Hinge pin blew out on a 40 foot oak in Bakersfield

I was dropping a leaning oak last Tuesday and misjudged the holding wood, the hinge snapped about halfway through the backcut and the stem started twisting toward the house. I bailed behind the tractor and the top landed across the driveway instead of the lay, fortunately nobody got hurt but the homeowner's fence took a solid hit. How do you all judge hinge thickness when the tree has obvious lean and rot at the base, do you go thicker or just rope it off from the start?

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piper17516d ago

Ran into almost the same thing on a big water oak with root rot last fall. What worked for me was leaving the hinge way thicker than normal, like a good two inches on a 30 inch trunk, and then boring the backcut so I could feel how soft the middle was before committing. The rot was mostly on the tension side, so the thick hinge held long enough for the tree to tip past the point of no return instead of snapping and twisting. If the base is puny enough that you can push a screwdriver into it, roping it off from the start is the smarter call, no shame in it. Wedges help too but they won't save a hinge that's already mush. Glad nobody got hurt, a fence can be rebuilt.

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