Wedgin' n jackin'

Jem4417 said:
The dude comes on here with similar shit and you guys blast him. Cut the notch last is a apparently a talking point but anything Daniel throws out is quarantined as instant death. Get real.
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Cutting your back cut in first is standard operating procedure in BC, in the sense that it is 1 of 11 or 12 scenarios tested in the BC Faller standard. It is absolutely a tried, tested and true method of felling small diameter trees.
 
Bought K and H wedges this spring, they don't like stacking in hardwood so bore cutting. Maybe roughen up a side to hold better? Hard heads are the only brand that I've not cracked in freezing temps, read varied reviews on red heads in winter, also slippery. Saw shop I use has Wells that have grabbers on one side which bite in and stack really nicely but snap in the cold.
 
CanadianStan said:
Cutting your back cut in first is standard operating procedure in BC, in the sense that it is 1 of 11 or 12 scenarios tested in the BC Faller standard. It is absolutely a tried, tested and true method of felling small diameter trees.
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What? You mean I didn't learn this crazy back-cut first voodoo method from space aliens during an alien abduction?
 
Stig is a Danish logger who brought this plastic plate stacking into the light. The flat plates with one wedge do not spit out like stacked wedges. You can stack taller, at the rear of the tree, giving the most leverage/ lift, than two large wedges would give. No Grain.

Really, if you need, you can get a solid piece of wood (tight grain and strong) and cut a flat-cookie for this purpose, if you don't have enough wedges.

Can you have enough?


Stig crushed a POW with a dyneema line and a forwarder, so they had one custom built. He does that euro-short bar, buttress flair removal, low stump, 1/2 wrap-style, in flat-lands. Different way to skin a cat. He's pounded a wedge or two, once or twice.





Madsen's has some massive, long, plastic wedges that we called the tongue, for no good reason. About 12-14" long, IIRC. When you have a lot of tree to lift, more surface area FTW. As I recall from over 5 years ago, we would put a large wedge on top of a 'tongue' wedge for big stacking, or just alone for driving. Maybe we only had one 'tongue'. IDRC...I don't recall correctly.




Getting hit in the face by a flying wedge, from sloppy driving is NOT a good technique. Flat pounder face to wedge...square up your body from the right position, and keep adjusting.
 
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Bango Skank said:
Stackable wedges are cool, but sometimes can get unstable if my hammer strikes get a little messy.
Why don't they sell plastic wedges with a head that's twice (or thrice) as tall as normal? I've tried googling these before, if someone sells them I wasn't able to find them.
Wouldn't that be useful or am I missing something? Possible invention idea for someone lol, I'd buy a couple.

To be honest I don't wedge trees over much, unless it's a straight balanced tree that just needs a little lift to get it moving. If it's got any lean at all the wrong way, I'll put a rope up it everytime. I mostly use wedges to keep from pinching my bar, and cutting stumps as low as possible.

This might make for an enlightening thread for me.
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If you use a small piece of stick when cutting a stump across low the ground it will skid that stump off the stump as soon as you done cutting as pose with a wedge it pushes opposite of the wedge. If that makes sense, I used to do the wedges until old timber faller showing little stick trick. Piece won’t seat on your bar.
 
Kenny Sanchez said:
If you use a small piece of stick when cutting a stump across low the ground it will skid that stump off the stump as soon as you done cutting as pose with a wedge it pushes opposite of the wedge. If that makes sense, I used to do the wedges until old timber faller showing little stick trick. Piece won’t seat on your bar.
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Yup. Regardless of sticks or wedges, cut 2/3rds then place the stick or wedge. As the kerf closes at the start of the cut it pivots the last of the cut upwards. Not only preventing pinching but literally counter weighing the stump cut off the bar
 
Kenny Sanchez said:
If you use a small piece of stick when cutting a stump across low the ground it will skid that stump off the stump as soon as you done cutting as pose with a wedge it pushes opposite of the wedge. If that makes sense, I used to do the wedges until old timber faller showing little stick trick. Piece won’t seat on your bar.
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This is why you use the teeter tooter trick with wedges. Works beautifully for cutting and pushing potatoe chips in a tree, flushing off stumps, and picking vertical logs with one cut. No binds, no fuss, no muss!!!
 
Jem4417 said:
The dude comes on here with similar shit and you guys blast him. Cut the notch last is a apparently a talking point but anything Daniel throws out is quarantined as instant death. Get real.
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Honestly its admirable of you to stick up for him. As long as this isn't a burner account and your not dan the "majic" man himself. And maybe he did get treated harshly, but most of that he brought onto himself.

However, if you can't puzzle out the basic physics that require the back cut to be made first on a back leaner, you need to either go back to basics with a good mentor, or gtfo of this business before you hurt yourself or more likely someone else.
 
So I think this is a good thread, and I’d like to keep it going. Yesterday I was showing a relatively inexperienced groundman some tricks to help him pound wedges and it occurred to me that the actual pounding of the wedges is overlooked too. Nothing here that’s groundbreaking innovation but just a couple tricks like shifting your weight from the back foot to the front foot at just the right time during the swing will greatly increase the driving force. Sliding the top hand on the handle down til it meets the bottom hand at just the right time. Swinging your whole body in a whip like hook, much like a boxer throwing a hook to the body. These things help you hit harder AND hit longer which is important as anybody who has spent time pounding big leaners up out of the blue line knows. Endurance is needed. Timing and accuracy are far more important than brute strength. Let’s see if someone with more eloquence can add to this
 
chiselbit said:
So I think this is a good thread, and I’d like to keep it going. Yesterday I was showing a relatively inexperienced groundman some tricks to help him pound wedges and it occurred to me that the actual pounding of the wedges is overlooked too. Nothing here that’s groundbreaking innovation but just a couple tricks like shifting your weight from the back foot to the front foot at just the right time during the swing will greatly increase the driving force. Sliding the top hand on the handle down til it meets the bottom hand at just the right time. Swinging your whole body in a whip like hook, much like a boxer throwing a hook to the body. These things help you hit harder AND hit longer which is important as anybody who has spent time pounding big leaners up out of the blue line knows. Endurance is needed. Timing and accuracy are far more important than brute strength. Let’s see if someone with more eloquence can add to this
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Cant add much. It's not unlike swinging a tee ball bat while a child. In arboriculture we often are blessed with making our cuts at comfortable locations on the stump. This should be part of the planning, where is the best spot to pound wedges in. I just wedged over a sizable doug fir, and made the a humbolt down low out of habit? It just felt right, but it was a SHITTY spot to try to pound in the wedges.

Using your whole body helps quite a bit with power to the blows, but when sliding your hand down the handle, full arm extension power swing, you loose accuracy and breath quickly. I use this swing only when needed, and rather time my hits and use multiple wedges. It's surprising how little force is needed to move BIG wood.
 
Agreed. And when I slide my hand down it’s ususlly on the back swing just before full extension, then the lock up, swing,twist,shift,crack thing
 
Been thinking of modding smooth wedges to add barbs for spitting backcuts, while digesting. Like using a soldering iron or wood burning hobby tool to poke at an angle on one side of some k+h or hardheads vs buying new ones that'll snap tomorrow. Good thread, keep it goin.
 
Serf Life said:
Been thinking of modding smooth wedges to add barbs for spitting backcuts, while digesting. Like using a soldering iron or wood burning hobby tool to poke at an angle on one side of some k+h or hardheads vs buying new ones that'll snap tomorrow. Good thread, keep it goin.
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Wonder what a waifer pattern on a table saw would do.
 
IDK of any particularly. Hard wedging on hardwood will crush barbs, probably softwood, too.
There are rifled wedges, sorta shallow tongue-and-groove, for stacking.

Keeping the mushrooming off is important when stacking. To keep them neat, plunge a kerf into a log, set your wedge, and back-chain off the mushrooms with a saw. A small saw-chain, like a top-handle would have, might do the detail work, with the least over-cutting.




Some people will get sheets of nylon, and have a flat stack of nylon and use one tapered wedge. European trick, where I saw it.




A plunge cut slightly below the placement of the first wedge, like a light 1/2" will create a slot that allows you to stack two wedges, with wood between. The wood 'spacer' will break free of the stump when you're beating the wedges.
The vertical offset must be enough that the wedge heads don't interfere with each other.


You can stack three wedges this way. Normally, I'll bore through the center of the hinge, from the face-cut toward the back-cut, then go to the back-cut side, and bore two horizontal (wedge-width plus a little more) slots, vertically-aligned. Set three wedges (with good, narrow tips), then drive them tight. Cut the two sides of the holding wood up to the gutted hinge. Bang Bang Bang 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3
 
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