Barber Chair| barberchair pictures & chat here please

Eric Frei

The term barber chair or barber chairing in tree work refers to the slabbing up of timber when doing the back cut (when felling a tree) resulting in a very dangerous out of control situation.

It can also occur on large limbs in trees.

i've attached a tree felling power point file, ppt, which is around 3mb with felling techniques and it shows what goes on although I disagree a little that a "dutchman" is the cause. The predominant cause is forward leaner, species and too narrow a gob on the scarf.

http://www.treeworld.info/manualuplo...arberchair.ppt

The guys down Victoria Australia fell huge eucs called Mountain Ash (eucalyptus regnans) which is prone to barber chairing.

Some methods to overcome barber chairing is strapping the timber above the cut, bore cutting your back cut setting up the hinge then coming out the back of the tree opposite to the normal back cut ... sometime done with a strap release.

Of course there's the "fish cut" which I've never tried which is also supposed to help prevent the barber chair.

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________

bigshea13

ash here are the main culprits. their straight grain and sizeare the main reasons. if your saw is dull and you dont bore cut the result is that the tree falls faster than you are able to cut it. you try to stay there and keep cutting when finally the section of hing is too big to snap and too small to hold the weight of the tree in its increasingly horizontal position........it splits up the trunk... when the tree hits the canopy forces the trunk sometimes backwards over the stump. when i first started out we were cuttingon a flat. the trees had no leans. I fell several large ash that consistantly chaired. the reason was.....however you lookat it.....either the fact that i didnt bore cut or my saw was dull{not allowing me to keep up with fall.

Done it

You're right about those straight grains. A bloke here in Blacktown had his throat cut a few years back doing a Poplar. His son stuck his finger in the vein till the paramedics came.

Sean Freeman

Hopefully some of you will find this site useful Dutch Push in 1 side of Face
Kenny can be a little hard to understand sometimes with the words he uses but the animation of the baberchair is very good.

Therrin

That's actually pretty interesting. I like where he says
"This is how people get Killed Dead!"

The frames move too quickly to read the text and keep up with whats happening though, I had to keep refreshing the page and catching up.

TrevMcRev

Came across this...

YouTube - Falling a tree gone wrong (Barber chair)

__________________

Total Tree Care - Melbourne Arborist Reports & Consulting,Tree Pruning & Removal | Elm Leaf Beetle Treatment Melbourne

www.treegear.com.au - Australia's Best Value Arborist Supplies

FREE shipping for TREEGEAR Members-Join here

Galbee

ha ha ha bloody idiot. if he had done the forward leaner procedure that wouldn't have happened or cut it faster.

__________________
In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king

Eric Frei

Here's my comment over there on his video.

__________________

vl2007

Good example of one. Sometimes it's hard to put the saw down, then run.

TrevMcRev

Don't think he likes putting on the chainbrakke either.

__________________

Total Tree Care - Melbourne Arborist Reports & Consulting,Tree Pruning & Removal | Elm Leaf Beetle Treatment Melbourne

www.treegear.com.au - Australia's Best Value Arborist Supplies

FREE shipping for TREEGEAR Members-Join here

windthrown

Baber chairs are common with falling alder. That stuff is known for splitting vertically. Also with regard to trees tipping and riding back over the stump, that was common in my experience falling fir trees. Once a hinge breaks during the fall, the lower/wider branches compress into the ground, and then they commonly push the tree butt back over the stump.

There is a barber chair falling scene in the movie, Sometimes a Great Notion (also called Never Gine An Inch overseas). Here is a photo of a typical chair that the tree has not broken off of. The question on this photo on the 'other site' was what was worong with this fall. Well, it has got to be cut again, for one thing... and they are unstable as all heck when they fall and split like this one did (and they typically do not stay attached to the chair). I would have to drag it down with a chain or tip it with the tractor bucket. Using a bore and strap cut would typically help prevent this, becasue they could have cut the back cut to a small enough hinge to drop it before cutting the strap. But as I have also experienced, you are falling a group of trees, and they are all going over just fine and dandy, until...

Attached Thumbnails

 

matty f

Boring in and releasing on leaners is the best way to advoid but some days you can get complacent... can be scarry at the base of a tree expecting the normal noise of a hinge creaking and instead you have that splitting sound and you know you have to move fast before it smacks you!

When they sort of reverse barbers chair and pull up roots and twist of the stump is a fun experience as well !

Attached Thumbnails

 

matty f

Dont know if this counts but felling a leaning branch that had a lean towards the camera ...wind picked up strongly in the back cut causing it to fracture and go over backwards narrowly missing my ropes and green house below ...had to get a pic for the momment!

Attached Thumbnails

 

Cut4fun

Have a friend I help with firewood tell me he had one hit him square in the head when falling dead elm and ash once. Found himself laying on the ground knocked out by himself. Saw still on ground idling.

TreeCo

Here's a good video of a barber chair:


YouTube - Falling a tree gone wrong (Barber chair)

__________________
Grow more vegetables!

windthrown

That's a bad a barber chair. Note where the top half landed. Amazing how these get caught on video.

devo

this is the first ive seen of '' barber chairs '' , whenever i fell a foward leaner i make the notch , and the enter with the saw behind the notch leaving a nice hinge and work my way with the saw backward out of the trunk , so that when it goes it falls nicely over the hinge .

With this technique you are able to control what happens

keep safe

steve

windthrown

Well, there are certain species of trees here that barber chair more than others. Alder is one example. Also it is not always possible to control the fall, or know if there is a natural break in a tree that will barber chair. A good hinge is not always possible either, especially if the center is rotted out. Barber chair is an old logging term used around here, and has been an issue here since the days before the one man wonder was invented (the modern chainsaw).

From what you are saying, it sounds like you do a bore cut when falling trees. I have done bore cuts, but they take longer. Typically when logging, you make a face cut (upper and lower), and then a single back cut. Once you are deep enough into the wood with the back cut, you drive in a wedge or two and then cut to leave a good hinge, and then drive the wedges in to drop the tree (or it just falls on its own). If it is leaning one way and you want it to fall another, or there are other issues with the potential to barber chair, the a bore cut is a good idea. Cut the face, then bore in and cut the back cut from the hinge out, but leaving a 'strap' at the back, as it is called. Wedges may or may not be pounded in the sides of the back cut and the starp is cut last which will hopefully release the tree into a good fall. However, I have seen some of these barber chair as well. The hinge wood holds too well, and the tree splits vertically up from the hinge (especially if it too fat). Most all cut trees have some form of small barber chair standing from the hingewood. Typically (and hopefully) its only a few inches tall though.

TGCIII

knowing the characteristics of the tree, poplar and other soft wooded dedicious trees are prone to split when their leaning ahead. once u look down, the tree ur dealing with, then answer is almost always cut and dried. if i can see it in my minds eye, it will come to pass 99.4% of the time, but if i don't take that little bit of time to see it happen in my mind first, well thats on me. thats just me

windthrown

99.4% ????

TGCIII

ok i'll withdraw the 99.4% and say if i take the time to look it over throughly and can see it happening beforehand it goes pretty much as planned 90% of the time. how's that?

__________________
the only thing better than a strong mind is 2

TGCIII

my pulpwood truck only hauls short wood so my notch is about chin high on me, so i can get a 5' stick off the stump cut. if u need to DRIVE whatever ur falling, a notch at that height puts it in ur face. u can adjust the thickness of the hinge, side to side, as u see it happening, in real time. where timber fallers don't have that luxury. that puts a chair above my head too but again that just in my world

__________________
the only thing better than a strong mind is 2

windthrown

OK, I just thought that you were keeping count or something, or there was something specific about the 0.4%. I have falled a lot of trees, and they do not all go over as planned. Even when they are well planned. 90% sounds about right.

windthrown

Pulpwood cutters here cut anything and everything. Funny the way that those loads look, compared to nice neat and straight saw log truckloads.

Cutting for saw logs requires Humbolt face cuts, and as wide a log as possible on the large end of the butt. They measure the small end for scaling, so every inch can mean more or less money. So lower cuts generally mean more money. Use the saw line guides and scrunch down to check for level. A barber chair means a cull log. No money in slash. When I cut firewood and thin, I can cut wherever I want as well. I usually go at about waist high. But I usually re-cut close to the ground, becasue we are clearing and I do not want to trip over stumps, and most people do not want stumps showing. Also if I cut a tree that will be stump ground later I try to leave as little as possible. I use a lot of semi-chisel chains for those reasons; they hold an edge better in crud and dirt.

TGCIII

YouTube - Heli Logging


there's a tree falling on its self at about 8:00 in this video, thats ugly!

__________________
the only thing better than a strong mind is 2

stirmantrees

Galbee

jeez thats another chainsaw knackered by the looks of it!!!!!!!!!!!

__________________
In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king

Eric Frei

Jeez, I wonder WTF happened there.

That saw kept running, it's a Stihl.

__________________

TGCIII

YouTube - Cypress Wreck.mpg


how about G.F.B.'s latest video? now, that's....ugly!

__________________
the only thing better than a strong mind is 2

Eric Frei

It's being discussed here.

When you should really be a spectator

__________________