My 14 year old dropping a dead ash. Could not get the video to load but here are a few pictures




He is still learning and a touch nervous on bigger trees so I scared out a line for him to follow for his notch and a line not to go below or past on each side on his cut to the notch. Went perfectly and he made a clean unhurried exit as the tree started to go and got clear of the but end like a pro. Gaining confidence every day.

Cutting firewood was of my favorite things to when I was that age. I never wore any safety equipment back then. It's good to see your son suited up properly.

Keith

I didn't either only started myself when I decided I better set the example for the kids. Getting older I realized I'm not bullet proof and 100$ for chaps is very cheep insurance and I'm brain dead if I don't put a pair on. Way to easy just to slip and loose balance or just not pay attention. Only takes a single Time and split second to have a very bad day. There have been time it has let slide with all of us in the past but no longer.

Right on. I buy the chap inserts from Madsen's and have the missus sew them into my jeans (or buy the ones Madsen's sells that are made to accept the inserts) that way my chaps are in my pants and I don't have buckles and straps getting snagged in the brush (plentiful in most of AK). It also makes it really difficult to forget my chaps lol

I like that especially since you're cutting every day probably all day. Sure avoids the well I will be OK just to make a few cuts situation when protection is built into your pants. that is something I didn't know was an option.

What's funny about that is, most of the time people's reasoning for not putting on chaps is that it was just a few small cuts they had to make...nobody ever cuts themselves bucking a decent log or falling a good sized tree, it's always a limb, bucking a top out of a road, falling one small whip, etc. Because I'm a larger cut your bar is buried or at least dawged in so if you slip up or it kicks back the chain is buried in wood, not your leg. When the same slip up or kick back happens when you're cutting brush or small trees you're usually cutting at a weird angle down by your legs and fully supporting and controlling the saw with your hands/arms

Edit: I have had chains break inside of a large cut and come shooting out in a big tangled wad and hit my thigh at mach 3

I have been using a chainsaw since I was 10 years old. It’s always satisfying to see a big tree come crashing down.

My cousin almost had his finger cut off by a chainsaw two years ago. It’s a long story but his fingernail and a couple of tendons were cut. Miraculously he made a full recovery and is using it just fine.

Good job teaching the youngster to cut

I may need to look into those inserts and sewing to a pair of jeans
My main reason for not wearing chaps in the warmer months is they are hot

When it is cold they are no problem

Good job

Awesome! Good to see PPE especially chaps. A good chain hitting those things at full bore and the weight of the saw buys a guy a few minutes to tell his wife goodbye.
I always tell people when they ask what the most dangerous thing a lineman does is driving and running a saw.

Good for him. Safety No. 1

That hard hat with muffs and face shield I will say at first I thought was not necessary but I was at the saw shop getting chains and new chaps( cat pee on the old set in the shed) and the guy that owned the shop pointed out the echo kit that was the hard hat and chaps foe not much more than the chaps so I thought I would give it a try.

The hard hat is to shallow for my big head but the ear muffs keep in place. The muffs are better than plugs and ear pro is 100% necessary especially with my loud Saws with the mufflers opened up. It could possibly help with a widow maker some. The face screen keeps some crud out of our face but can make it hard to see especially wit low sun angles when it reflects off of it..

I think I'm going to get some snap on ears for one ofnmy hard hats that fits my head better. I don't care much for the added weight in the factory but it's not an issue when on and in the woods.

I don't own a hard hat so will not cut dead ash trees, the way they break off is death to a few folk. When I retired 7 years ago I dropped all the green ash in my yard, still alive then, the ash next to the fields I wait till they drop and do the cutting then, I do not burn any wood.

looking good , there are some great videos for fellers available on YouTube it is the British Columbia fellers training , good stuff for the kids to watch.

I find myself doing a lot more of the Humboldt under cut than the open these days man is it fast easy and 95% done from behind the tree

especially if your saw has a big set of dogs it is a stick and rip

felling is all about the prep work get it all laid out right and don't rush.

I would have gotten rid of that little on in the way as it needs to come down any way with that missing bark near his head in the first picture

I think a lot of people discount pole wood as not for good heating but it needs no splitting and given a little time to dry burns fine.

always clear your work space as best you can.

they are looking good they will be great as they keep learning.

Hired, send him over and I'll send him back as a climber.

hard hat saved me big time , when the tree I wasn't even working on dropped a limb , it was behind me and dropped a hanging limb that had been up there a year or more through many a wind

I was working on some brush , it fell the Y hit me on both sides of the hard hat tossed my forward and pinned me down to the ground
the sides of the Y were 3-4 inches each and the limb about 6 inches

bruised all down my back , glasses nocked off pants ripped out from taking a knee very forcibly in getting pinned to the ground.
had I not had the hard hat on it would have been at minimum a bunch of stitches to close my head up , if it didn't kill me , I stayed conscious the entire time and had the saw pinned to the ground and was able to turn it off first thing.

I gave him a quick and dirty lesson on using a becket hitch when I had to take a dieing mapel over the house down. They are good with clove hitch & bowline

Sign him up for GOL 1 and it will polish his knowledge/skill.

not sure what them boys want to do for work , but you and 2 of them working you could do really well as a tree service , maybe let them get to 16.

a cousin and his son did this , he has his girlfriend working for him now also . the wife was cheating and had to go bye bye about 2 years ago

I saw him this summer he said more work than he can ever get to he has been buying trucks and equipment to expand keeping labor down to

he has a bucket lift on tracks that can fit through a single fence section , he removes a fence panel and drives it thru and can take out those trees in small back yards that have to come down in little pieces.

I started dragging brush for my uncle when I was 9. started doing jobs with my cousin when we were 16. Went to work for a few line clearance companies around 19 to 21. Did trees on the side untill about 10 years ago.

I have thought about doing just what your talking about but at this point I would rather keep my feet on the ground and not be hanging from a rope in questionable tree over a high dollar house roping limbs out.

So if I would do something like that in would be easy trees lawns and light land scape. Maybe grinding stumps and putting down mulch. I'm over the inaccessible monster removals overhanging houses and with power lines.

I have no clue on modern pricing. I was blown away when one of the guys the kids shoveled snow for told me his lawn guy charged $75 a cuting and was so busy he turns work down. I thought 45 would have been kind of high.

But I would much rather be doing things at home with the kids so really need to get started on it. Best start will be get them to pick up more yards.

Along with the yard work, you add in tree work, leaf removal, gutter cleaning ,chimney sweeping, light excavating, driveway sealing, sky's the limit... These are all relatively simple but labor intensive jobs that many people, especially seniors don't want, or can no longer do. Upgrade equipment as profits build to make things easier. You already have the labor, just need to direct it.

Need to get them both Competent enough to run a crew and then run 3 crews. I made a lot of money working for myself.I was younger and had more energy to hustle the work. I also have a problem with work life balance a d when working for myself I would never quit. I was on a job, geting ready for one, working on equipment, or thinking about geting more 24 7.

I still work to much now but when I'm off I'm off and don't think about the place at all. so when I'm home I'm here both in Mind and body. Working for myself I may have bee there but my mind was not.

Now I have the income and ability to get good equipment.

Been putting up firewood since '72 and I can say I've loved every minute of it. Till lately. Now I'm 76 and a lot of things ain't as much fun as they used to be!

I think you take a lesson from the Mennonites , you don't hire a bunch of outsiders who will stress you out , you work with family , you take the jobs you want to take , you do the work well and you will probably hardly even need to advertise.

His notch looks ok but you should post picture of the stump and hinge . He should learn the Swedish open face notch felling method using a bore cut, much safer than the Humboldt method for someone with little experience. White Ash is very straight grained and easily barber chairs if you leave too wide of hinge and do not cut a bit of the corners.

A Humboldt comes in from the bottom side, we do it because in large diameter wood the undercut slides out instead of having to wrestle out an undercut that might weigh several hundred pounds, also a Humboldt cut largely prevents the butt of the tree from coming off the back of the stump when the cuts close and there's a large amount of pressure, because the butt would have to climb up the stump, as opposed to having a ramp ready to slide the butt back like with a conventional cut. I use a conventional cut on occasion when I have to top a tree, because it doesn't "load up" on the stump like a Humboldt can which creates the rodeo effect when the top cuts loose, so it's smoother topping with an overhand (conventional) notch. The key to not barber chairing is not in the type of notch, so much as how open you make the notch, it's entirely possible to open up a Humboldt enough that the tree can hit the ground still attached to the stump if you want, also having a sharp enough chain and enough horsepower to keep up with the tree. Also if it has a really heavy lean, don't go with the lean, go sideways.

The notch and stump end have been cut off and burnt already or will be by the time I get back home in 5 or 6 days. it was your basic thing with a few inches of hing wood a little more on one side as he used that to give it to fall where it would bust up the fewest trees.

I never learned proper names of techniques just how I was taught mostly from the old guys I worked under doing line clearance. Instead of the normal know it all youn guys they were used to I made it clear I was there to learn and if I asked questions it was to know the why and not questioning their ability. That went a long way and they took me under their wing. BUT There is a Ton I don't know I promise. Heck there is so much nice climbing gear and new methods that have became popular in the last 20 years I know nothing about.
There are so many different thing in the forestry industry It would take many lifetimes to learn just the basics. I would love to learn more about logging and sawing Timber just to have the knowledge but it's not likely to happen.

I can't teach him something I don't know about so off to look up the method your educating me on and see how it's different.

And thanks to everyone for the input I often spend time looking things posted even if I fail to say so.

here you can thank the Canadian tax payers for this educational stuff

https://www.worksafebc.com/en/resou...ideo-series/introduction-1-of-17?lang=en

lots of info on the undercuts and the why

17 videos

maybe the boys can do some homework.

Cutter college. We did some helicopter units in coastal BC, they were willing to accept 10 years verifiable experience cutting on the west coast of the US also.

So basically reversing the notch and that pushed the tree forward and down vs allowing it to possibly go up. makes since. Will be fun geting my cuts to come together after decades of making traditional notches.

Reversed of what you're used to is a Humboldt (I'll add a picture) the open notch someone mentioned is where you combine the two and come in from a 45° angle from the bottom AND the top, creating a giant 90° open face cut. I use them on very rare occasions if I want to make absolutely certain the butt of the tree stays attached to the stump (like if someone asks me to cut a tree beside their house and I don't want it bouncing or rolling when it hits the ground) but it's a PITA when you have to cut the tree off the stump after it falls in a commercial setting. I cut most everything up really tight as it's starting to go, I stay in the cut and steer them off the stump (big NO NO if you're not 100% sure of what you're doing) the only time I try to bail early is if I'm on a springboard that's a reasonable jumping distance from the ground, if I'm up high I just tuck tight into the stump and mumble a prayer as the face closes

You have a lot of larger trees up there. over the last decade the log truck down here are falling small and smaller diameter logs.

On some of the linked videos those Saws sure would eat. I'm guessing partly being soft wood and the other part powerfull Saws and very sharp chains.

What timber tramp states is true. I mostly use the Humboldt method but I have 50 years experience felling northeastern hardwood timber. Here in the northeast most every logging contractor now uses a feller buncher, with a hot saw felling head, faster , safer and because it’s safer it lowers their workers compensation rates.


Most contractors here in NY still hand felling with a chainsaws have to take several courses to get logger certified in order to obtain affordable workers compensation insurance. The courses teach the open face notch and bore cutting method because like I said it is safer for someone who does not have much experience felling timber. Like timber tramp said the Humboldt sometime forces you to try to keep up with the cut while the tree begins to fall, making you to stay by the stump sometimes longer than you want to.


When bore cutting, the notch is cut , the proper amount of hinge is left , so the tree is ready to fall. But the small amount of holding wood in the felling cut keeps the tree from falling. So you have your escape route already cleared, then you saw the holding wood and exit on the escape route.

there is also the swenson

it is basically a humbolt but you cut a second plane a bit more open

I have only used it a few times on some old maples 42 across

it helps it slide off the stump it is explained in the videos

Squash......I'm not a pro tree person......I only cut for firewood or storm damage on my farm ...use16 inch sthil with easy start...a really good product.....your description of bore cutting is exactly what I have experienced to a T. .....my problem is aligning horizontal cuts to all match up at right points.....is there trick to this........would painting lines on trunk help keeping cuts matching up....thanks.....

I'm no pro and not whom you asked. but you don't need to use paint just score marks in with your saw.

That's what I do to give the kids guide lines.

They are busy for sure
Don’t they ever go to school???

What do you think this is? How many kids at school can identify over 26 native trees by leafs and bark identify what's killing them and run a chain saw and fell trees safely.? And at 12 and 14.

Just one of the many things they learn home schooling and with 4H they can't get in public schools. Math, science, English, Spanish, history and Geography only take a few hours a day when yiur not teaching to the slowest kids in the class and have all the distractions.

Kind of the same way they can effectively set traps, hunt and clean and cook game. Everything is a learning experience and teachable moment. My youngest put a new motor in our gator with my guidance in 4.5 hours and that included a trip to town for special tool. He was 8 at the time so I did pick the old motor up and out and set the new one in. He did the rest.

So that’s a long answer of NO ? I done all those things plus went to public schools interacting with others. Developing social skills. Lived in the woods if I wasn’t in school.Read constantly because no tv back then. Spent EVERY Saturday cutting wood entire month of October at 13. 2 pickup truck loads. 1 for my grandmother 1 for my parents. My father suffered a massive widow maker heart attack at 38. 11 days in intensive care. I cut the tree. Sawed up the wood. Split it by hand. Loaded it then ricked it when it got home. Trapped foxes and sit every evening by a den shooting greys when they came out. Average 55 foxes a year walking every step doing it. Only thing that kept my parents from losing every thing they had. At 45-50 bucks each that was great money for r a young teenager. Parents got every penny of it. Paid me back every penny of it also. So if the need is there most thing you want your kids to do can and still get an education.
Today’s schools are unfortunately different than when I went !!

read it any way you want to hot rod. My young boys can and do more than most grown men. And they have never crashed the boat.

My opinion is that the safest way to fell a tree is to not be near a tree falling. If your not trying to save saw logs or logging for a living I always recommend a good rope and throw ball. Throw through the canopy and base tie the rope, do your notch and back cut leaving plenty of hinge, get away from the tree and pull the tree down, preferably by hand. You'll end up pulling more fibers and screwing up some saw logs but it's well worth it considering the safety factor. We likely have ropes in 75%+ of all the trees we fell, often time we feel we don't even need it but it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. A couple throw balls and 200' of Samson stable braid can go a long ways.

We drop far less trees than the loggers but we also deal with a lot of real garbage in extremely tight quarters. Not saying you need ropes in every tree but I make my guys put one in most.

I hope they never do !!! I knocked my lower unit off. Don't know if that is considered crashing a boat..
PF never said your boys weren't learning valuable life skills . In fact glad to see some of todays youth doing manual labor Just wondering how they could do so much if they were in school. But you might have them on the 37 hr a day work schedule you yourself maintain.

Hey thanks.......never thought of that.......it will be spring before you know it........and I have 4. 18 inch oak and ash to cut......not big, but a huge job for me......thanks again

I never went to school past the 8th grade, it hasn't been a detriment to me. My dad had to take a job in a logging camp and there was nobody to take me, so I went with him. I started helping turn wrenches and running a dozer, and I was bucking for my dad within a few months. He took off for Ketchikan one weekend and I was asked if I could finish cutting his strip, and I did. Apparently I did a decent job, because ever since then I haven't had a chance to set my saw down

I’m guessing you walked up hill both ways to school in 2’ of snow?

My brother and I would cut ash bolts after school and deliver them to the bat factory on Saturday. We were 10 and 12 years old and loaded them in a Ford Ranchero for delivery. The bat plant was 8 miles from the farm. We had no license (farm truck) and the log scaler always laughed when we showed up. We made great money.

Most professional saws have raised embossed lines on the body of the saw. They are there for a reason. You can use these lines to help with lining up your cuts and for directional falling. Even with the open face notch your back cut should be an inch or two , depending on tree diameter, higher than your initial under cut for the notch. As timber tramp stated, that top notching , which is kind of what the open face notch is, can promote the tree butt to kick backwards off the stump as the hinge breaks loose. Making your back or felling cut a bit higher helps prevent that.

But lining up your cuts really ends up being an experience thing, the more you do it the better you get doing it.

Was the mill Adirondack Rawlings in Dolgeville ?

It's all fun and games ...until someone loses an eye

Thanks for detailing......I think I got better idea now than last fall trees cut...........never experienced it......only from videos on line........thing called barber chair.....looks ugly......

I’d say their on their way to a good life, I’ve always cut tree’s like AK said and for the same reasons, I do use wedges though.

Latimer and Norton in Hancock. I think Louisville Slugger.

Two men were killed last week in my part of Wis. when the bucket they were both in tipped over while trimming trees. The news reported the bucket vehicle apparently was on a slight incline. They were 61 and 63 years old, both with the same last name so might have been brothers. Quite a tragedy.

I use wedges too, just very very sparingly. I get paid by the thousand board feet, so if I can use a Dutchman (swing cut) to get them laid where I need them, then that's my preferred method. Not recommending anyone try it, it's not for the faint of heart and if you make a miscalculation and try to swing the wrong tree it will kill you or at the very least rip the saw out of your hand and mash it into the ground