Felling Trees with Precision
Tree work is freaking insane!!! I haven't been back out there to continue growing this skill-set, but I'm looking at climbing gear mow, watching a bunch of videos on how to cut trees down, and I'm itching to get on it again.
I was looking at some of my photos from a few weeks ago when I went out to learn all this, hands on with a friend who is an expert. He cut down a tree in a way I had never thought was a way that even existed...
It takes a lot of physics and engineering to do this type of work safely, and without damaging the surroundings.
I know of the old timber-frame method of building a structure, I mean that I know of it, and I would love to learn a few tricks of that trade. It's just so pretty, and it ages really nicely. Cutting trees down by creating mortise and tenon joint (or really more of a hinge), was kind of out of this world!!!
Just look at this next example, if you look close enough (zoom into the picture even), that tree is close enough to the handrail that it has started to grow over it.
With this technique, you can make a tree fall with crazy precision. Just look at how close the tree fell to the handrail. It fell with two inches to spare, at the most. And on top of that, up above, the trunk of that tree was anout ten inches away from the gutters of the house! I'm so amazed by it, I had to share.
That was actually the second tree that was cut that way on this job site. It was so close to the house, we had to trim the bottom branches so that nothing would hit any part of the house as the tree fell.
The first try at this method was done on the side of the house. That tree was much further away from the house and was leaning away from it too. We still rigged up a pull line, which I pulled with a mini-skid when it was ready to go, to make sure that it wouldn't bounce back into the house. Trees can sometimes get snagged on their way down, that sudden pause in momentum can make the very top of the tree whiplash with enough force that the whole tree can spring back the other way. With a pull line kept nice and taught as it's falling, we mitigate that risk greatly.
Safety is important in this type of work, and the way trees fall can be unpredictable sometimes. Making sure we don't break the house is important as well, so we take lots of precautions. Wherever it makes sense, this mortise and tenon method makes the job more predictable. With tension away from the home, the falling tree is literally guided to fall only in one direction.
You can see really well in this next photo that the tree fell perfectly in line with the direction of the cut, just like a hinge. The tenon pivots inside a strong mortise that acts as a guide.
I was super impressed by that job, I was excited to be there. Even if I know I'm in a truck or a machine far enough away from danger, pulling trees down this way sends in a lot of adrenaline rushing through my veins... it's the timing maybe that everyone has to be tuned to, and the possibilities of fucking up, which could prove to be a real nightmare. I don't want to hurt my co-workers, or have a broken house to deal with!
Still tons to learn here... I won't be bored, that's for sure.
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