#353 DANGEROUS TREES! Severe Lean, Good info to share

[Music] so welcome back everyone Mike here today we're going to take a look at dangerous trees now to be more specific we're going to kind of focus in on trees with a severe lean like this cherry tree here behind me see how that thing's leaning now I think for somebody that's not very experienced at all in cutting trees down they sometimes look at a tree like this and think boy that's an easy one right there I know right where it's going to go they tear into it with their saw next thing you know it barber chairs and best-case scenario they just need to change your underwear worst case scenario they get hurt really bad or even killed these in my opinion are very dangerous trees now full disclosure here I am by no means professional arborist I'm not a logger I've cut a lot of trees over the years but I am by no means an expert and this video here is just to kind of show you how I do things I don't want this to be like a how-to video because there are so many variables every tree is different every woodlot is different and all the hazards can vary you know there can be several risks out there that I'm not going to go over if you ever feel uncomfortable about cutting a tree there's probably a good reason for it you probably just walk away from it or get somebody to help you that's a little bit more experienced that's just my opinion now this isn't going to be the best video ever on you know severe lien trees but at the end of this video I'm going to give you a link to a video I don't know the guy at all I stumbled upon one of his videos probably two years ago something like that very very good video probably the best I have ever seen on YouTube when it comes to dangerous trees and specifically on trees with severe lien but I'll put a link and we'll talk about that in a little bit so for now I'm just going to kind of take you through the steps on how I'm going to take this tree down and what I look for but once again I'm not an expert I'm not a pro anything like that this is just how I approach a tree like this now as I mentioned the first risk I see on this tree it has severe lean we kind of already talked about that another problem this tree has if you look up there there's several dead limbs they're pretty long they're pretty heavy dead limbs up there so you definitely don't want to be under thing when you're cutting that's on the side it's leaning anyways that have no reason to be over there but that's just something else I'm looking at and so when that tree goes down those limbs are gonna break off and they may fly back I don't want to be anywhere near it if it does that now this tree with its lean I'll show you where it's once to go it wants to go right up here and get tangled up in that maple tree right there that's kind of where it wants to go I'm gonna try to aim it over this way but even if it hits that maple tree right there and gets stuck up there it's not the end of the world I got a tractor and I'll pull it down the key is here just to get this thing down safely I'm going to try to avoid that maple and get that tree to go about 20 feet to the right but it's kind of aimed right at it with all that lean to it it's gonna want to go that way now we'll get a little closer look at the tree and I'll kind of explain why I think this is a dangerous tree so with this much lean in a tree you got a picture what this thing's actually doing here there is just tons of compression right here I mean there's so much pressure right in this area right here so when you cut your knot you're gonna have to be careful you don't pinch your bar we'll go over that in a minute but you have all this compression on this side in this side over here it's pulling on it real hard so if you were to cut into this tree and make your typical notch in it and just start your back cut through here you know you'll keep it up an inch or two like you're supposed to and all that and you'll think boy I'm doing good right and you're coming across here and you're gonna get somewhere in here and all this weight on this tree is just gonna split and it could go way up the tree super fast depending on the species or under you know how much stress it's under but no matter what it's not going to end well this is going to break off of here it may only be a few feet and maybe 20 30 feet up the tree and that's what they call a barber chair that thing will go up in the air sometimes it'll stay up there sometimes it'll come down to the ground so that's what we're going to try to avoid with this tree right here so this is going to be my escape route right here once that thing starts to fall I'm going to be running down towards the Ranger I'm actually going to pull that ahead a little bit so first thing I want to do I'm going to kind of clear out there's not much brush here at all just clean a little bit of this stuff out here so I don't trip over it when I'm getting away from the tree that's the first step for me the next thing I do is I want to make sure that my saw is sharp you ever see those videos I mean there are thousands and thousands of tree cutting videos on YouTube and a guy will tear into a tree and it just looks like flour coming off of it or something you do not want a dull saw at any time especially when you're cutting a tree like this I just touched this up the other day it's good to go it's nice and sharp and to make sure it's got a few lit up it's got Baro oil all ready to go now something else I like to do on trees with severe lean I'll put a chain around it I actually prefer using like a strap but I don't have one with me reason I put that chain around it is it will help to prevent that tree from barber chair I mean it's not guaranteed but the way I see it it can't hurt if that tree would start to split that chain is going to prevent you know half of that tree from splitting off and going up in the air at least I hope so now so I don't hit the chain while I'm cutting I just kind of laid it over this little tree right here for now once I get my notch cut I'll probably let it just fall leave it off to the side here a little bit all right I got my chaps my helmet my gloves my boots after each cut I'll shut this off and kind of explain what I'm doing and why I think I should do it that way [Music] [Music] all right I start my notch from here down because if you started here you have a much greater chance of your bar getting pinched [Applause] [Music] [Music] we're gonna clean that up just a little bit [Applause] all right I'm going to come in with a bore cut now and what I'm gonna do is come in here stay about an inch and a half inch inch and a half above this go into the tree all the way through the tree and then come ahead and I'll check it a couple times I want to leave a hinge here about an inch and a half wide something like that maybe an inch wide and then what we'll do is we'll cut towards the back of the tree and we'll stop somewhere in here and we'll just leave this strap right here so between the strap and the hinge that will be all that will be holding this tree now when you come into a tree like this this is what I like to do if you come straight in like this that's gonna kick back on you real bad you want to kind of go in on a 45 ease into it once you have that tip of the bar into the tree you can do a plunge cut straight through it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] now I just identified another hazard on this tree look at those chips that sawdust over there compared to here that I just took out of the center of the tree this is a cherry tree and they'll get what I call a red rot I don't know the official term for it but the center of that tree gets pretty rough now I whack this thing with a with a hatchet they're a little bit ago and it sounded pretty solid I should have mentioned that before that's one of the first things you want to do if it's not solid if it's deteriorating decay disease rot walk away from it I'm telling you those things will kill you but now I realized that the center of this tree isn't that great my back strap though it should still be okay so I'm going to kind of cut over a little bit more towards my hinge just a little bit more and then I'll cut back towards the strap but I'm going to be very careful right now and really keep my eye on that tree and because it could really go I mean it these are dangerous [Music] [Music] okay I cut my wedge out of the front I'm about an inch and a half high above it here other side I'm only about a half an inch or an inch that'll be all right I cut backwards here towards my strap I marked it right here this is like the trigger or the strap there is not much at all holding this tree right now as soon as I cut into this it's going to go really quick so if you remember at the beginning of this video I said this thing was aimed directly at that maple tree I tried to get it to go about ten or fifteen feet to the right of it I was unsuccessful with that I was kind of afraid of that however I still look at this as somewhat of a success and I'll tell you why I got through the most dangerous part all I need to do this weekend they'll bring a tractor out here pull this thing off the stump pull it backwards and get it out of there but I did not have a barber chair it didn't split anything like that something else I want to mention you know how they always say you come in with your back cut whether you're doing a you know bore cut first or you're you know you got a tree standing almost vertical and you just do like a conventional notch on the front and you come in you want to stay above that notch an inch or two and this is a good example why this tree is pushing right on that notch right there if you came in below that that tree would want to shoot out here behind you real fast and you could get hurt so that's the reason that you stay a little bit above with this cut from down below it gives that tree something to lock on to had I come in lower it may not be hung up but it may also a shot back here real far and I might not have been able to get out of the way in time so there's a lot of hazards involved with any tree now this one there were four that really stand out to me one which is what this video is about was a severe lien that it had to wear the dead limbs up there you kind of have to keep your eye on them when that tree starts to go they can break off and fly anywhere the third hazard and I didn't discover this until I started my bore cut was that red rot in the center of the tree you really got to watch out for that there's no like structural support there so when I did that bore cut I noticed it and I had to be very careful leave a big enough strap back in the back and the fourth hazard is one that I just created it's hung up in another tree but that one I'm not too worried about I got tractors I can pull it down that's not the end of the world there but anyway it's big in this video I was talking about the best video on YouTube that I have ever found and there's a guy named Terry Hale I'm not I don't know him I've never talked to him but he doesn't upload very regularly or anything like that but he did a video several videos on felling trees guy is super knowledgeable he has all kind of really neat illustrations kind of explains well like the compression points and kind of the physics and engineering behind felling trees he does a really really good job on it like I said I don't know the guy but I'm gonna link to his video up above here and I also put it in description I think it's well worth it if you cut trees whether you're you know a hobbyist or even if you're a semi-pro or a pro this guy Terry does a really good job on his video I think his video on you know severe lien trees it's 15-20 minutes long something like that it is well worth the watch there's a lot of really there's all kind of videos on YouTube let's face it but occasionally you got to kind of pick through some of this stuff and you'll find something good if you really want to learn something you should check out that video and some of his other ones but anyway like always say if you enjoy these videos please hit the like button that really matters click subscribe comment below and share them with your friends thanks [Music] you

Channel: Outdoors With The Morgans

Views: 520,002

Rating: 4.7020702 out of 5

Keywords: tree felling, dangerous trees, stihl ms 362, wood lot, saw logs, sawmill, firewood, log splitter, rk tractors, kubota tractors, stoney ridge farm, wranglerstar, modern homestead, barber chair

Id: Pfj6DXzeIoU

Length: 15min 54sec (954 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 14 2019