MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
This is a great video, I just wish it was on youtube. I already do my own version of this, but this fellow's got it down pat.
Click for video
Click for video
The Six Point Limbing Method
- Thread starter MasterBlaster
- Start date
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FJR
Treehouser
Nice video.
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
Souped up saws only make that all the better!
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #4
I can't wait to try it, just like he's doing it. But, we don't have trees quite like that here. A cedar would work, but our pines aren't thick enough.
Keeping the saw on your knee or the log is way efficient, for sure.
Keeping the saw on your knee or the log is way efficient, for sure.
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
Looks like chaps are a basic requirement with your legs so close to the action. Job on, I'm eager to try it tomorrow!
W
Widow Shooter
Guest
I have done that when I was on a forestry crew logging cedar...didn't know it was an established technique! I was being lazy, and the 260 felt good letting it ride like that 
ha ha ha!!! sweet vid though.
ha ha ha!!! sweet vid though.
Old Monkey
Treehouser
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2005
- Messages
- 8,764
That works for small limbs. You'd get pinched on heavier limbs.
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
Or could get whacked in the kishkies by larger limbs under bind.
HolmenTree
Banned
I'm glad you like the video fellas. I used it for years training chainsaw operaters for different outfits. I have a library of them with other cutting techniques by Soren Eriksson.
Soren then went to work for Husqvarna shortly after.
Willard.
Soren then went to work for Husqvarna shortly after.
Willard.
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #10
Feel free to bring on the Soren! 
CurSedVoyce
California Hillbilly
HolmenTree
Banned
Feel free to bring on the Soren!
You'll also like this one from the Stihl-Soren Eriksson library. "Bucking Techniques For The Professional Cutter".
Willard.
HolmenTree
Banned
With practice and a sharp fast saw binding is not a problem in heavier limbs. In some situations heavier is better.
Willard.
C. Kirk
TreeHouser
Man i want to go try this right now. But i wonder how will work on maples and ash trees?
HolmenTree
Banned
The 12 min. "Bucking Techniques For The Professional Cutter" video by Stihl / Soren Eriksson best describes limbing hardwoods.
Willard.
C. Kirk
TreeHouser
O i miss that . I will have to re-watch it then.
Burnham
Woods walker
Fine method, if you can stand on the ground...but Willard noted the normal PNW method of working from atop the log in an earlier post 
.
And I have to mildly disagree with his contention that fast saw/practice handles heavy limbs with this technique...up to a degree, sure, but try that with oldgrowth PNW conifers and you will fail spectacularly.
.And I have to mildly disagree with his contention that fast saw/practice handles heavy limbs with this technique...up to a degree, sure, but try that with oldgrowth PNW conifers and you will fail spectacularly.
True, Burnham.
But statistically it is not a very large part of the worlds loggers that work the PNW.
Which is what makes it such fun for you guys to hit the rest of us over the head with the size of your trees every time you get the chance
Eventually all the old growth that can be logged will be gone, and you guys can use the 6 point method like the rest of us.
My experience with the method in large trees is that you simply slow down a bit and make sure you are cutting the branches from the right side. This will cause you to skip a step occasionally, but the method's fluidity will not be lost.
Your comment about terrain is valid. The method only works when you can walk next to the log.
But then, as I have said before, the kind of limbing that I have observed on log decks in the PNW would get you a severe reprimand from the mill where I work.
But statistically it is not a very large part of the worlds loggers that work the PNW.
Which is what makes it such fun for you guys to hit the rest of us over the head with the size of your trees every time you get the chance
Eventually all the old growth that can be logged will be gone, and you guys can use the 6 point method like the rest of us.
My experience with the method in large trees is that you simply slow down a bit and make sure you are cutting the branches from the right side. This will cause you to skip a step occasionally, but the method's fluidity will not be lost.
Your comment about terrain is valid. The method only works when you can walk next to the log.
But then, as I have said before, the kind of limbing that I have observed on log decks in the PNW would get you a severe reprimand from the mill where I work.
Burnham
Woods walker
All fair points, Stig my friend...I readily concede them. Truth of the matter, most old growth logging here is done...not because there isn't old growth left, but because we understand now how valuable those stands are to ecosystem health, which we all depend on for life.
But it won't work on 60 year old Doug fir that is somewhat open grown either...limbs over 4 inches thick and 25 feet long would be normal.
As you say, our terrain really limits the application of the 6 point limbing technique, no matter if it's 12 inch DBH or 120 inch DBH.
But it won't work on 60 year old Doug fir that is somewhat open grown either...limbs over 4 inches thick and 25 feet long would be normal.
As you say, our terrain really limits the application of the 6 point limbing technique, no matter if it's 12 inch DBH or 120 inch DBH.
The 6 point tecnique is part of a whole systematic approach to thinning and especially clear cutting 40 odd year old stands of Norway spruce for lumber and pulpwood.
There is a system to felling the trees, so they land atop each other, creating the perfect height for limbing and making them easily accesable for the skidders if they are not bucked to lengths. Kind of a herringbone pattern.
But the arrival of the mechanical harvesters changed all that. It has been 18 years since I clearcut a stand of spruce.
The little ( 500 cubic meters last year) conifer logging I do now consists of trees that are too big for the harvester to handle.
In some little nostalgic corner of my mind, I miss pulp cutting a little, but I am enough of a realist to know that after a week of doing it, I'd hate it. Damned hard work, and monotonous.
Well, it is a quarter past 6 AM, so I'd better get going. Finishing a stand of old beech today, so I need to be in the woods in time for sunrise.
There is a system to felling the trees, so they land atop each other, creating the perfect height for limbing and making them easily accesable for the skidders if they are not bucked to lengths. Kind of a herringbone pattern.
But the arrival of the mechanical harvesters changed all that. It has been 18 years since I clearcut a stand of spruce.
The little ( 500 cubic meters last year) conifer logging I do now consists of trees that are too big for the harvester to handle.
In some little nostalgic corner of my mind, I miss pulp cutting a little, but I am enough of a realist to know that after a week of doing it, I'd hate it. Damned hard work, and monotonous.
Well, it is a quarter past 6 AM, so I'd better get going. Finishing a stand of old beech today, so I need to be in the woods in time for sunrise.
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #22
It's lunch, Stig! Take a break!
What impresses me about that system is how the tree takes the weight of the saw: the speed ain't what I'm on about. In fact, I think it's kinda dangerous going balls out, all the way fast like that. Good for the camera, but not in real life. Sure and steady wins the race everytime.
Of course, if there's a fire on your ass...
What impresses me about that system is how the tree takes the weight of the saw: the speed ain't what I'm on about. In fact, I think it's kinda dangerous going balls out, all the way fast like that. Good for the camera, but not in real life. Sure and steady wins the race everytime.
Of course, if there's a fire on your ass...
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
I used it today to some extent, ten pines around a buckwheat noodle restaurant....the trees were younger on up to around seventy years. To some extent that method worked very well, to the degree that I could apply it through my brain, and not yet a physically memorized thing which would bring a lot more smoothness and speed. With the older and larger trees, some with limbs ten feet plus long and often under a hell of a lot of weight with the log on top, safely removing them took priority over the system at numerous points along the length, and the log was going to roll and settle. With experience no doubt comes a greater application. I'd like to get much better at it.
In the vid I did note that the cutter stepped away from the log at one point, I think to trip a bind, but it was a bit fast to catch it. Lots of concentration is in order. I showed it to a guy on the crew, a real good man with a saw. He immediately picked up on the less fatigue part.
In the vid I did note that the cutter stepped away from the log at one point, I think to trip a bind, but it was a bit fast to catch it. Lots of concentration is in order. I showed it to a guy on the crew, a real good man with a saw. He immediately picked up on the less fatigue part.
sotc
Dormant hero!!
HolmenTree
Banned
sotc, my cousin from Norway showed me some old photos of logging on the Norwegian west coast that looked alot like yours. Brutal terrain.
Like stig says pulpcutting is a demanding job. I could do it again for maybe a couple of weeks but then it would get old fast,time for a change. But the job did keep me in the best physical condition I ever was in.
When the 24 hr/day processors took away my job the company gave me a lumber grading job at their sawmill. I did that for over 10 yrs manually turning over and marking up to 10,000 pieces a day on the grading table chain along with 4 other graders[50,000 pcs total per shift]. Now that job was monotonous. My part time arborist work soon became full time.
Willard
Like stig says pulpcutting is a demanding job. I could do it again for maybe a couple of weeks but then it would get old fast,time for a change. But the job did keep me in the best physical condition I ever was in.
When the 24 hr/day processors took away my job the company gave me a lumber grading job at their sawmill. I did that for over 10 yrs manually turning over and marking up to 10,000 pieces a day on the grading table chain along with 4 other graders[50,000 pcs total per shift]. Now that job was monotonous. My part time arborist work soon became full time.
Willard
