Remember, with a proper axe to drive the wedges, you don't have to stop when the wedge is fully sunk in the backcut, if you can hit where you aim . Assuming the tree is big enough to allow it, just keep on driving.

 

[SouthSoundTree-]

chopping the bark off helps on thick barked trees. You can see what's going on with the wood...compression, crushing (especially good on dead firs with Popcorn Fungus/ Pouch Fungus (someone help me here) that have some sap rot.

Not bad to cut the bark on the side of fir hinges when wedging over, either. You can see if the hinge is starting to crack down the length. Plus, you reduce your cut length by inches, which can mean reaching across without moving to the next size bar up, or double-cutting.

I sent the new guy to dump over a bit of a back-leaner, as a test. I'd shown him the quarter-cut (half back cut at a time) previously. He tried to cut full width, with a 1/3 depth face cut. It sat back a bunch. I was going to try to triple stack it back over, after showing him what his hinge thickness was (too thick) by shaving the bark at the hinge. I could see that the hinge was way strained. It didn't work. I couldn't bore in and keep the triple stack kerf open, the hinge was straining, so I went up ~1.5 x's the diameter of the tree, refaced it, and dumped it into the woods.

This tree would have going over with one wedge or stacked wedges if done properly. Three would have been necessary for the set-back, in order to flip it over.


Wedges are way faster than setting a pull line, when the situation can be handled with wedges. Pull ropes are good where they're easy to set, and wedges aren't answer enough. Back up with wedges. Most people working residential are not getting enough practice to wedge and fell confidently. I'm rusty as all get out trying to match bar and a third width, humboldts. Used to do them every day, practically, during state park days. Beating trees into submission was the rule, not the exception.

When you have a tree standing up, wanting to tip, "tickling the face", sorta cutting the face partially, after the fact, will help them to tip, as you have compression built into the wood above and below the wedges. This energy is needed to bend the hinge. Tickling it with the tip, removing some of the center of the hinge, will frequently cause them to fall without wedging more. Especially useful when your wedges are butted up to the hinge.

 

[sotc]

I've used some 1 by boards as shims.
Nice to see you Burn, been wondering where the jag took you!

 

[Burnham]

Nowhere very far from home Willie, but frequently out for a morning or afternoon tour. Too much fun, and the weather sure has been right for top down cruising. That will pass soon enough, so I've been getting my licks in as much as possible. Being retired is still the greatest gig ever, imo.

Come fall/winter I'll be on the web more, I reckon.