Thread: one for the falling experts.

Hey Wisey,

I don't know about forestry, but my trainer would have kicked my bum for # 2, if it didn't land where he said it should. But #1 is a bit close to centre for my liking

HazzaB

There's no or very little holding wood left on either of them that i can see. The scarf on the first one is a bit savage though.

Technically none of those stumps are correct, not far from being right though, I don't know about being kicked out the bush for them, but I suppose if you kept on leaving stumps like that, it might come to it.
pic #1 the scarf cut is too deep, not dangerous but what will happen is you will get splinters of timber pulling out of the log & it will leave voids which can fill up with dirt etc & make the sawmiller not very happy. cant tell if the backcut is high, low or level.
pic #2 the scarf cut looks around the 1/3 mark which is ok, the backcut is almost overcut to the scarf cut on the top side of the stump which is not leaving an even amount of hinge wood which is not a safe practice, I cant see any marks left from a wedge being used to get it to fall across a lean. Cant tell if the backcut is low, high or level. there is maybe more to see but its a bad angle pic
regards inter

the tree in teh second pic had a heavy lean to the top of the pic but had to be felled straight along the ridge way from 2 watter courses.

the first tree was standing strength.

the forestry inspectors are really cracking down lately as there was a bloke killed by a stag tree and a heap of near misses reported recently, they have been closing down whole blocks for little things, its costing a lot of blokes a lot of money.

Originally Posted by weisyboy

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the forestry inspectors are really cracking down lately as there was a bloke killed by a stag tree and a heap of near misses reported recently, they have been closing down whole blocks for little things, its costing a lot of blokes a lot of money.

probably saving a few lives though. Keep practicing
regards inter

yep they are cracking down more every day, stupid part about this is i have seen tree loppers leave a lot worse stumps behind than that and who audits them to the point the forestry audits us allthough that said neither stump would pass but i wouldn't call them absolutly unsafe, but in a work environment who has the time pull out the calculator and calipers for every tree they put down its bad enough they still length and girth HWD logs (why cant they weigh them just like the pine) let alone mathmaticly work out every cut for every stump just so it fits into their rules. that being said there has to be some degree of accuracy otherwise there would be more people being killed than there already has.

stump #1,

the belly cut - is way to deep it is about half when it sould be between 1/4 and 1/3 rd, in red iron bark this could cause a bad split up,

holding wood - isn't to bad but could have been kept thicker at the top edge. it should be about 1/10th of tree diameter.

stump #2,

belly cut - is within what it should be,

holding wood - is good 1/10 in the center, when pulling a tree round whatever thickness you add to the holding side should be taken from the close side, this keeps the 1/10th rule in the center.

teh weight of hardwood varies to much to weight them. it dosent take long to girth a lot of cubes.

a faller with an advanced ticket doing directional falling is should have a 0% margin for error, althow some mobs allow up to a ridiculous 10%, on a 40m tall tree felled with a 10% margin of error allows teh head to land up to 13m either side of where its supposed to. im my opinion this is just ridiculous, as often its a matter of 2m to miss other trees. and we are not allowed more than 20% damage to teh environment.

as for tree loppers dont get me started, im amazed more houses arent destroyed .

more pics to come.

Its good to see your starting to learn about what stumps should look like, bit of a change from 4 months ago. They are evidence of the fallers skill long after your gone.
As far as the strenght red ironbark slabbing up it would be a one in poopteenth odds of happening & the depth of that scarf cut would have nothing to do with it happening.
For the spotted gum there is no evidence of a wedge being used to fall it across the lean, so I'm still wondering about that one & how it happened on its own.
regards inter

i knew exactly what stumps should look like 4 moths ago i just dont agree with people getting stuck into someone trying to help anotehr bloke out.

once you get to close to the center you get into the young wood (thts teh wood that grows when a tree is small) witch is not as strong as the outerwood, nd splits/breaks a lot easyer, teh lines that a log splits along as it drys are always there even when the tree is growing, the tree can splitup along these lines. broad leaved red ironbark has a really free running grain making it one of the worst for splitups.

teh spotty i had to lay into with a 9 lb hammer, to push it over. dont ask me why there aint no marks there but it definitely had to be wedged. it may have been becuase i was trying one of them yellow plastic wedges instead of my alloy wedges. btw there useless.

here is the log.
Attachment 152026

Carl and other interested woodies, here is something my dad told me they use to do for a challenge in the crosscut and early buzzsaw days ,they would put a peg in the ground where they reckoned the trunk of the tree should fall ,he use to call it driving a peg,and if you were good at falling trees you could drive the peg into the ground with the tree trunk, he use to cut sleepers in the 50's with a mobilco buzzsaw with the swing head .i managed to drive the peg a few times when i tried .

Hi Carl,
full points for introducing some interesting topics but I think this one is a bit difficult. As you know there are so many factors that must be considered when falling a tree it can hardly be explained here. There is also the worry that someone might try to put these instructions into practice .

I did my refresher test the other day. They even take your photo these days. When I started falling all you had to do was buy a saw. Its good to see more stringent controls.

cheers
Steve