"One handing" a chainsaw??!!

Gareth's Tree

Gareth's Tree

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Ashtabula
I know you are not supposed to "one hand" a chainsaw. So, what are you supposed to do when you are up in a bucket or lift and are piecing down a tree? We have always just cut with our top handle saw and tossed the branches down with other hand. But, I know this is not how it is supposed to be done...

Is everything that cannot be dropped supposed to be roped? What do you guys do?
 
Sometimes I’ll use snap cuts, sometimes use handsaw and hold and throw with the other hand, sometimes I’ll make as much of the cut as I can with chainsaw and finish with handsaw, sometimes rope stuff down, sometimes speed line.

I’ve broken the habit of 1 handing chainsaws almost completely.

You can’t argue that you absolutely have more control over your saw with 2 hands on it. Losing control will fuck things up very quickly and it’s not just risk of cutting oneself, it’s risk of cutting life support ropes.

Very reasonable question, and productivity is important too, but not number 1 priority.
I’ve been second and triple guessing myself the last few years before making moves now.

I know and am still friends with 2 families that lost the fathers from climbing accidents, and it’s really fuckin heartbreaking. I’m straying from the topic of one handing a bit, but the point is those 2 guys could still be here if they’d adhered to the industry safety standards for this work.
Rip Dave
Rip CJ
 
Bango Skank said:
Sometimes I’ll use snap cuts, sometimes use handsaw and hold and throw with the other hand, sometimes I’ll make as much of the cut as I can with chainsaw and finish with handsaw, sometimes rope stuff down, sometimes speed line.
....
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This is what I do as well - lots of finishing with the handsaw. Sometimes I find myself roping off something that is only being roped to make the cut safe (there is nothing below preventing it from being bombed down).

I decided a couple of years ago "there is always another way" - and I have found that there always is. It just has to be a priority. For those who would say that sacrifices production...there are lots of things we do that sacrifice production. Heck, it would be more expedient to just drop every tree standing on the ground...but there are other priorities preventing that. Choosing the safety of keeping 2 hands on the saw is choosing a priority. If you think there are circumstances where one-handing is the only way, you will probably always make a lot of one-handed cuts. If you think it is never the only way, you will find a work around.

Bid jobs accordingly and "lost production" due to safety is a non-issue...just as it is on everything else we do that makes the job go slower than it could be (not smashing through a roof, good clean-up at the end of a job, matting to protect the turf, safety meetings, etc., etc., etc....). It all takes extra time and that time should be accounted for when the job is bid.

(didn't there used to be a smiley of a dead horse being beaten? Insert that here)
 
Somewhere I saw an interesting video regarding this a year or two ago...I think it was a presentation to a bunch of arborists by a guy who was arguing that one should never use less than two hands on the saw...IIRC, I think the guy making the presentation sounded like a Brit...

Not being an arborist (beyond amateur), I hadn't realized that there was debate over the issue, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear an arbo say that you don't necessarily "have to" one-hand the chainsaw to be an arborist, because one-handing seems to me really risky in a way that could be cumulative like sunburn and "add up" over time in odds stacked against you...

Even with TWO hands on the handles, small lightweight TH tree saws are FUGLY when they kickback IMHO.
 
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If the saw wasn’t designed to be used with one why make it a top handle saw??
If I had to use a saw 2 handed I would certainly be choosing a rear handled saw regardless of the size timber I was cutting.
The ergonomics of a top handle saw certainly lean towards one handed cutting than 2
 
Funnily enough in some cuts two handing can make the chain grab the side of the kerf (especially if have a slightly bent tooth) and make it kick. Generally it is safer, especially if you are in line of fire of kick back.

Production does matter. There’s plenty of discussion on safety vs production. Some valid issues aren’t often discussed.

In aviation there is tiers of the standard of maintenance, based on removing even the remotest chance of failure and they correlate with cost according to the purpose ie Military, public transport, private etc you go to the one that corresponds to your class and go to the one with highest quality for the one you can afford.

Tree companies doing the full complement of safety meetings and procedures with five pages paperwork on each job and mandatory rest breaks, double roping, shut down services prior to start job etc in a financially challenged environment is no longer contracting, it is volunteering... making mandatory doesn’t always make it safer, in fact I have been on commercial jobs with so many conditions and precautions taken with corresponding paperwork that I worry that I have forgotten everything actually to do with arboriculture because of the level of distraction caused by the compliance paperwork... and I believe that the full complement of safety compliance in this regard actually falls into the category of anti-competitive behaviour that serves the nationalised and large firms that have the backing and investment capability to get it regulated in a mandatory sense...

Fuel stations are the same. The big providers actually sponsor the enviro regs to mandatorily install fibreglass sealed sensor fuel tanks that cost 6 figures to create a financial barrier for new companies wanting to break into the trade...

Sometimes this paperwork and mandatory meetings etc are useful (newly assembled teams, teams with mixed levels of training etc) but often these safety culture regulations are about identifying persons to blame in the case of an accident, rather than prevent one....

There are some government lobby groups trying to address this but they face opposition from extra-regulatory lobby groups. Regulation often becomes over-regulation with non altruistic motives...

I personally don’t like hard fast rules that are supposed to be some magical armour that prevents accidents. I rather prefer to see the building of competence that can address each situation individually and react/plan accordingly, and implement satisfactorily...
 
Stripping a conifer, you can bang off a bunch of branches with a Silky swipe for each limb on a whorl, one or two whorls, cut and throw, followed up with chainsawing stubs. If you cut your stub length right. You can have your left hand on the wrap-handle and the pinky will hold the end of the stub against the bar, on the top of the fuel tank, if it can't free-drop due to obstacles below.

One-handing is more wear on shoulders and arms. Good work positioning is better than lesser work positioning, always.
 
When most people around here won't even where a climbing helmet, at some point it makes you uncompetitive if you have to charge 50% more to cover all the time for added safety stuff. I'm not saying to operate unsafely. Sometimes it has to be about production or you may as well hang it up.

One of my employees witnessed a guy doing a tree job for one of the local campgrounds over the 4th. The guy put his spikes on and climbed up around 30 ft without using a lanyard or rope. No helmet or any other ppe. He was only pruning the tree so he shouldn't have been spiking it, etc. Most of the 'tree guys' in our area are like this. I'm sure someone hired him because he's cheaper than a 'safe' company.
 
Fivepoints said:
When most people around here won't even where a climbing helmet, at some point it makes you uncompetitive if you have to charge 50% more to cover all the time for added safety stuff. I'm not saying to operate unsafely. Sometimes it has to be about production or you may as well hang it up.

One of my employees witnessed a guy doing a tree job for one of the local campgrounds over the 4th. The guy put his spikes on and climbed up around 30 ft without using a lanyard or rope. No helmet or any other ppe. He was only pruning the tree so he shouldn't have been spiking it, etc. Most of the 'tree guys' in our area are like this. I'm sure someone hired him because he's cheaper than a 'safe' company.
Click to expand...

Totally agree, here the liability laws mean campgrounds have to go extra mile or take risk of wearing a civil suit by possible disaffected campground users with no insurance backing (most commercial around here is same) so they hire companies with insurance to transfer liability and have to comply with safety rules in process...

Interestingly the insurance premium mitigation exercise means corporates will spend mid six figures on a safety review if there is an incident onsite and not one safety issue will be fixed at end of it - it is simply compliance paperwork to meet insurance requirements for their premiums.... I know of two incidents in one office of a multinational within two months that together reviews cost $400k and at end of it both safety issues were still there and ready to cause another likely incident. Together these two issues would have cost $150 to fix.

Weird world...
 
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Scheffa said:
If the saw wasn’t designed to be used with one why make it a top handle saw??
If I had to use a saw 2 handed I would certainly be choosing a rear handled saw regardless of the size timber I was cutting.
The ergonomics of a top handle saw certainly lean towards one handed cutting than 2
Click to expand...

This line of thinking has been debunked many many times. It's lazy, dangerous justification.
 
Fivepoints said:
When most people around here won't even where a climbing helmet, at some point it makes you uncompetitive if you have to charge 50% more to cover all the time for added safety stuff. I'm not saying to operate unsafely. Sometimes it has to be about production or you may as well hang it up.

One of my employees witnessed a guy doing a tree job for one of the local campgrounds over the 4th. The guy put his spikes on and climbed up around 30 ft without using a lanyard or rope. No helmet or any other ppe. He was only pruning the tree so he shouldn't have been spiking it, etc. Most of the 'tree guys' in our area are like this. I'm sure someone hired him because he's cheaper than a 'safe' company.
Click to expand...

I run into this all the time around me. There's always some idiot with a saw doing a 2k job for 700!
 
I used to get frustrated losing jobs to those hacks....but I'm too stinkin busy to worry about that any more.

My main annoyance now is that they bring down the reputation of the tree care industry while bringing up insurance and workers comp rates. I scratch my head why anyone would hire them.

I don't do turf, so it is kinda like seeing some of the mowers that scalp the lawn way too short; or the irrigation systems that are programmed to run at 8 p.m. Doesn't affect me, but I wonder why people pay good money for ignorance and mismanagement.
 
Scheffa said:
If the saw wasn’t designed to be used with one why make it a top handle saw??
If I had to use a saw 2 handed I would certainly be choosing a rear handled saw regardless of the size timber I was cutting.
The ergonomics of a top handle saw certainly lean towards one handed cutting than 2
Click to expand...

I think at least part of the purpose of a TH saw is that both hands are supporting the saw's mass, since the COG is - in the case of both TH and RH saws - ideally where the bar is located or thereabouts. For a rear handle, the left hand is supporting most of the saw's mass. TH, in my little experience, is much less wear and tear on the arm and shoulder when in some of the cutting positions one ends up in while tied in.
 
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