TIL a 20 year climber told me my back cut was 'too polite' and it changed my whole felling game
Was dropping a dead oak behind a shop on Route 9 last month and an old timer watching from his truck told me my back cut was too polite, said I was leaving a hinge that was twice as thick as it needed to be. I had been doing it that way for 6 years because my first boss told me thick hinges were safer. He had me try a back cut that left about 10 percent of the diameter and the tree went exactly where I pointed it, no barber chair, nothing. Did 14 more drops that week with the thinner hinge and every one landed clean in the zone. Curious if anyone else was taught the thick hinge thing early on and had to unlearn it.
Wait, your first boss told you that too? Mine swore up and down that a fat hinge was the only way to keep a tree from kicking back, and I believed it for years. Once I started leaving closer to 10 percent my cuts got so much cleaner, it honestly felt like cheating.