Perfect notch and felling cuts

[xman23]

Well that's my issue, how to insure the cuts come out perfect. A little background. I believe I'm knowledgeable and comfortable enough taking down most trees. Last week I took down a tree with a little top weight and lean toward the house. My wife was in a panic. But as long as I could put It down 180 degrees away from the house, no problem. Plus with this landing spot, 90 degrees either side of that was no problem. I usually get a rope on the tree about 25' up, and use a come along to put a big pull to the direction the tree needs to go. So I made the notch and about 3/4 of the felling cut. Set my grandson up to finish the felling cut. As he cut, I pulled the tree with the come along past vertical toward the desired direction. As slack went into the comealong, a quick exit for me. Perfect landing, exactly where the hinge made it go.

Apologies for the long story, the issue. Analyzing my felling cut, it was a little off level, where it met up with the notch. My grandson knows, and was careful to keep the cut even on both sides, down to about 1.5 width. Hope that's clear. What the off level felling cut did is a little different tearout of the hinge, from side to side. I'm envisioning a way to mark up the tree with lines that I could follow. Anyone do this? What's your method to get this better.

Thanks Tom

 

[SeanBB]

Things I make sure of are as wide a hinge as I dare and wedges hammered in as soon as I am sure they will not hit the saw chain.

 

[mofish75]

I use saw to score a reference line in bark

 

[mofish75]

As well as wedged and recently added a winch with wireless remote....definitely added security

 

[Sawset]

Putting a magnetic level on the bar wouldn't be out of the question. 7" stanley, let it drop off as the bar gets into the cut.

 

[Ashful]

It’s good to want to get your cuts reasonably level, but it sounds like you’re already doing that. The trees I fell always seem to go where I point them, as long as I take reasonable care to keep the hinge thickness equal across the width of the tree. In fact, pros will vary the thickness of the hinge across the width of the tree to get it to twist on the way down, but doing that with any accuracy is really for those who do this daily.

Of more interest to me is the two mentions of a come-along or winch. Be careful not to tension those things up much before all the sawing is done, or you can cause the tree to barber chair during the back cut, which will almost always make the sawyer let out a little poo.

 

[mofish75]

Will have to admit,have put a lil too much 1st couple times I used it(wireless winch).Not so much to cause bar.chr.,but def. Not my ideal release of tree.(got a lil over....anxious? Or maybe wanted to see how well it would pull.... stupidity.....?)lucky lesson of "not such a good idea"thought of loosing that tension if cable were to snap,gear crumble,whatever,I'm sure not end result I was looking for.that being said,slow&go.
He's now my main man when I need that xtra pull...just have to use a pulley toward drop zone due to it being connected to hitch mount to truck.
Lol,just as long as i,u or anyone else sees one of those"needed2cut tree down"to "need2cut tree off truck"videos

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

 

[xman23]

I have used wedges, but many times the tree is barely big enough for the bar. Don’t ask how i know about the barbra chair. Actually I think it happened with a bad leaning tree, no come along being used. The weight of the tree does it.
I like a rope on the tree before I start, just in case I might need it. If I pinch the bar. I’d hate getting up there when the trees almost going down.

But with this tree I needed the tree to go 180 degrees from the direction it would naturally fall. Due to the top weight and lean. So as we cut i pulled it up until it was straight. Now I’m controlling the weight. A bit more cutting and pulling it just past the centerline and the line goes slack. And the trees falls. I agree, with a come along , be carful not to overdo this. You don’t want to pull the tree down, just get it past center and balance, so it has to go the right way.

I just saw my wife's video of this. Hopefully i can post it here. My wife's in a panic, ducking into the basement as the tree goes over. Funny, she doesn’t actually know enough about what we’re doing. But when she looked at the tree leaning toward the house, she knows we have to defy the rules of physics or the house is crushed.

Maybe my cuts don’t need to be perfect. But the more consistent they are, prevents the tree going where it shouldn’t.

 

[Ashful]

I have used wedges, but many times the tree is barely big enough for the bar.

If the tree is barely thicker than the width of the bar, just push it over. [emoji3]

I thought you were cutting real trees, if you’re using a come-along! A rope to prevent it from going over and smashing the house ain’t a bad idea, but I’m not sure why you’d need a come-along on something that small. I did every one of these without a rope or come-along:

The strap on this last one is just holding the two halves together, not pulling it over, you can see the wedges I used for that job still sitting on the stump. Thinking back, on this one I did have a safety rope to prevent it from falling on that guy’s shed, as the shed was packed full of antique motorcycles. The rope was slack, though... not used to pull over the tree.

With the right hinge, and hammering those wedges in as you go, you can lever a tree over pretty far against it’s natural lean.