Bench Felling at Glengarry Forest 1981

Date Added: 24 April 2012 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1981 Picture No: 1107

This is the 2nd felling video, part of a longer video made by Graham Whistler for Jim Pratt who was Harvesting Head Forester at Inchnacardoch at the time in 1981. The video appears at the bottom of this text and just click on the central arrow.

The process of felling the every steep forest covered slopes above Loch Oich was progressing and ways to improve worker safety, speed of operation and minimise disruption to users of the public road at the bottom were being developed.

This video clip, part of four that covers several the operations, shows Rick Hayes (Forester with Training Branch?) developing the ‘bench’ method of felling in Invergarry Forest with very good views of the Great Glen valley bottom far below. It should be noted Rick Hayes was assisted by another unidentified forester at the time and with all the safety gear on and face guard it is difficult to identify anyone.

The bench felling system on these steep slopes involved leaving stopper trees standing at the bottom of a felling strip, felling a couple of large ‘bench’ trees down hill towards them and then felling the rest of the trees across the two bench trees. Once a tree was felled across the slope on to the two bench trees it remained in place due to all the branches and also very often the felling hinge was not cut at the butt end until after the tree was sned (branches removed). After the trees were sned they were then rolled easily down to the stopper trees especially if the felling hinge was cut. The piled up trees would then be extracted whole by cable crane.

In this clip Rick can be seen using an inflatable felling wedge which he inserts in to a wider part of the cut at the back of the tree and then as he slips the saw blade in front, continues to cut towards the front hinge and at the same time the mechanism on the exhaust of the chainsaw inflates the wedge and helps tip the tree over in the desired direction. The sequence of felling one tree quickly after the other did not happen in reality as each tree was sned before the next was felled. The fast rolling action of half ton trees hitting the stock pile however is an actual record of the action.

Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Fort Augustus, Video

3 Comments

A dangerous operation, as the loose trees used to come out of the stack when the winch was taking a load downhill.
Some trees landed under the winch, and some went past, nearly landing on the main a82. Comment left on 29 April 2012 at 12:37 by Robert Hannah

With Ben Tee on the horizon and the A82 on the other side of Loch Oich, this looks like the South Laggan felling. Looks like he's using a tiny Husqvarna 444, the saw of choice at the time because it was so light to handle. Big Rick was the master of organised felling on steep ground and got things off to a fine art. He was a team leader in Work Study Branch. His running mate was Frank Jackson. Comment left on 22 August 2012 at 20:15 by Malcolm Wield

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We extracted a site further along from the one in the film above Loch Lochy which was felled using the same system but the main A82 was directly below us.
It was a good system for clearing the brash, but some of the loose poles came out of the pile with the load and slid down the hill towards the winch and the main road below.

Comment left on 25 August 2012 at 12:07 by Robert Hannah

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