Barber Chair Pics

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These pics are from 2006, taken on an old 35mm Pentax ME (non digital). Recently scanned onto my computer.

Tree was a Weeping Ash (you can see a similar tree in the background, 2nd photo). I was helping a friend out - the guy in the pics doing the cutting.

He climbed up the tree and removed the crown as there were a few obstacles in the garden, got it to a felling height then came down to drop it.

There was some front weight on the tree towards direction of fall. Nothing out of the ordinary. Although it was an Ash (prone to barberchairing).

Straight notch and backcut, no bore.

I managed to capture what happened. Luckily as the trunk started to split my friend knew what was happening and moved well back, a trainee or anyone new to treework may not have had the experience to know what was happening and as you can see from the final pic, the butt end of the trunk would've killed whoever it landed on.

We had an interesting discussion afterwards about what happened, should he have done a borecut? possibly, but I suspect he thought he could just chase the backcut through to a decent sized hinge and gravity would do the rest.

Anyway.......here are the pics.

337964-barberchair1.jpg


337964-barb.jpg


337964-barberchair3.jpg
 

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Amazing you got that action shot Grover.

I'd say your buddy went too small on his pie cut.

One third is a good rule of thumb.

Did you sit down on it and ask for just a little off the sides please?

jomoco
 
Wow! thanks for sharing Grover. That would have made the hair on the back of my neck stick out for a while had it happen to me.

I wonder if cutting a deeper notch cut would have solved the problem?
 
Glad you had a clear exit route. Keeps ya on your toes. Thanks so much for sharing!
 
Great pics, love the strawbales.

I think a slightly deeper notch and a bore cut technique would have prevented this - if you need another armchair QB to tell ya.
 
Looked like a good notch, maybe a tad bit shallow, but that shouldn't have been a problem with only a little bit of front lean... was there any chance of bypass on the face? from the look of the notch it seems unlikely... Did you ever determine the reason for the bbc?... that's something I go after like a plane crash investigator.

One thing that looks out of place is his body and saw positioning in the first pic... looks like he was plunging.. If that's no the case, that seems like a very awkward and unneeded cutting position.

That's the kind of thing that you only have too witness once, and you're changed forever.... might be extremely rare, but a lethal threat none the less, that should never be underestimated.. Thanks for sharing...
 
on second view, is it possible that he was using a bar shorter than the hinge and over-cut one side of the hinge, leaving a post on the other side (near side in the third pic)... the post would have prevented the hinge from moving, leaving all the front leaning force to split the trunk..
 
There's lots of ways to reduce the risk of barberchair but it's the ones you don't expect that of course are the most dangerous. In a production falling setting, by far the most common technique is a fast enough saw and the readiness to stay on the throttle. With practice though it takes very little extra time to bore out a decent amount of wood behind the hinge before starting at the back.
I've never cut ash though so I probably don't know what I'm talking about.

Here's a good video of what not to do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YAf61zz5VU
 
Great video Gord.

European Ash is notorious for barberchairing, I think what happened with this job was that both myself and my friend who did the cutting thought we could just show up that day, do the job and go home - it was about as simple a takedown as you could get. But it's when your in this frame of mind that accidents can happen.

Found another pic from the day -

338100-weepingash2.jpg
 

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A friend's grandfather was decapitated by a barber chair. He had gone alone to fell the tree in the woods. They found his body under the the tree.
 
[ QUOTE ]
A friend's grandfather was decapitated by a barber chair. He had gone alone to fell the tree in the woods. They found his body under the the tree.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a terrible thing to happen to a man.
 
[ QUOTE ]
There's lots of ways to reduce the risk of barberchair but it's the ones you don't expect that of course are the most dangerous. In a production falling setting, by far the most common technique is a fast enough saw and the readiness to stay on the throttle....

Trying to chase a backcut and staying in the death zone is by far the most common way to get killed by a barber chair. It's all about hinge thickness. If the hinge is too thick on a straight grained tree (forward lean provides the lever arm necessary to cause the barber chair) the easy splitting straight grain splits before the hinge can work (bend, steer, and sometime hold the log to the stump) You often have to adjust the rules (hinge thickness=10% diameter)on big straight grained hardwood. The best way to carefully set the hinge thickness is with the plunge cut. If the cutter would have known this and set the hinge at about 3/4" the barber chair never would have happened.

Some have mentioned the notch was not deep enough. That had nothing to do with the barber chair. The deepness of the notch determines hinge length. (other things as well, but not important in this situation) The hinge was long enough, just too thick for the situation.

You can not out cut a barber chair with a bored out Dolmar 7900 with a perfectly sharpened square grind/filed chain. Loose the race.....Loose your head.

Big straight grained hardwoods are the money trees, it doesn't pay to split them on the stump, and if you are dead who's gonna pay your bills?
 
Quote:

There's lots of ways to reduce the risk of barberchair but it's the ones you don't expect that of course are the most dangerous. In a production falling setting, by far the most common technique is a fast enough saw and the readiness to stay on the throttle....

Trying to chase a backcut and staying in the death zone is by far the most common way to get killed by a barber chair. It's all about hinge thickness. If the hinge is too thick on a straight grained tree (forward lean provides the lever arm necessary to cause the barber chair) the easy splitting straight grain splits before the hinge can work (bend, steer, and sometime hold the log to the stump) You often have to adjust the rules (hinge thickness=10% diameter)on big straight grained hardwood. The best way to carefully set the hinge thickness is with the plunge cut. If the cutter would have known this and set the hinge at about 3/4" the barber chair never would have happened.

Some have mentioned the notch was not deep enough. That had nothing to do with the barber chair. The deepness of the notch determines hinge length. (other things as well, but not important in this situation) The hinge was long enough, just too thick for the situation.

You can not out cut a barber chair with a bored out Dolmar 7900 with a perfectly sharpened square grind/filed chain. Loose the race.....Loose your head.

Big straight grained hardwoods are the money trees, it doesn't pay to split them on the stump, and if you are dead who's gonna pay your bills?

--------------------
NY-0722A

I agree almost 100%. I would just add that the act of cutting a deeper notch would have moved the hinge point back, therefore increasing the forward lean and potentialy increasing the violence.
 
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