Ideas for stuff to make with trees

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Sawyer

Tenderfoot
Oct 20, 2010
86
5
somewhere
hey guys,
I have a 1.5 acre site with about 30% forest that I use for camping. I'm looking for ideas for things to make. A couple of quite large ash trees have come down so ideas to use those would be great. Maybe a raised fire pit or some sort of table? I'm nots sure. Open to all sorts of ideas. I have 1.5 acres to fill with random projects :)
 
i'd sell some of the ash as premium firewood (assuming the irish jobsworths still allow people to burn wood of course..) especially ifits a tree with lots of side branches, you wont get much decent straight material from a gnarly tree. If you clean up the stumps you'll get lots of new coppice growth and in about 6 years, hefty poles 5 or 6 inches thick
ash isnt very durable out in the weather
 
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Well it would depend upon the shape of the downed trees but have you thought about getting in a chainsaw artist? Carve up a couple of dragons for instance, keep one as an attraction on site and flog the other to pay for the work.
 
i'd sell some of the ash as premium firewood (assuming the irish jobsworths still allow people to burn wood of course..) especially ifits a tree with lots of side branches, you wont get much decent straight material from a gnarly tree. If you clean up the stumps you'll get lots of new coppice growth and in about 6 years, hefty poles 5 or 6 inches thick
ash isnt very durable out in the weather

Due to the dieback it’s not premium firewood anymore. In fact it’s pretty much all I can get. All the estates here felled their Ash plantations, and as you say, it doesn’t last long outside. Due to the quantity it can’t all be stored undercover, so it’s very much a buyers market.
 
Mobile saw mill, turn it into boards?

Slab table tops are interesting things now. Gnarly wood can be more valuable for character projects than straight grain. Takes such wood a long while to season.
 
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Leave one of the fallen trees as is so it can become a wildlife habitat.
Cut off the branches and pile them all together to also form wildlife habitats - if you can put them in a sunny spot you may attract lizards and reptiles. Eventually.

Yes, use some of the wood for decorative and craft projects, but also use some of it to enhance the biodiversity and natural environment - rotting wood and vegetation is essential for the health of any wood.
 

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