Unpopular opinion: I was cutting my hinge way too narrow for 2 seasons, and a stump told me

Skyler Clark · 2026-10-18T16:45:05.296141+00:00

So last Thursday I felled a red oak out in a client's back lot near Newnan, and about 4 inches into the back cut she started to sit down on the bar before I even got close to my hinge. I chalked it up to wind at first, but then it hit me that the tree was closing on me against a light breeze, which means my hinge was doing nothing to hold it. When I went back and looked at the stump after, the hinge was barely an inch and a half wide on a 26 inch tree, and I'd been running that same width on almost everything for two whole seasons. Turns out I got lazy about it when I moved to the bigger saw, just kept the bar buried and never stepped around to check the far side. The stump is the best teacher there is and mine had been screaming at me for a while, I just wasn't looking at it. Any of you ever catch yourself cutting the same lazy hinge on every tree because the saw feels good in your hands? Curious how you break the habit, like do you actually stop and eyeball the far side before the back cut or is that just me needing to slow down.

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Unpopular opinion: I was cutting my hinge way too narrow for 2 seasons, and a stump told me | Arborists - Topic Shares