Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[square1]

I wasn't real keen on taking this 16~17" hollow center dead ash from the top of a steep 25~30' ridge yesterday. I needed it to fill an order and with snow forecast, which can make it a lot more work to get wood out of the ravine, it became top priority yesterday. Not sure which was more exhausting, half crawling / half pulling myself and gear up the slope or the mental exercise of trying to get it on the ground where it would be easiest to skid out in one piece. Needed to drop it 90 degrees from a pretty strong lean. Ended up ~ 15 degrees short and took out a 6" oak I intended to leave

 

[jk96]

I wasn't real keen on taking this 16~17" hollow center dead ash from the top of a steep 25~30' ridge yesterday. I needed it to fill an order and with snow forecast, which can make it a lot more work to get wood out of the ravine, it became top priority yesterday. Not sure which was more exhausting, half crawling / half pulling myself and gear up the slope or the mental exercise of trying to get it on the ground where it would be easiest to skid out in one piece. Needed to drop it 90 degrees from a pretty strong lean. Ended up ~ 15 degrees short and took out a 6" oak I intended to leave
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I had a really bad experience with one about that same size a few months back. Made my front cut and then very cautiously started my back cut keeping an eye on trunk movement. It ended up cracking and jumping forward off off the stump. The tree went in the planned direction however as it fell forward I was not prepared for it to crack half way up. The upper half of the tree came back in the opposite direction as the lower half and directly at me. I had enough time to lay over backwards as the upper half just missed me on its way to the ground. I like to think I looked smooth as Neo in the matrix as I skillfully leaned back and averted disaster. In reality I clumsily dropped backwards entangling myself a pile of already cut limbs and had already sh** myself before I had even touched earth. I came really close to disaster and was lucky to walk away with just a thumb injury.

 

[jk96]

Here's what I worked on yesterday. I have a love hate relationship with these trees. I hate cutting them down and cleaning them up but love splitting and burning once the thorns are off. I have a lot these honeylocust on my property that I need to get rid of. Once they are cleared of thorns they split as easy as anything else I've processed and come in at #11 on the BTU chart.

20161210_115536 https://www.flickr.com/photos/150090343@N02/

20161210_115343 https://www.flickr.com/photos/150090343@N02/

20161210_165713 https://www.flickr.com/photos/150090343@N02/

 

[ultrarunner]

I love the repurposed totes... still have not found a cheap source near me.

 

[jk96]

I have a recycling business near us that sells them for $18/each. So much easier than picking everything up after splitting. Everything goes straight into the totes as I split.

 

[square1]

I had a really bad experience with one about that same size a few months back. Made my front cut and then very cautiously started my back cut keeping an eye on trunk movement. It ended up cracking and jumping forward off off the stump. The tree went in the planned direction however as it fell forward I was not prepared for it to crack half way up. The upper half of the tree came back in the opposite direction as the lower half and directly at me. I had enough time to lay over backwards as the upper half just missed me on its way to the ground. I like to think I looked smooth as Neo in the matrix as I skillfully leaned back and averted disaster. In reality I clumsily dropped backwards entangling myself a pile of already cut limbs and had already sh** myself before I had even touched earth. I came really close to disaster and was lucky to walk away with just a thumb injury.

All the things that went wrong for you are the scenarios that kept running through my mind. It started to go 2 times and i retreated only to have to go and nibble a little more on the hinge.
Glad you came out of it okay!

 

[John_Mc]

I had a really bad experience with one about that same size a few months back. Made my front cut and then very cautiously started my back cut keeping an eye on trunk movement. It ended up cracking and jumping forward off off the stump. The tree went in the planned direction however as it fell forward I was not prepared for it to crack half way up. The upper half of the tree came back in the opposite direction as the lower half and directly at me. I had enough time to lay over backwards as the upper half just missed me on its way to the ground. I like to think I looked smooth as Neo in the matrix as I skillfully leaned back and averted disaster. In reality I clumsily dropped backwards entangling myself a pile of already cut limbs and had already sh** myself before I had even touched earth. I came really close to disaster and was lucky to walk away with just a thumb injury.

A classic "Barber Chair". Can be very dangerous (as you found out). Let me guess... It had a least some front lean to it? Ash is prone to that. One of the things that causes Barber Chair on a forward-leaning tree is that when cutting using the "traditional method" of making the back cut, the tree will start to fall before you have the hinge at the proper thickness. Too thick a hinge on an easy to split tree like Ash can cause it to split up the tree, rather than bending over at the hinge.


There is a great technique for dealing with that safely, taught by the "Game of Logging" program. To properly describe it takes more time than I've got right now, but the short version:

1. Make an open faced notch (the angle formed by the notch should be at least 70˚. This keeps the notch from closing and breaking off the hinge before the tree is most of the way down.) Cut the notch deep enough that the length of the hinge will be at least 80% of the tree's DBH (diameter at breast height). So for a 12" DBH tree, you want the hinge length to be about 10".
2. Bore cut behind and parallel to the hinge, leaving more hinge thickness than you need. After the bore is complete, cut forward toward the hinge until your hinge thickness is equal to 10% of the tree's DBH. So a 12" DBH tree would have a 1.2" thick hinge.
3. The tree is now held by the uncut wood behind the bore cut (on the opposite side of the bore cut from the hinge wood), and your hinge is set at the appropriate thickness. On a forward-leaning tree, cutting that holding wood in the back will release the tree.

Bore cutting is not hard to do, but there is a technique to it. Doing it incorrectly can cause kickback.

The technique can be adapted to trees bigger than the length of your bar, you just have to bore cut in from both sides behind the hinge (it's not necessary for the two bore cuts to meet exactly, a little bypass up and down is OK, but you do want to sever all of the fibers on the way through)

 

[John_Mc]

I was Reading the owners manual on line about the Uniforest winches. It said I needed to break in the winch. How do you do that?

There were really only two things I did to my winch before putting it into "normal use":

1. Unwind the cable all the way, leaving only 3 or 4 wraps on the drum, then wind it back in under load (drag in a log, or as I do, attach the cable to a tree that is up a slight grade from the tractor, put the tractor in neutral and winch the tractor to the tree. This is important, since the cable is not wound tightly on the drum from the factory. If you roll it out part way, then winch it in under load, the cable can pull down into the layers already wrapped on the drum. This causes tangles and can kink the cable. I actually do this procedure at least once a year, at the start of each season.
2. The brake pads may have a layer of "glaze" on them and not grip as they should until this is worn off. For me, it was just a matter of being careful until I'd used it a few times and was confident it was gripping as it should. THere may be some way to "slip the brake" to accelerate the break-in process, but I never bothered to figure that out

On my winch, the main brake was already set at the factory to grab properly, I did have to adjust the drag brake that keeps the drum from spinning freely which would allow the cable to unwind and create a "bird's nest" on the drum. You want it tight enough to prevent free spinning, but not so tight that it's a pain to drag out the cable when the main brake is released (free-spooling).

 

[motownbrowne]

A classic "Barber Chair". Can be very dangerous (as you found out). Let me guess... It had a least some front lean to it? Ash is prone to that. One of the things that causes Barber Chair on a forward-leaning tree is that when cutting using the "traditional method" of making the back cut, the tree will start to fall before you have the hinge at the proper thickness. Too thick a hinge on an easy to split tree like Ash can cause it to split up the tree, rather than bending over at the hinge.


There is a great technique for dealing with that safely, taught by the "Game of Logging" program. To properly describe it takes more time than I've got right now, but the short version:

1. Make an open faced notch (the angle formed by the notch should be at least 70˚. This keeps the notch from closing and breaking off the hinge before the tree is most of the way down.) Cut the notch deep enough that the length of the hinge will be at least 80% of the tree's DBH (diameter at breast height). So for a 12" DBH tree, you want the hinge length to be about 10".
2. Bore cut behind and parallel to the hinge, leaving more hinge thickness than you need. After the bore is complete, cut forward toward the hinge until your hinge thickness is equal to 10% of the tree's DBH. So a 12" DBH tree would have a 1.2" thick hinge.
3. The tree is now held by the uncut wood behind the bore cut (on the opposite side of the bore cut from the hinge wood), and your hinge is set at the appropriate thickness. On a forward-leaning tree, cutting that holding wood in the back will release the tree.

Bore cutting is not hard to do, but there is a technique to it. Doing it incorrectly can cause kickback.

The technique can be adapted to trees bigger than the length of your bar, you just have to bore cut in from both sides behind the hinge (it's not necessary for the two bore cuts to meet exactly, a little bypass up and down is OK, but you do want to sever all of the fibers on the way through)

I was thinking the exact same thing, but when I read the description of the events again it sounds more like the top of the tree hit other trees and broke off the main trunk. Maybe jk96 can tell us a little more. Either way, though, a bore cut leaving a nice hinge and a nice trigger at the back is a great way to fell a tree. Ever since learning that method, I pretty much do it every time. Of jk96 created his hinge, checked his escape route, cut the trigger, and got outta dodge, the matrix moves probably wouldn't have been necessary.

 

[jk96]

I was thinking the exact same thing, but when I read the description of the events again it sounds more like the top of the tree hit other trees and broke off the main trunk. Maybe jk96 can tell us a little more. Either way, though, a bore cut leaving a nice hinge and a nice trigger at the back is a great way to fell a tree. Ever since learning that method, I pretty much do it every time. Of jk96 created his hinge, checked his escape route, cut the trigger, and got outta dodge, the matrix moves probably wouldn't have been necessary.

So a little more detail. Tree was standing dead and already leaning in the felling direction before cutting. Since it was dead I was a little more leery than normal in cutting it. Straight trunk with few limbs to worry about breaking off above me. Made my front notch then carefully started back cutting. Once the tree started to fall I quickly stepped backwards at least 10-12 feet like normal. What happened was as the tree started to fall and before the front notched closed up the trunk snapped at the cut. The tree jumped forward and landed on the ground in front of the stump. When this happened I'm assuming the jar to the tree was enough to snap a week spot in the upper half of the tree. The lower half continued to fall forward in the correct direction but the upper half snapped and fell backwards and left toward me. The upper half fell in my direction so fast there was no time to do anything else other than lay over backwards to get out of the way. I got lucky in that all that I ended up with was a hyperextended thumb and probably some strained or torn ligaments.