what is your pruning/felling technique?

[1234]

i keep seeing videos of people just hacking away at trees, they dont metiion anything about cleaning up after themselves or pushing shoots off there section in the ground (maybe they do but dont put it in there videos )
i thought the whole point of bustcraft was living with nature, if you just take what you want and dont do anything to help preserve resources then whats the point

thanks

 

[leaf man]

When ever i find hazel, i will layer a few stems to help with it growing another stool. Same with sweet chestnut. If i use pine cones as fuel i will shake the seeds out over different areas. Only a little but better than nowt
you have a very valid point

 

[addo]

The best thing you can do when pruning is a nice clean cut not cutting into the branch bark ridge. Theres a thread on here somewhere about it with a pic that mad dave put up.
Most trees just keep on growing whatever you do especially if just nippling away at them.

If felling a tree raise the hight of the cut, and it may coppice if the correct variety.

Lots of woodland in this country is very dencely planted and a bit of thinning is often benefitial as they become neglected, and poor for wildlife, timber and access.

Take a bit of material in the correct way, and spread over an area instead of one place/tree, and let natural regeneration do the rest, in most cases.

 

[treelore]

nice clean cuts when prunning leaving a collar.(no flush cuts)
short stumps if felling a tree.
coppiceing leave nice clean cuts again but at a slite angle (so water runs off ).
if coppiceing leave some brash on top of the stand to give new shoots a chance(helps stop dear grazing)
lay a stem of hazel,sweet chestnut etc to create new stands.

Burn some brash and leave a little for wildelife

respect and what you sow you reap

 

[FerlasDave]

The best thing you can do when pruning is a nice clean cut not cutting into the branch bark ridge. Theres a thread on here somewhere about it with a pic that mad dave put up.
Most trees just keep on growing whatever you do especially if just nippling away at them.

If felling a tree raise the hight of the cut, and it may coppice if the correct variety.

Lots of woodland in this country is very dencely planted and a bit of thinning is often benefitial as they become neglected, and poor for wildlife, timber and access.

Take a bit of material in the correct way, and spread over an area instead of one place/tree, and let natural regeneration do the rest, in most cases.

Ofcourse you do addo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FMp0IgDPpQ

 

[Andy2112]

Ofcourse you do addo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FMp0IgDPpQ

That was awesome when he got that dead standing down Dave, forgot about that.

 

[Chasseur]

Great thread 1234. Now this is what bushcraft is really about.

 

[robin wood]

i keep seeing videos of people just hacking away at trees, they dont metiion anything about cleaning up after themselves or pushing shoots off there section in the ground (maybe they do but dont put it in there videos )
i thought the whole point of bustcraft was living with nature, if you just take what you want and dont do anything to help preserve resources then whats the point

thanks

Personally I hate to see the sort of "damage" that folk sometimes post pictures of where trees have been hacked about, a campfire with beer cans around etc.

Having said that I am aware that what is offending me is aesthetics. It is nothing to do with nature, preserving resources or the health of the woodland. A woodland is a renewable resource that is adding many tons of wood per acre per year without anyone noticing, the day you come in with your chainsaw and remove 1% of what has grown in the last 10 years everyone notices.

The dangers to woodlands in the UK are not yobs tipping and cutting that will not stop it being valuable habitat however untidy it looks. More of an issue are folk buying bits to live in, clearing and gardening. Farmers letting fences down so that stock graze in the woodland is another way of turning woodland into something different and less interesting. Having said all that we are going through a period of woodland expansion at the moment.

 

[Peter_t]

if you want to learn about tree felling get 'the ax book' by D. Cook. this is not the rubbish freebie book you get with gransfors axes but pretty much everything there is to know about axes, saws, firewood and tree felling.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ax-Book-Lore-Science-Woodcutter/dp/0911469168#noop

trust me there is a hell of a lot more to cutting trees than cutting out a wedge and cutting from the other side.
i highly recomend it!



pete

 

[Ex Member - Sidney Bounty]

get the chain saw out and get er done.....

 

[addo]

Forgot about that one. Tricky work felling those Dead Poplars all hung up in an overgrown plantation, great firewood though and some left standing where possible for the critters. Those branches make a cracking bowdrill hearth

 

[Peter_t]

get the chain saw out and get er done.....

a saw with an engine? in bushcraft? work of the devil!!

as much as i love chainsaws sometimes i would far rather go for an axe and bow saw. with these there is just so much to go wrong and so much less hassel.
at work when we work in the woods we take a truck full of tools, fuel and at leest two saws (even with a brand new saw you cannot be sure that nothing will go wrong with it). OR you can take just an axe and bow saw which you can happily carry for days.
say you havn't got a 4x4 imagine carrying the weight of the saw (6kg or more for the average chainsaw), fuel/oil cans (at leest 4kg), a toolkit and many other bits and bobs. after a 10 minute walk into the woods you are spent and then you may have troubles with your saw, won't start, blunting your chain on some dirt or stone etc. after all this i tend to get pretty angry lol.

with an axe all you need is a sharpening stone, a file and leather strop if you like. sharpening a bowsaw in the bush isn't easy because of having no vice to hold it steady but it can be done and all you need is a triangular file for touch ups, a spair blade or for short trips don't worry about a blunt saw as you have the axe as a back up! also the relitive silence of an axe and saw is bliss compaired with using a chainsaw.


pete