Felling a leaning tree to the side of the lean

[old and tired]

...On white pine I’ve dealt with, the hinge snaps off early and then the tree is just going to fall where gravity takes it...

With a 3/4" rope and plenty of pulling power; the 2 white pines I was pulling just fell 90* to the pull (which worked out fine) But I will never trust a white pine again...

 

[s219]

LOL, once was asked to fell a birch that was threatening a client's roof.
I tied a good rope as high as possible and attached the other end to my 3/4 ton 4 x 4 in order to direct the fall.
I cut a proper notch , handed the saw to a helper and told him how and where to cut when I blew my horn.

Blew the horn, he completed the cut, tree fell and pulled my truck back and tree stopped when it hit the roof overhang.

LOL, I forgot to engage the 4 x 4! (and a PU is very light on rear end)
Fortunately the builder had used 2 x 6's under the facia so there was no roof damage.

(I'd used that method often and when properly done I have seen trees actually leap up and away.)

When I was putting an addition on my barn, one of the trees I felled twisted weirdly on the stump and bounced off the edge of the roof, mangling the gutter, busting the fascia, and damaging a few shingles. Since I was knitting the new addition's roof into that edge of the roofline, it really didn't matter but I got lucky the damage wasn't worse. I credit it to good original construction.

My wife gave me a hard time about that for a while, and I would always reply "I told you, the gutter and fascia had to come off anyway, so I just saved a step!".

 

[s219]

With old technology ropes, you are correct to be untrusting, but there are ropes made with modern fibers that have unreal strength, wear resistance and low weight.

As an example, AMSTEEL-BLUE - Samson Rope. Dyneema is the name of the fiber. There are others brands and various grades with in brands as well. Some could be strong, some weaker, depends on what one needs.

Example:

1/4 inch galvanized wire rope has a breaking strength around 7,000 pounds and will weigh in around 11 pounds per 100 feet.

Amsteel Blue 1/4 inch rope has an average breaking strength of 8,600 pounds, with a minimum of 7,700 pounds, and have a weight of 1.6 pounds per 100 feet.

Later,
Dan

The 5/8" bull rope I have is Samson Stable Braid, and has a breaking strength of 16,300# (the 3/4 rope is 20,400 #). It's an impressive rope. Sadly I nicked it with a chainsaw about 5 years ago and the original 200' length lost about 25' (which I keep as a separate rope and sometimes use as an extension, minus the length loss from knots). That rope has taken a real beating for 9 years now. I inspect it periodically, and see minor abrasion but nothing that concerns me yet. A new 200' length would be about $260.