Felling a tree is not hard,...

[Mark Burge]

Fixing what it fell on is.

Luckily it only got my fence. There is a drainage culvert just on the other side. When I get it cleaned up, I should have some nice spalted oak blanks.

But that brings up the importance of chainsaw safety. Here's what happened as best as I can reconstruct it. I started out right cutting a notch on the side where I wanted the tree to fall. Then I cut from the other side about 2" above the point of the notch. That went well except I didn't keep the blade parallel to the notch. That caused the side toward me to cut through the notch before the back side and the tree fell toward where it was still attached.

I'm not sure if you can see from the pictures or not, but the notch may not have been deep enough either. Comments and advice would be appreciated.

Oh, the chain and cable is from the come-along I was using to pull it off the fence. It worked until I reached the stump and didn't have anything left to pull from. Once I get the chainsaw running again (it quit on me.), I'll cut up the pieces and pull it on across.

[John Keeton]

Mark, I am no expert on felling a tree, but it looks like the center of gravity of that oak was on the wrong side for you anyway. Other than pulling the tree to fall the opposite direction, I doubt you could have controlled the fall with just the cuts.

Glad you weren't hurt!! That is the important part - the fence can be fixed.

[Mark Burge]

Thanks John. You're right, the weight was on that side of the tree. I thought I had enough with the cuts to make it come over beside the fence.

[Allen Neighbors]

Sorry for your problem... a good sized tractor and a big rope also help to insure a lop sided tree will fall the right direction....

[Keith Burns]

Glad you weren't hurt and excaped with only minor damage. I have a friend who is an arborist and he can fell a tree to within inches of where he wants it to drop. It's really amazing to watch him with a chainsaw.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Mark - any chance you caught that on video? Could be worth some bucks!

Glad you weren't hurt and after looking at the photos - just my opinion but the wedge cut does not see deep enough. Also, just the way I do things but when I start the back cut I start about 4" high and angle it towards the wedge cut. So far.... knock on wood .... I have been lucky!

It does look like you have some really nice turning wood! Congrats on that!

[Ernie Nyvall]

I fell a bunch trees. 110 tons of pine on a good day for about 5 years. There are a few ways to do it for different reasons. You mentioned spalting, so I'm guessing the tree was dead or almost there. If so, it isn't that easy to make one roll the direction you want away from the direction it is leaning because there isn't enough strength in the wood to pull it away from the lean.

On a green tree that you want to go left against a straight lean, then you would cut a notch on the left side of the tree, but not completely perpendicular to the lean... just almost. Then you can start on the back of the tree, but cutting all the way through to the notch on the right side leaving wood on the left intact because you need it to pull the tree in that direction as the tree starts to go forward and roll left. It will go forward first, and that is when you have to make sure your bar is not too deep so that it pinches, but deep enough to be cutting all the way through from right to left and right behind the falling of the tree. A bit of timing is involved for a 90 degree roll, but I'd say the biggest factor is who's fence is it leaning towards.

I didn't much use the notch, but a cut straight in and at a slight angle in the direction I wanted it to fall. Then just before I thought the tree would lean on my bar, I would pull it around cutting from the opposite side( toward the back) of the direction I wanted it to go. This way, when I started a cut, I never removed the saw until the tree was going down. Was quicker for me.

I never cut a stump above ankle height, especially when the sap is running. When the tree starts to lean, the front edge can catch that sap and shoot backwards, and it does it in the blink of an eye.

Sorry I don't use the proper "fell" word all the time, but in the woods if you asked another cutter if he fell that tree, you would get beat up. It was mainly just "You cut that tree?", but never the "fell" word. I guess I got used to it.

[Matt Hutchinson]

Glad you're not hurt!

Yeah, there are some very skilled people with chainsaws, but I am not one of them. I have felled some trees, but they were very easy situations.

A friend of mine had been an arborist in Texas for a while. He told me of an old timer who took a tree leaning heavily towards a structure and turn it 180* before dropping it in the opposite direction!!

Good luck with getting everything fixed back up.

Hutch

[Mark Burge]

Thank you all for your comments. I especially appreciate your comments Ernie, as an experienced woodsman. The height of the stump is a consideration that I did not have, nor the issue of sap becoming a lubricant for a backward slip. Yes, this tree was very dead, that's why I was taking it down. I was worried that it would drop limbs on the family. I have another to take down as well, also dead, but it is not quite as tall or leaning as heavily. I'll shoot some video of the next one Steve The best part would have been my wife walking out and saying "whoops". I should admit that before I went to get my wife or even thought about cutting the tree off the fence, I started cutting turning blanks from the stump! Then my wife came out and I got redirected to what she saw as the main problem.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Fixing what it fell on is.

Luckily it only got my fence. There is a drainage culvert just on the other side. When I get it cleaned up, I should have some nice spalted oak blanks.

But that brings up the importance of chainsaw safety. Here's what happened as best as I can reconstruct it. I started out right cutting a notch on the side where I wanted the tree to fall. Then I cut from the other side about 2" above the point of the notch. That went well except I didn't keep the blade parallel to the notch. That caused the side toward me to cut through the notch before the back side and the tree fell toward where it was still attached.

I'm not sure if you can see from the pictures or not, but the notch may not have been deep enough either. Comments and advice would be appreciated.

Oh, the chain and cable is from the come-along I was using to pull it off the fence. It worked until I reached the stump and didn't have anything left to pull from. Once I get the chainsaw running again (it quit on me.), I'll cut up the pieces and pull it on across.

Mark, my grandpa (mothers side) started a tree-cutting and removal business a long time ago, about 90 years ago, he and his son and later grandsons and now great-grandsons are still doing this kind of work.

If you think you know how to cut a tree and know where it will fall without any other help you better have good insurance , I know one time my uncle was cutting some tall Poplars, and yes most fell in the right direction, but there were a couple that fell a totally different direction they were very tall trees growing on a treed lot our family owned, they could fall any which way without doing damage other than it could be a little harder to remove them, but it showed that you can't just be sure for them to fall were you want them, limbs, wind, and cutting will affect it.
Here's a little movie of them removing trees as they do it now, also a link to their website were there's more info, yes it's Dutch, but pictures and movies will still be understood I would think.

Hope you will get some nice blanks from your tree, I think you will earn it by the time you are finished with it

http://www.weijtmans.nl/bedrijfsfilm.html

http://www.weijtmans.nl/

[Mark Burge]

Wow,that's quite an operation Leo. I certainly understand that there is no certainty to this business. I'm not trying to suggest that I do. Thanks for your comments.

[Rich Aldrich]

My dad is in logging, so summers starting when I was 15, I learned how to be a piecemaker. In a case where a tree is leaning heavy and you want to fall it sideways, make your notch in the direction you want it to go. When you cut the tree, leave more by the notch on the side opposite the lean and take more on the side of the lean. Wedges became my best helper. You have to be careful that the tree does not pinch your bar on the side of the lean.

However in the case where there are structures, we always worked together with 3 or 4 people. Ropes are a big help; the com-a-long would have worked great.

Now it is easy if we have one of the processors in the area and the tree is accessable.

However, I am glad I went to college and got into a different profession.

[Reed Gray]

It is worthwhile to look up tree falling on You Tube, especially the accidents to see what not to do. The guys taking down a 40 foot tall palm tree with a 30 foot rope tied to the cab of the pick up was just one. There is even a tongue in groove cutting method shown, looked really interesting.

robo hippy

[John Hart]

Ouch! I take it that, as it was falling, you expressed some words that you hoped the tree would hear?

That's a shame...and a prime example of randomness in the universe. I enjoyed Ernie's tutorial very much and will refer back to it in the future.

[Jason Mikits]

Wow Leo, I've never seen a Harvester used in residential work, probably due to the lack of access, and if you can't keep a machine busy you can't pay for it. Most of the work I do/have done is in tight areas with no access even for a bucket. They have to be climbed and pieced down. If there is no room to fell a tree safely it should be removed from the top down, with ropes. Felling placement can be guaranteed with ropes and proper hinges and knowing how to "read" the stump. Tapered hinges as well as plunge cut hinges are just some tools to use when dropping a difficult tree. An angled or sloping back cut is generally an unsafe felling technique usually advocated by unknowing homeowners. The reason it is unsafe is because it doesn't allow the hinge to be adjusted correctly and it doesn't allow a wedge to give proper lift. From your picture it looks like you cut through the "hinge" preventing it from steering the tree in the right direction. Accidents usually occur from a lack of knowledge or just being to hasty. Hopefully this doesn't come across as abrasive, but as someone who has seen too many accidents from the unknowing this is a sensitive topic for me. Be safe everyone.