A good day to stay alive

[Daniel]

Then humble up. You made a bad call, almost got bit, then come here bashing and arguing every one about the series of errors you made.

IN this business you learn from your mistakes.... One time when I had a spar go 45 degrees to the lay, I stopped the job, went home to get a camera and took 246 pictures of the stump and trunk. I wouldn't touch a saw until I was 100% sure I had understood what went wrong. Turns out it was a short bar with a little bypass at the bar tip side of the face, that had been filled with sawdust, so it wasn't readily visible,.

I AM happy to admit when I make a mistake and REALLY HAPPY when I learn something from it. Rico was right in his critique of the narrow notch... it should have been an open face. And I'm happy to have that one rubbed in my face so I don't ever forget the lesson...

What actually happened here is that I took a very dangerous tree and put it on the ground in minutes with the tools available. Could I have made a better cut? YES.. was there a series of errors? NO.... I AM happy with the job and the lessons learned. I don't mean to diminish the importance of paying attention to close calls and near misses.. You only get so many of them before something much worse happens.... IF you don't pay attention and learn. I AM willing to entertain all reasonable ideas and enjoy the an intelligent conversation on these subjects... Such as the following:

As I said, it was a combination of too much pull, too large of a top above your pull line (which is a really bad idea), and your poor choice of undercut.

my reply

OK fair enough.. that's an intelligent discussion... I know you are a master at topping tall skinny forest trees.

I do however dispute the idea that too much pull under the cut effected the push back. It may be true, but I don't understand how. That needs to be dissected a little. Rico admits that he's never used the technique of putting a tag line below his cut. And he wasn't there to see the direction of pull etc.. so how can he be so sure? I just want to understand what happened.... and there are only a few people on this thread that have the ability and experience to comment intelligently.. I like the input of those that can make intelligent suggestions and look forward to posting the video of the top when I get it.

then some idiots chime in and say... "BUCKET TRUCKS ARE DANGEROUS.... THERE'S ALWAYS ANOTHER WAY"..
Shadowscape said:
I don't like bucket trucks at all. Probably one of the most dangerous places to be when shit doesn't go as planned. May not be as easy, but there is always another way to get things done that is much safer.


And

pulling with a pickup truck is a recipe for disaster. Little to no feel on what is going on. Very crude and easily screwed up.

That's like some playground baller trying to tell Michael Jordan how to make a jump shot.

When I reply by calling them clueless, (and no one else on the forum stood up to such nonsense), it gets ugly... Now maybe I shouldn't have called them clueless idiots.. maybe I should have been polite and said those statements reflect a serious lack of understanding. Apologies... that's just not my style... I call it like I see it..

Then there's Swing... trying to throw every possible slander he can think of my way, while at the same time admitting that the balance point rigging video took his game to a new level.... That's the thanks he offers... Just imagine what I HAVEN'T shown you Swing. I'd have blown all your minds by now if you hadn't been so rude!

 

[Daniel]

It may not have provided a total solution, or even been feasible in this situation, but sometimes you can move the other tree. The tree in the way can be pulled with a tag line to give more room and disentangle the two trees.

Did you consider that Daniel?

I've done it before.. and occasionally pruned interfering limbs to make room for a fall. Tough to do in the woods. I've had Lyme a couple times and honestly don't like walking through the woods off-trail, so it woldn't have worked here, but agina that's a good suggestion and reflects the problem solving mindset that is essential in this biz. I'm actually thinking that maybe you could put a basket hitch line around the trunk, just below the cut and tie it off at 45 degree angles on each side... split the angle with the lay and have those lines act to stop the push back... That's more just thinking out loud.. if there was a problem with the lay and the top hit those lines the forces would be "UNPREDICTABLE" hahahaha

 

[Daniel]

Actually the more I think about it, You wouldn't need to stop the push back, just re-direct it.

I could have tied a retainer line to the same tree with that had the interfering limbs, which was directly opposite from the bucket. The push back then would have arced away from the bucket, and simply couldn't have come towards the bucket.. SEE THAT.. all the potential ideas that come out of such a contentious thread.

 

[RogerM]

Just imagine what I HAVEN'T shown you Swing. I'd have blown all your minds by now if you hadn't been so rude!

Sigh, you have blown all of our minds, just not in the way you imagine you could.

 

[rico]

IN this business you learn from your mistakes.... One time when I had a spar go 45 degrees to the lay, I stopped the job, went home to get a camera and took 246 pictures of the stump and trunk. I wouldn't touch a saw until I was 100% sure I had understood what went wrong. Turns out it was a short bar with a little bypass at the bar tip side of the face, that had been filled with sawdust, so it wasn't readily visible,.

I AM happy to admit when I make a mistake and REALLY HAPPY when I learn something from it. Rico was right in his critique of the narrow notch... it should have been an open face. And I'm happy to have that one rubbed in my face so I don't ever forget the lesson...

What actually happened here is that I took a very dangerous tree and put it on the ground in minutes with the tools available. Could I have made a better cut? YES.. was there a series of errors? NO.... I AM happy with the job and the lessons learned. I don't mean to diminish the importance of paying attention to close calls and near misses.. You only get so many of them before something much worse happens.... IF you don't pay attention and learn. I AM willing to entertain all reasonable ideas and enjoy the an intelligent conversation on these subjects... Such as the following:



my reply

I do however dispute the idea that too much pull under the cut effected the push back. It may be true, but I don't understand how. That needs to be dissected a little. Rico admits that he's never used the technique of putting a tag line below his cut. And he wasn't there to see the direction of pull etc.. so how can he be so sure? I just want to understand what happened.... and there are only a few people on this thread that have the ability and experience to comment intelligently.. I like the input of those that can make intelligent suggestions and look forward to posting the video of the top when I get it.

then some idiots chime in and say... "BUCKET TRUCKS ARE DANGEROUS.... THERE'S ALWAYS ANOTHER WAY"..
Shadowscape said:
I don't like bucket trucks at all. Probably one of the most dangerous places to be when shit doesn't go as planned. May not be as easy, but there is always another way to get things done that is much safer.


And

That's like some playground baller trying to tell Michael Jordan how to make a jump shot.

When I reply by calling them clueless, (and no one else on the forum stood up to such nonsense), it gets ugly... Now maybe I shouldn't have called them clueless idiots.. maybe I should have been polite and said those statements reflect a serious lack of understanding. Apologies... that's just not my style... I call it like I see it..

Then there's Swing... trying to throw every possible slander he can think of my way, while at the same time admitting that the balance point rigging video took his game to a new level.... That's the thanks he offers... Just imagine what I HAVEN'T shown you Swing. I'd have blown all your minds by now if you hadn't been so rude!

Yep! Kevin Bingham is a playground baller, your Michael Jordan, and you would blow all our minds if we just stroked your insatiable ego a little harder. Get some help because your fucking spinning bro. For realz…..

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Just imagine what I HAVEN'T shown you Swing. I'd have blown all your minds by now if you hadn't been so rude!

quit bickering...this sorta yacking only leads to more bickering. Take it off-line

 

[Daniel]

Yep! Kevin Bingham is a playground baller, your Michael Jordan, and you would blow all our minds if we just stroked your insatiable ego a little harder. Get some help because your fucking spinning bro. For realz…..

How about the guys that say pick ups and bucket trucks are dangerous with no push back?

quit bickering...this sorta yacking only leads to more bickering. Take it off-line

I'm just trying to talk trees... Shit flow downhill

 

[Tom Dunlap]

I'm just trying to talk trees.

Yoda: There is no try. There is only do.

 

[Bart_]

Springs have two main modes of operation, rate and preload, which are used in various mixtures in an application. A tree trunk is a bending beam spring, with significant mass to affect dynamics. If not pre-loaded, deflection is determined by spring rate, applied force and inertia. If preloaded 90 degrees to the throw it is the same as the spring force is still zero in that direction. If the trunk is preloaded opposite to the throw, the "applied" force from the falling top is acting against spring rate, inertia AND the preloaded force - so the deflection will be less. This just brings the discussion into the realm of bean pole pines as opposed to hyper rigid stumpy oaks and the in between of those limiting cases.

Similar concept to springs in dirt bikes and vehicles.

Don't think an unimpeded top's hinge cares too much about a few degrees difference in its bend angle vs time curve or the tiny difference in loading of the hinge fibers. They do their bend till compression and tension failures occur routine, which is it's own topic. I think the controlled arc portion is significantly large vs the tiny angle change of the difference of how much deflection angle the trunk has.

Must've had a good coffee

And yes I know there's two rigid bodies and two inertias. That level of analysis just causes brain hurt.

 

[Daniel]

exactly....

 

[Bart_]

Did you ever conclusively identify whether a branch snag caused redirection and/or wrecked the hinge etc?

 

[Daniel]

Did you ever conclusively identify whether a branch snag caused redirection and/or wrecked the hinge etc?

still waiting on the video from the landscaper... He's been busy. I did find this video of the hinge from the top... It's tough to see in this video because it's poorly lit.. there are some whiskers on the rear of the hinge, but the entire front was under compression, so it looks like the hinge was thin, but it was close to 4" and only about an inch of tall fibers showing. the rest was crushed when it broke.

I don't think we're going to get a lot of answers from the video which was taken from the ground, but we'll see when I get a good look and slow it down etc.

 

[Vicente]

still waiting on the video from the landscaper... He's been busy. I did find this video of the hinge from the top... It's tough to see in this video because it's poorly lit.. there are some whiskers on the rear of the hinge, but the entire front was under compression, so it looks like the hinge was thin, but it was close to 4" and only about an inch of tall fibers showing. the rest was crushed when it broke.

I don't think we're going to get a lot of answers from the video which was taken from the ground, but we'll see when I get a good look and slow it down etc.

Is that the bottom of the top?

 

[Daniel]

Is that the bottom of the top?

yes

IN re-watching the above video... You can see the tall whisker fibers in a cluster on the top of the piece, while the rest of the hinge had compression fibers for most of its thickness, with only a thin strip of whiskers along the back edge of the hinge. That would indicate that the weight was not balanced. The tallest fibers in a broken hinge come from the balance center where the fibers are neither under tension or compression (to the side weight). With so much of the rest of hinge being under compression as evidenced by the close to 3" of crushed fibers, it is clear that the cluster of fibers held on the longest.

In the video they are on top. The notch is to the right and the back cut is to the left. In the tree, the cluster of tall whiskers was away from me. Given that this part of the hinge clearly held on the longest, it makes sense that if the far side (away from me) is holding on, the push back is going to come towards me. The only thing I can't figure out is why. The hinge was not tapered. The top had front lean, with no side weight to favor, that I recall. So as of now it would seem that the snag likely caused the redirection, but it's still a mystery.

 

[Vicente]

Looks like you under cut your hinge, not really sure what you were trying to do as far that goes it may have been part of your problem as well.

 

[Daniel]

Looks like you under cut your hinge, not really sure what you were trying to do as far that goes it may have been part of your problem as well.

what does "undercut your hinge" mean? If you thin there was a bypass in the two face cuts I can assure 100% there was not.. What looks like a cut at the front of the hinge is just tulip fibers that were under compression so much that it tore like a piece of paper...

 

[Bart_]

An engineering analysis I found of hinge function said that the face portion fibers only work for a while before they get largely weakened by getting crushed to bejeezuz, after which they offer little strength in their final bending/tensile phase just as the hinge is pulled apart by the closing of the face. This is the general case. So the main controlling strength is from fewer fibers than appears from simple hinge cross section.

 

[Daniel]

An engineering analysis I found of hinge function said that the face portion fibers only work for a while before they get largely weakened by getting crushed to bejeezuz, after which they offer little strength in their final bending/tensile phase just as the hinge is pulled apart by the closing of the face. This is the general case. So the main controlling strength is from fewer fibers than appears from simple hinge cross section.

well put and actually becomes clear and obvious to anyone who has been paying attention to their torn hinge fibers... Those short crushed fibers in the front of the hinge offer no appreciable control... So true, but rarely stated and put so well...

I was surprised by just how much of this hinge was comprised of those crushed fibers.. more than 75% from the look of it.. might have been 80+.

the other thing that remains a mystery is why the clump of stringy fibers on the top (as viewed in the video)

 

[evo]

the other thing that remains a mystery is why the clump of stringy fibers on the top (as viewed in the video)

From the video it looks like a fat tapered hinge. I can only guess that the pull contributed to weird forces in the trees natural compression/tension wood. It looks like you also had one large step in the back cut above the apex of the face. This also contributed to it, more so with a tulip tree. The tapered hinge (or what appears to be), basically caused the thinner side to compress more and the thicker side to pull more. This is why you have more whiskers on the thick side. Could this have been the side you were at with the top went sideways at you?
There are some tricks to pulling back leaners, which are not for the faint of heart and I don't care to share them publicly.

Thanks for the love note, my Karma is just fine.

 

[Daniel]

It wasn't tapered... it just looks that way in the video.... the appearance of a taper comes from the uneven way the fibers were under compression vs tension across the hinge.

The large step you refer to is simply stump shot... raising the back cut some 4" above the floor of the face. And yes, that was likely a factor in the way the pushback got redirected.

The large clump of fibers was on the side away from me, which makes sense regarding the pushback. If the hinge is holding on the right, then the pushback is going to be heading left.

as far as back learners go do you remember these?