Unusual stumps

Unemployed

Treehouser
Joined
Jan 16, 2022
Messages
53
Location
Santiam Pass
I’ve got a question regarding some unusual stumps I’ve seen and was hoping someone here could explain to me what the technique and rationale behind it is — I can’t find anything that looks like it in any logging books or the internet (that I can find).

It sort of looks like somebody faced it one way, then decided to take it in another direction instead, and faced it again 90 degrees to the first face, and fall it that way. This gives it about 2/3 the normal hinge width. For context, this is in a wildfire affected area by a highway; often the stumps are on a hill, but don’t look like they were huge leaners. They’re probably doug-fir but it can be hard to tell when you’re driving 60mph.

My thinking is the trees were growing towards the light provided by the break in the woods (the highway) and the branches loaded it up to fall across the road, but the faller wanted to lay it along the road. Instead of giving it a dutchman, they cut out a part of the hinge to swing it around but gave the tree plenty of space to compress as it moves laterally, to prevent barberchairing or hinges popping prematurely.

Pics on request, but it’ll be a day or two since I haven’t taken them yet.
 
Welcome! Pics are always helpful. Could it have been a sizwheel(or whatever spelling you like)?

 
I like stumps.

Technically, figuratively and practically.

Technically a stump shows what a sawyer knows about felling trees. Though I admit only a good sawyer would know that for sure.

Figuratively because a stump is just what it is. A stump. Something nice to set your ass on. Unless a fresh cut Douglas fir, or pinus, of course.

Practically because a stump serves a purpose. Both presesent and future tense. For without a stump the rest of the story could never have happened.

I like stumps.

Each one tells a story
 
I got in shape for this biz by chopping out palm stumps as a teen.

First yu do a 3 inch square checkerboard with yur trusty monkey ward lectric chainsaw.

Then it's a combination of maddox n pulaski to pop the squares out.

Jomo
 
I’ve got a question regarding some unusual stumps I’ve seen and was hoping someone here could explain to me what the technique and rationale behind it is — I can’t find anything that looks like it in any logging books or the internet (that I can find).

It sort of looks like somebody faced it one way, then decided to take it in another direction instead, and faced it again 90 degrees to the first face, and fall it that way. This gives it about 2/3 the normal hinge width. For context, this is in a wildfire affected area by a highway; often the stumps are on a hill, but don’t look like they were huge leaners. They’re probably doug-fir but it can be hard to tell when you’re driving 60mph.

My thinking is the trees were growing towards the light provided by the break in the woods (the highway) and the branches loaded it up to fall across the road, but the faller wanted to lay it along the road. Instead of giving it a dutchman, they cut out a part of the hinge to swing it around but gave the tree plenty of space to compress as it moves laterally, to prevent barberchairing or hinges popping prematurely.

Pics on request, but it’ll be a day or two since I haven’t taken them yet.
could be a swing dutchman or a step dutchman per Dent
 
You gotta take a stump wherever you can find it...any stump in a storm. We broke a beaver dam (again) while on a Boy Scout trip to our farm this weekend. We broke it the first time about a month ago when we had the excavator there...beavers skunked us again. Alex found a convenient underwater stump to work from. (water, waders...can be trouble, I know. We had that angle covered)

 
I went down that path about 1996...started the process of getting some to do the deed. It was very complicated. Cannot imagine looking to get explosives these days, post 9-11.

I do have a couple of friends that are military/LEO explosive handlers. We plan to see if they can do what I could not.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #19
Thanks for the welcomes, this seems like a great community.

Here we go. I was lucky to get some pictures, just today they started cutting them lower and chipping the lily pads. Pictured below are of three of these stumps, but I’ve seen at least five. On all occasions they are north of the highway and uphill of it, and the chunk taken out perpendicular to the hinge always faces the road (south, and downhill). The actual face would have the tree fall parallel to the road, and of the same lay as the stumps around it. I can’t see anything different about these stumps compared to the others, besides how they were cut.

Stump 1:
PNG image.png PNG image 2.png

Stump 2: Stump2b.png
Stump2.png Stump2a.png
Stump 3: Stump3b.png
Stump3a.png

bonus, the logging heli was flying overhead as I took these:
View attachment heli.mp4
 
Last edited:
That's weird looking. The one stump at least, it took more bar to make the road cut than to make the felling cut. They don't look that big either; maybe 30" tops?
 
If they were trying to use that like a sizwill I don't think it would work. It's on the wrong side of where you'd actually want to swing it, and the biggest part is that there is no holding wood behind the sizwill to hang on and twist the stem around. Double cutting those trees doesn't look like it would have been hard at all so why rob your holding wood if your bar is too short? Just my thoughts as I've only used a sizwill a few times, interested to see what the more experienced hands have to say!
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #23
@lxskllr: 30” is about right. Didn’t think to measure em though.

@biggun: it doesn’t seem very likely, these stumps weren’t any larger compared to others. Maybe not impossible though, these were hazard trees taken down after a windstorm and wildfire…maybe they had trouble getting in a good position? Seems weird they wouldn’t clear it out before falling though, especially with a nice road to get heavy equipment in there.
 
Last edited:
It kinda looks to me like the slab taken off closest to the road might have been removed after the fell? I do not have any idea what's going on there, at the mo...maybe if I let it percolate in the back of my head awhile something will occur to me...but I wouldn't bet much on it :).

BTW, welcome sir. Great opening post!
 
Last edited:
Back
Top