Confused on snap cuts

The key is knowing how much distance between the two cuts. If there is any lean, and you make the cuts to close it will brake before your ready. To much distance between the cut and you cant snap it. The type of tree also plays a big roll.
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

You can really only do breaking cuts with wood that's more or less vertical, though when you get very familiar with the woods of your area, you might feel more comfortable with less verticality. I've chunked out limbs at 45 degree angles in manageable sizes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahh, but if you are have a lateral limb, and want to cut short pieces (say max 4 feet),then break it free, and drop it, just make your mismatch cuts vertically. Works like a charm.

[/ QUOTE ]
You're right, it works great. Just yesterday I was doing it on a horizontal limb about 5" diameter on a scarlet oak. As long as the cuts are far enough apart and perpendicular to the pull of gravity, it can work. As has been mentioned, you just gotta know the wood and what it can do. When I said 45 degrees I was thinking about bigger wood, I should've said that.
 
It's actually Asher Durand, a painting called "The Beeches", but I do have a van Ruisdael avatar on another site. I like purty pictures of trees.
 
[ QUOTE ]


As pieces get bigger in diameter they are harder to control and may sometimes 'roll' to one side or another. A small face cut makes a huge difference in preventing that roll and guiding the piece in the intended direction of fall.

When putting a face in a snap cut the angle part of the face does not have to exactly meet the horizontal part of the face. Nor does the face need to be very deep, so it is faster than making a true face cut to form a hinge.

[/ QUOTE ]

I drew the illustration in the original post. mahk explained exactly why the face is useful sometimes, it's not something i use for every snap cut but it's very useful in the right situation.
 

Attachments

  • 38923-faced_snap.webp
    38923-faced_snap.webp
    111 KB · Views: 166
Mark is what your talking about on the cut is a usual notch, bored the hinge and leave the strap with an overlapping cut above or below the strap to break when you pull with the rope?

I have done it, but I dont see the advantage. Last time I did it was dropping a 24" leaner with my 200T and wanted to see what would happen. Not at all unexpected it fell just as if I cut through the backstrap.

For a neutural tree I still see no advantage offhand, perhaps if it was a smaller tree and you were alone pulling by hand?

Today I dropped 3 oaks and a gum using the GRCS by myself, nothing to it aside the $2500 winch!
 
The cut that 'Dwayne from Davey' endorses is useless. He preaches the cut as a method to enable the feller to clear the danger zone before the tagline is pulled taut and the tree goes over. In other words he expects the snap cut to potentially hold the weight of the tree until it is pulled over. I tried to introduce him to wedges but what do I know I've been doing this for a tenth of the time he has.

At any rate, boring in to shape the hinge wood and then making the final backcut from the outside is effective to reduce barberchairing in heavy leaners.
 

Attachments

  • 38938-untitled.GIF
    38938-untitled.GIF
    2.7 KB · Views: 264
Gord, you hit the nail on the head, that diagram you have is the safest way to fell a leaner.

You can run into trouble if the bar isnt long enough, you have to plunge in the other side and get them lined up close. Good saw skills and no worries.

You can also bore the centre out right in the middle of the scarf if the bars too short for a double sided cut.
 
I must agree, if anything a false sense of security plus a harder time pulling the tree over. It is rare (for me) to need to escape when felling Urban trees, perhaps when felling a dead tree through canopies,a boucing log, or steep terrain.


For a heavy leaner of any (large) diameter the plunge cut is the only way to go.
 
These snap cuts work similar to side bore i think. In that they both force the distance between the tensioned hold and the compressed pivot to be a longer stretch than walking back cut to hinge until hinge fails. This gives tensioned holding wood more leverage for a lower tensioned release when cutting the final 'strap' of wood to trigger re-lease. Support then goes from total to Zer0 more instantly. This can give more sudden impacting push off to an early close in the face; i'd think.

Early closes in face can lead to Barberhairing. i think the original drawing tries to limit this (d)effect by placing a face, then kerfing deep into the face to imitate a 'pure snap cut' with slightly different tuned charachteristics. This 'kerfed face'or 'faced snapcut' allows more of the tree to be past the new compression/pivot point, at close. Assuring more of a pulling past the close; than pushing into the close; for less chance of BarberChair; in trade for reducing the holdingwood's leverage.

In tree, this face strategy also allows a vertical 'stump' to have some of it's weight forward of the pivot/close, to help you snap it off. This also gives a ramp to more easily tilt the stump/load over and slide towards target more gently; especially in making a small humboldt rather than conventional face. The fact that you are pivoting on a line across (where hinge usually is) rather than an outer 'point of the circle' of the outer diameter of the tree, gives more stability/ easier to aim to target.

Also, in tree or on ground; the pivot 'line' of a face; rather than a pivot 'point' of a no-face spreads out the compression for less loading per 'inch'; and gives more side to side stability.

Especially when doing snap cuts (no face just kerf under) to get branches and stobs to drop straight down; i'll kerf deeper on the heavier side to give it more leverage on close. In hinging i think we use the pull force, so this adjsutmeant then would be to the opposite side of lean/heavy. But here in SnapCuts; i think we are using the push force; instead of the pull force. So, our control comes from the heavy/lean side when using the push force and not it's opposite (as when using the pull force in hinging).
All theories are my own; so ain't necessarily write! /forum/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
 
Do you mean Nuestater?

If that is the case then both you and lumberjack aren't considering the work principle that the snap/strap cut provides. For starters the pull line has to be taut to start, otherwise your tree may go backwards. Not pulling-the-tree-over-tight, just taught to prevent reward fall. Then, knowing your tree is balanced on 3 points, hinge, strap and the rope, you cut the strap/snap. Nothing changes when you're done. When you (see the tree isn't supposed to be the brains) are ready, you pull the tree over. Getting back to the underlying work principle, this set-up is intended primarily to reduce the odds of you getting injured during felling. Once you are outside of the distance/time/percentage zone (I forget the ratio)you increase the odds in your favour of not sustaining injury.
 
Mangoes my point was that a bypass cut made at the backcut will not hold even a tiny fraction of a tree's weight if it is leaning back. So if the weight is being held by the pull line anyways, what's the point of the bypass cut? Wedges, however, will hold as much weight as you might ever need.

Not Dwayne Neustaeter I forget this guy's last name, he's the head trainer I think for Davey Tree.
 
Same as Gord said, the bypass will hold very little weight. Whatever weight it will hold will be added to the pull on the line needed to get the tree going.

You say that the bypassed strap counts as the 3rd leg, I say its the 4th, here is why: If the rope counts as one leg, then each of the hinges corners should count as one leg. The rope only works in one direction while the hinge counters the side to side forces.

I still think it is a solution to a problem that doesnt exsist in my world.
 
No not Dwayne of Arboriculture Canada, Dwayne of Davey Tree. The concept isn't a bad one, but I would have to agree that I feel very confident with wedges and the needed pull line alone. But, it's cool to consider for some situation. The problem I see is the difficulty in determining the exact amount of overlap to hold, but not prevent the break. I'm not sold, but it's cool to hear different perspectives.
 
Ultimately I will use, and I hope others will as well, whatever technique is suitable for each situation. I just thought that the principle needed more discussion than the technique. Anybody remember that ratio? Something like 90% of felling fatalities occur within 30 seconds of the start of the fall, within 5 feet of the stump. Oooorrr something like that.....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom