coreboy83 you still havent told us what sort of cut you used to bring it down. Please be so kind Sir! As we're all interested.[/QUOTE] I experimented with a “humboldt” undercut. Don’t know why,, just did. You can see that I came up from the stump to meet my first cut. I placed the felling notch straight downhill, perpendicular to her lean,as to steer it out of the tree she was tangled up in. It worked,, she fell, I’m safe. Will I use that method of undercut again? Probably not.
Generally the "Humboldt Cut" is used for high value trees. That is because it leaves the cut out wood on the stump and not on the butt cut log, which of course is the most valuable. Instead it leaves both ends on the log with straight cuts. With pulpwood the notched piece is a scant amount of weight, and with firewood you can always pick up the notched wood and burn it as an ugly. In either case, the stump height has to be a bit higher to get the saw to make the angled upper cut. For firewood it does not matter, the higher stump could be cut off and gathered up along with the notched piece, but for pulpwood what you would gain in extra weight, you would lose in having a higher stump. Generally in areas that have a lot of butt swell the Humboldt Cut is used, and rightfully so. They tend to be bigger, better trees used for lumber. Here in Maine it seldom is. When a tree comes just right like abnormally high butt swell because it is located in a wet area, I might use a Humboldt Cut, but maybe 1 in 70 trees...not often.
The Humbolt face is predominantly used on the coast up here. And in B.C. and the Pacific Northwest and Central Pacific coast. Beins it named for Humbolt County California. If your falling trees through other trees ( select cut) it is a safer face to use than a conventional face. Imo. You should keep using the Humbolt.
yes. It was completely un-necessary, and I was goofing around. I had(have) no business trying to do that again . Seen it done before, and thought I'd give it a whirl.. not for me. got it down, and did it semi-safely. happy
I am not starting any argument here, just curious why you might say that? I would think whether the 45 degree cut is up or down would not matter as the moment the tree closes the gap upon falling, it snaps the hinge and all control of the tree is lost. The safest is the open faced notch, but I will be honest with you, I never got into the habit of using it. My notch is somewhere between the open face and conventional. In my case, the angle is more like 75 degrees, but I go deeper then I have too; not 10% of the tree diameter, but not 1/3 either...maybe 25%. It is kind of a cross between the two.
If something gets a little off to one side or other in the path of the tree falling past other trees. And the felled tree hangs up. It has a flat to sit on. And hopefully a stump shot to also keep the butt from sliding off the back of the stump. With a conventional face the tree has basically a sled/ski tip shape. . Trees in that have that situation happen have hurt and killed many men.
