The time has come, the walrus said,

On Mar 19, 3:12*am, Bob wrote:
On Mar 18, 7:24*pm, Giles wrote:

*to speak of many things.

What happened, apparently (no one will ever know the details), was
that Karl had an encounter with a "widow maker", a term that he may or
may not have been familiar with. *He certainly knew the actuality, if
not the English name. *The severely leaning birch tree whose base he
was lying next to had been notched.....perfectly done, no problem.
But somewhere in the backcut the tree split up to about eight feet
above ground level. *A common enough nightmare that almost always has
no memorable consequences. *ALMOST always. *This time.....well, it
bucked.....it got him.....and he'll never remember it. *And the rest
of us will never forget it.

Actually the type of accident you describe (here in big timber country
we call it a barber chair) is *one of the most common causes of death
or serious injury in timber falling accidents.

Never heard the term "barber chair" before in this context. Easy
enough to understand, though. It's also easy to believe that it ranks
high as a cause of death or injury. Do you have ready access to any
numbers?

Many hardwoods
(including Birch) are quite prone to splitting as you described
sometime during the back cut - especially if they have a heavy lean.

I've seen it happen a couple of times myself. Didn't know that birch
was a frequent offender.

Though many saw hands scoff at the practice as being sissy, the safest
way to fell such trees is to bind the butt (immediately above where
the top of the notch cut will be) with heavy duty nylon webbing (made
to handle the extreme forces involved) before starting any cuts.

This, too, is news to me. I'd appreciate any more inofrmation you
could provide as I'll be doing a lot of cutting here in the next few
months.

The
old saying that "There are bold timber fallers and there are old
timber fallers, but few are lucky enough to be old bold timber
fallers." is quite true.

There have been times and arenas in life when I've flirted with the
bold thing. I was lucky. I try hard not to do that anymore. Never
did it in connection with tree falling. But, like just about anyone,
I suppose, I've been careless on occasion. I don't think Karl was
particularly bold.....and he was certainly getting old at 69. He may
or may not have been careless.....I don't know whether he had ever
heard of the practice of binding trees with webbing.

At any rate, it now looks as if this "bad luck" may have been
preventable. Casts the whole mess in a different light.

Much to think about.

Thanks, Bob

giles