Advice On Cutting Large Trees?(Includes discussion of personal hang-ups) (Trees!)

[Does’ Leap]

I have been cutting hemlock for the past couple of winters that push up into the 24-28″ range (diameter at the base) at their largest – a big tree for me. Recently, I have been cutting pine in the 36″ range (with my heart a thumpin’) and have been struggling with reading the interplay between massive trunks and crowns and how they affect the lean of the tree. Last week I cut a large pine (I use Game of Logging plunge cut and wedging techniques), only to find my wedges stuck fast. I ended up notching it and felling it in a different direction. Today I had a pine override my wedges pounded in the side and sit back opposite my hinge before the wind finally blew it over. The only thing I concluded from that experience is that my wedges should be further towards the back of the tree, but according to my Game of Logging instructor the position of the wedge shouldn’t matter. With smaller trees, I don’t mind using biscuits and wedges to override the lean of the tree when necessary, but for large trees the process is arduous at best and I try to avoid it if possible.

Any advice on cutting large trees safely would be much appreciated.

George

[Carl Russell]

George, with frozen wood, sometimes wedges can slip back, and therfore not be effective.

I spend the big money and get the Sandvik orange “unbreakable” wedges, as they have a very narrow taper and are not completely smooth, so they work in well,and don’t spit out.

Also try putting two wedges next to one another, and hitting one then the other. This way one wedge takes the pressure off the other, and you should be able to lift a pretty huge tree right back in the other direction. I use this method on all big trees.

On big trees, I also set my first wedge near the back by my trigger wood. The problem with this is that the wedge doesn’t give much lift, at least in proportion to the diameter of the tree, so I set my second wedge closer to the hinge.

This is a common problem with using the open faced cut on big timber, as the hinge is so close to the outer diameter of the tree, that the tree has a huge amount of leverage against the wedge. I discovered this years ago cutting pines the were running from 800-1500 bf per tree. I had a few set back on me, and with horses, or cattle as the case was for me, that can suck.

Try using two, or even more, wedges, and working them against each other…. it should help a lot, Carl

Oh yeah, and I use an 8# sledge hammer with the handle cut to 16″

[Does’ Leap]

Carl:

Thanks for the tips. Some wedge questions: Where do you get your Sandvik wedges? What do you have for a wedge pouch (I have a skimpy nylon pouch w/velcro that I am not happy with)? How many wedges do you carry (I usually carry 2 and find I sometimes need 3 when I bury both wedges thinking I can tip the tree w/2 and then have to go back and get a third to use with a shim/biscuit.)?

George

[Scott G]

George,

Definitely can (safely) increase your face cut to 25-30% of diameter. Pulling the fulcrum of your hinge in will make the tree easier to tip.

Don’t know if your wood is frozen yet, ours definitely is up at high elevation & on the north slopes. Using a textured/barbed wedge will help with “spit out”. Also, alternate tapping the wedges until they are set. Delivering the deathblows from the start will only result in flying wedges.

I also use a side-bore method of falling (aka GOL technique) for most of the timber I cut. Once the hinge is pre-set and I have backed out with just the latch (trigger) in place, I’ll tap/set a small wedge on both sides as far back as I can go without cutting the wedges when I open the latch (trigger). As soon as the latch is open I’ll set a large wedge in the back and once firmly set put another one next to it and alternate pounding on the back wedges. If I need more lift, I’ll then stack a couple on the back side once the kerf is opened up, alternatively pounding on each one to lift the tree over.

Your hinge thickness is going to be less on frozen wood, just like standing dead wood.

I really like steel capped wedges. They let you get after it without mushrooming the top and do not absorb as much of the energy from thumping away.

I always carry a full-sized single bit (6#) axe with me in the woods for knocking wedges. A full sized sledge/maul also lives in the truck and horse trailer for those “rare moments” when needed.

I wear a very large leather wedge pouch that contains minimum 4 wedges (2 small & 2 large steel cap), round file, flat file, scrench, tuning screwdriver and stump vise. This hangs on a separate belt that also has a pair of tongs, couple of blood-stopper bandages, leatherman, and logging tape. Sounds like alot but it really isn’t. Always a minimum of 4 wedges with me. If I’m in very large/difficult timber I’ll have 2-4 more stuck in my back pockets.

Out west, Madsen’s and Baileys are the two most common places to pick up felling gear/rigging. They’ll ship anywhere though…

In your part of the country I know that Labonville is pretty popular.

Be safe & come home…

[Does’ Leap]

Scott:

Per your post, I am going to add some blood stopper bandages to my list. I am looking at wedges and wondering what the difference between single, double, and triple taper are and their advantages/disadvantages. I am also realizing my 7.5″ K and H wedges are small and will order some large ones. When you mention large, do you mean 12″? I also saw some 10″s as well as a 15″!

Carl, I forgot to ask how you dealt with the large trees that “sat back on you”. Just when I think I am a competent feller, I hang up a tree. Pulling down hung-up trees with my horses is not my/their favorite activity. So far, I haven’t hung up a really big one (knock on wood).

George

[Carl Russell]

I wear a forestry tool vest that I got from Ben Meadows http://www.benmeadows.com/SwedePro-Forestry-Tool-Vest_31228213/

I carry 2-4 wedges, small first aid kit with blood stoppers and mirror, lumber crayons, whistle, sharpened chains, file, scrench, rain shield for my hard hard, and sometimes a note book.

I get the wedges at my local saw shop…. they cost like $35, but they last a long time, and I can pound the bejesus out of them and they will not break or mushroom. (I have broken them in very cold temps)I find they are very much worth the expense. I hate the soft ones with the larger angle taper:(.

Carl

[mitchmaine]

hi george, i have to agree with carl and scott about the depth of the notch and hinge. on the backcut you could make your bore cut on the low side of the cut, determine your hinge, and then swing a full arc with your back cut, setting wedges behind the cut as you go, finish the cut holding the tree with the hinge on the uphill side and beat hell out of those wedges.
if they do set back on you, you might make a plunge cut into the backcut (square in the middle towards the center of the tree) and the kerf of that cut will take the point of your wedge. bore in longer than the length of the wedge.
i was always told 9 out of ten trees would fall or grow to the south. especially the tall ones. they look good and plumb, but the limbs towards the light are a bit longer and fuller. don’t matter, they love to mess with your brain. its a living thing, right? good luck, and keep looking up. mitch

[Carl Russell]

George, really big trees are pretty hard to pull down with animals. I do it quite regularly with normal sized trees, but usually end up cutting down the trees that the big ones are held up in…… This is very UNSAFE, but I have found there are very few other ways to get them down.

If they just sit back I do as Mitch suggested, and spend a lot of time pounding. I spent 45 minutes one day driving wedges into a huge white ash so that it wouldn’t fall into a swamp where I would never have gotten to it.

If I can’t get them to move, and they have set back, I usually take the next est lay, and fall it it that direction, cut a lot of brush, and maybe a few trees I hadn’t planned to, and eventually skid them out of there.

It’s all a learning experience…. gotta love it. Playing it the woods with dangerous tools doing dangerous things….. and hopefully making some bucks too….. extended childhood.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

One trick for pulling big tree down. As there is so much downward pressure, the butts are pretty hard to get moving, especially if they have come off the stump. I take a short section of log about 12-16″ in dia, and lay it near the butt. I put the choker as close to the ground as I can, then up over the section of log, and to the evener, or cart. This way when the horses pull, the chain actually lifts the butt up.

[Traveling Woodsman]

Sounds like there’s a lot of good ideas being bounced around, but I thought I would throw in an extra one or two for kicks. First off, I keep 2 or 3 different length and taper wedges with me. I use the leather wedge pouch from Bailey’s, I’m sure there are other good ones out there. I have a military surplus ammo belt that I put it on that also has my log tape and a few little tool pouches attached to it. But yeah, I keep some 8″ wedges with a more taper for smaller trees and when I want more lift in distance. Then I have some 10″ wedges that have significantly less taper than the 8″ and usually end up stacking them at right angles to each other to get the really big ones down. And just like has already been said, where you place your wedge has a huge effect on how much lifting force you are exerting on the butt of the tree. The farther away from the hinge the more mechanical advantage you have.

But then there are the trees that are just a total nuisance, and somewhere along the way I got to thinking there had to be a better way. Which is when I read about tree jacks. Now they have tree jacks in Bailey’s that run $2,000 or more, and I quickly decided it wasn’t worth it. 🙂 And I kept thinking and decided to check out the local tool store, where I ran into a 20 ton low profile jack. I actually also have a 32 ton and an 8 ton, but the 20 ton lo pro gets used the most, and I still haven’t run into but maybe 1 or 2 trees that it couldn’t jack over. I don’t have a picture, but here’s a link to the manufacturer’s site. http://bigredjacks.com/ourproducts/product.cfm?ItemNO=T92007 They are about $50.

So all you do is make a notch in the rear right or left side of the tree and slide the jack in. Put it on whichever side is the “danger” side. To make the notch for the wedge, plunge in from the side and from the rear of the stump. then cut out the pie shaped piece you created. Depending on how tall you left your stump, and whether you are cutting on a hill side, you may have to make your notch go partway into the butt log. Of course that may not be desirable, but I find that especially if I decide before I start cutting that I will use a jack, you can really reduce the number of times that your notch will impinge on your butt log.

You have to weld a thick plate onto the top of the jack so that it jacks and doesn’t just compress the wood fiber. It takes a little getting used to, but it is so much easier to pump a jack than spend 45 mins or an hour banging on wedges. I can actually say that I have never had to to that since I started using jacks. I am actually a little “jack happy”, if I have to bang more than a few minutes, I just pull out the jack cause it’s so much easier. And I start thinking differently too about where to lay the tree if I know that I can just pop the jack in and make it go anyway I want. You can really save yourself a lot of fooling around with your horses or cattle by putting trees where you want them.

So there it is, I say try out the jacks. I’m interested to hear about other people’s experiences with jacks.

[Carl Russell]

Traveling Woodsman;22832 wrote:

….
So there it is, I say try out the jacks. I’m interested to hear about other people’s experiences with jacks.

I have used a hydraulic jack. A small bottle jack I bought from the parts store, similar to the one above. Mine is a bit smaller though.

I have mostly used it on take-downs of nuisance trees, but never thought to have one on the cart in the woods. May have to think about that some more. They do work well.

Carl

[Does’ Leap]

Lots of food for thought here. Carl, when you use that short section of log, does the tree ride up on it and roll? Also, when pulling down hung-up trees do you have any concern about being so close to the but? I have found that on the last pull before the tree is freed it can fly forward and I use a long chain b/c of that.

Benjamin, I am intrigued about the the jack. Kristan asked the other day “what is all that tapping? I thought you were out logging!” Wedging over a tree for 30 minutes is not my idea of a good time. However, I still can’t picture how you use this jack. Do you have any pictures?

George

[Carl Russell]

George, the section of log will roll a bit, but generally only enough to lift the butt. When the butt of the tree starts to move it will generally trig against the log section and the whole thing will skid along the ground. It really is just a mechanism to get a degree of vertical lift where the animals can’t deliver it.

As far as being too close to pulling down a tree, I used to feel as you do, but I found that a long hitch is actually more dangerous. Not so much from the tree itself, but from other factors like maintaining an appropriate angle of pull etc.

I also don’t just go for it. I usually will put a rolling hitch on the tree and try to roll it out of the tree it is lodged in with a few moderate and short even pulls. If that doesn’t work, I usually will give a few short pulls to see if I can get the tree to come down by itself.

If I have to pull the whole tree down, I survey the land and MAKE the best approach. Sometimes a trail to twitch a log out that has hit the ground is quite different than the trail needed to pull a tree down, and it may require some more work.

All of this work, pounding wedges, working a tree with the peavey, cutting extra trees, pulling down with the horses, may seem futile and frustrating, but in the long run it is all educational. Nothing like beating yourself silly to learn how to look at felling a tree to be successful.

This is one of my favorite subjects when talking about forestry and timber harvest. To be successful, forest improvement must also be functional. Sometimes there are trees that need to be cut first, so that others can be cut effectively. This is really important when working with animals. These decisions can affect the overall approach to the stand, but in the long-run it will be better.

It is important to think about wedging, jacking, pulling, etc., but also try to also see how the felling could have been done differently to change the outcome. There are always situations like the swamp and my white ash, but most of the time the choice of felling, whether in direction of fell, or in choice of which tree to cut first, or in which trees to cut in general, will make the biggest improvement.

Carl

[mitchmaine]

i cut lots of wood with skidders. working alone with my axe and felling wedges collecting cobwebs on the tool bench at home.
you jump off the skidder, slice a wedge cut, jamb in your saw, make a back cut and pull out, in case it sets back. set the chocker, jump on the machine and push it over and haul the tree out into the skidder trail and limb it out there. no thinking at all.
trees get hung up alot using this method. no matter, right? well, every once in a while a tree gets so lodged, you can pull it free of the earth with the skidder and not be able to free it. cutting the other tree becomes the only option, and thats scary. if you can’t pull it down with a skidder what chance does a horse have?
carl points out making your plan first, and i agree totally. figure it out before you cut. things will still go wrong but don’t take it personal. good luck with it.

[Anonymous]

The jacks are a great idea. I lug a felling lever with me most of the time the average person with out hurting them selves can produce 2000 pounds of force. Not enough to tip a large tree leaning but some times it’s enough to finish the job. They have a handy folding hook that can be used to roll trees or logs. I carry in large wood as may wedges as the back pockets of my Husky saw pants will carry if after stacking them the tree hasn’t tipped it’s time to make a what is called a Hennery my region. A 12 foot pole with a point or y at the end that is set against the problem tree then a bit thicker 10foot pole is cut and placed under the 12 at about 4 feet from the trunk of the tree. The 10 and 12 are notched to fit together. The idea is to lodge the 12 under a limb or bump. The 10 foot pole is lifted becoming a fulcrum giving you a huge advantage over the tree. 12 and 10 are just examples as no tree is the same. Takes a bit of time and the jacks sounds fantastic but can get you out of a pickle. Like pinching yor saw or running out of wedges.

I cut alot of big hemlock as well and from time to time hang them. If a tree sticks on the way down I do my best to keep it on the stump. If it slides off and sinks into soft ground it takes a darn good horse to hang in the gear and pull on something with no give untill it comes unstuck. If the tree is still on the stump I try to cut away the stump bit by bit in the direction the horse is going to pull. By under cutting the tree if the horse can get it moving a bit it’s going to slide down hill off the stump. Trick is to make sure the horse is perpared to give it a good 6 to 8 foot pull or the tree just slides of the stump and sticks in the ground. I too hook close to get the best lift possible.

I also carry a cell phone in a zip lock bag in the breast pocket of my cutting jacket. And a diaper or womans pad stuffed in the top of my helmet. Work smart and safe but always be prepared. 🙂

Tristan

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