...instead of a chainsaw.
I havent done any work with an axe for about two years because of lack of opportunity and bad health.
Recently, a friend of mine had to go up north to his parents house to look after his handicapped grandfather and invited me along for some biking, working in the garden, good cooking and plenty of booze.I managed to get a week off work and we loaded the car full with stuff for three persons plus bikes.
Needless to say, I took a couple of axes and my big japanese saw with me.
My choice of work was to cut down two rows of conifers to make room for other stuff to plant.
I wasnt that sure whether I could do it, lack of training and a somewhat restricted space for the trees to fall (there was a cemetery nearby) ,made me a bit nervous.
But with a rope to tug at I decided to give it a go. And it worked! Ok, the look of the stumps is nothing to write home about, but they fell more or less as they should.
Lessons learned:
A long and thin tree, when cut and tugged, will rest with its top against some neighbouring branches and simply jump 1m forward, but not fall due to a lack of mass.
Also, no matter how you tug, if the cuts are botched, the tree will fall as it wants. Luckily, there was no visitor at bthe cemetery at this time.
Once cut down, a tree was completely limbed. After five of them were laid down, I sawedt them down into manageable pieces of ca 2m each and called it a day, the hammock waiting for me. Of course for reasons of safety only, because after a couple of hours of swinging the axe I got tired and everyone knows what happens when you cant control the swing of your axe anymore.
After three days, I had done fifteen of them and created what looked like a far to small staple of wood, given the effort.
But I liked the look of what I had done.
And, much more important, my skills had progressed considerably. On the third day, I was able to lay down the trees much better and without a rope. Just by making good front and rear cuts they fell exactly between the rows, which for me is a great improvement.
The last twelve trees were cut down later by my friend, with the help of a chainsaw, in very short time at all.
But since I did all this just for fun, the GB´s LFA and the "Big Boy" from Silky were all I needed.
I havent done any work with an axe for about two years because of lack of opportunity and bad health.
Recently, a friend of mine had to go up north to his parents house to look after his handicapped grandfather and invited me along for some biking, working in the garden, good cooking and plenty of booze.I managed to get a week off work and we loaded the car full with stuff for three persons plus bikes.
Needless to say, I took a couple of axes and my big japanese saw with me.
My choice of work was to cut down two rows of conifers to make room for other stuff to plant.
I wasnt that sure whether I could do it, lack of training and a somewhat restricted space for the trees to fall (there was a cemetery nearby) ,made me a bit nervous.
But with a rope to tug at I decided to give it a go. And it worked! Ok, the look of the stumps is nothing to write home about, but they fell more or less as they should.
Lessons learned:
A long and thin tree, when cut and tugged, will rest with its top against some neighbouring branches and simply jump 1m forward, but not fall due to a lack of mass.
Also, no matter how you tug, if the cuts are botched, the tree will fall as it wants. Luckily, there was no visitor at bthe cemetery at this time.
Once cut down, a tree was completely limbed. After five of them were laid down, I sawedt them down into manageable pieces of ca 2m each and called it a day, the hammock waiting for me. Of course for reasons of safety only, because after a couple of hours of swinging the axe I got tired and everyone knows what happens when you cant control the swing of your axe anymore.
After three days, I had done fifteen of them and created what looked like a far to small staple of wood, given the effort.
But I liked the look of what I had done.
And, much more important, my skills had progressed considerably. On the third day, I was able to lay down the trees much better and without a rope. Just by making good front and rear cuts they fell exactly between the rows, which for me is a great improvement.
The last twelve trees were cut down later by my friend, with the help of a chainsaw, in very short time at all.
But since I did all this just for fun, the GB´s LFA and the "Big Boy" from Silky were all I needed.
