Dangers of a barber chair | General Homesteading Discussion | Forums

One of my worst fears when cutting

One type of falling mishap, know as a barber chair, is particularly dangerous. A barber chair occurs when a tree being felled delaminates vertically before the hinge is cut thin enough to bend. The term refers to the sliding action of the old style barber chair that positioned patrons in a head down, feet up position so the barber could more easily shave with the straight razor.

In falling, a barber chair occurs when using conventional back-cuts where the hinge is formed by cutting the wood from the back of the tree towards the hinge. As the saw severs the more resilient sapwood fibres typically found in the outer rings of a tree, the more brittle heartwood must resist the bending load. In cases of heavy forward lean and in older trees, this can result in the hinge wood splitting upwards as the tree falls. When the tree top contacts the ground the section of tree that has split upwards crushes either the remaining wood column straight backwards or the split standing section tears and rolls off to either side. In either case, the best place to be is away and at an angle.

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