Hot take: I was cutting my back cuts way too early and a stump in Tacoma finally showed me
Spent years making the back cut before my hinge was fully set, and last Tuesday a 60 foot fir just sat there, no barber chair, no lean, nothing. A climber named Ray watched me and said "your hinge is doing all the work, you just don't know it yet." So what tells you the hinge is actually set before you commit to that back cut?