Hazard tree removal...old school.

[stikine]

Thought I'd share some pictures of crosscut and axe use...still alive and well in some parts of the US.
The first series is a hazard tree removal in the Stikine / Le-Conte wilderness area. There are numerous Forest Service cabins available for public rental and this one had a Sitka Spruce that had been badly burned at it's base by "responsible" campers sometime ago. It needed to be felled while it still had hinge fiber to work with.

Pretty straight forward removal but we did rig it with a line of caution since it was within striking distance of the cabin.
We found some bullets in our backcut afterwards...not what you want to see or deal with using a hard to sharpen crosscut saw. I didn't have a metal detector to scan the tree prior.

 

[stikine]

The next batch are from a training / workshop we put on for traditional tool use up in Juneau a few years ago . Focus was axe use and crosscut. This was not within wilderness areas but for training purposes.

The alders were all heavy leaners which are prone to barberchairing...to mitigate that we used heavy bull rope binding just above the undercut with corner nipping and triangular shaped backcut...nothing chaired.

 

[pantheraba]

Wow! Really interesting to see that...great pictures.

 

[biggun]

Yes please... keep them coming.

 

[flushcut]

A technique that Sean uses often: is to take some wraps around the stem and snug it up tight with a few wedges beaten in between the wraps and stem.
Good show!

 

[SeanKroll]

Good show!

 

[pete mctree]

Great pics 😎

 

[lxskllr]

Very interesting. Looks like that first tree is ~24"DBH? About how long did it take to get on the ground once the saw hit wood?

 

[Cerealkiller]

Very cool! Do you know the brand of T handles on your saw? Do you prefer the T handles over a more traditional handle?

 

[stikine]

Very interesting. Looks like that first tree is ~24"DBH? About how long did it take to get on the ground once the saw hit wood?

I didn't really time us really but once we started sawing not very long. We didn't have spring boards with us so some of the ergonomics was a bit off and we had to adjust a bit to get in better position. The back cut also had a few adjustments because of the fluting and damn bullets we cut through along the way. I wedged the tree over once the hinge was established.

 

[stikine]

Very cool! Do you know the brand of T handles on your saw? Do you prefer the T handles over a more traditional handle?

These are a "pin style" handle and can be removed very easily if need be, which is often the case when you need to single jack to finish a cut solo. We were using a felling xc saw which only has one handle pin mounting hole on each end. The xc bucking saws usually have 2 holes to mount on each end depending on the users preference...choosing the higher hole results in a more aggressive cut but requires a bit more energy to run.

 

[Altissimus]

Old School , the Best School.

 

[gf beranek]

I fell a couple of trees in my career with the cross-cut and axe. It's F'ing hardwork.

 

[Burnham]

Yessir, it sure as hell is. Been there, too. As noted before, regs for Federally designated Wilderness. HARD work.

I cannot imagine felling and bucking to scale for pay with crosscut and axes, as was the rule way back in the day.

Those were some hard men.

Not that we should be dismissing the women of those days at all...for sure they were not cutting and all the rest of the job of getting those huge logs out to market...but those that were out in the logging camps, living in really primitive conditions, and cooking for and feeding scores of roughnecks...those gals did not have it easy at all. Busting ass every day from before daylight to well after. Longer hours than the men.

Those were even harder women.

 

[SeanKroll]

A technique that Sean uses often: is to take some wraps around the stem and snug it up tight with a few wedges beaten in between the wraps and stem.
Good show!

Usually a chain with wedges rather than a binder. Fits smaller trees. Won't damage wedges with a funny roll onto some obstacle.

 

[chris_girard]

I fell a couple of trees in my career with the cross-cut and axe. It's F'ing hardwork.

Agreed!

 

[stikine]

I’m sure the bullets did the axes and saws no favors, but how much do they actually dull them? Copper and lead seem to be two of the metals a sawyer would like most to see glaring at him from his cut...aside from gold of course!

Yup, nails would be a whole lot worse! I need to check the crosscut out to see if there was any damage, but I'm guessing it's probably ok given the softness of copper and lead.

 

[davidwyby]

I’d like to get a crosscut saw.

 

[Burnham]

That feeling is likely to fade, once acted upon.

 

[lxskllr]

A crosscut is fun cause it's nice to know you can. No fuel to mix, no batteries to charge, and no motors to die. A cursory look tells you if it'll work or not, but it isn't a tool I'd to be intimate with. Worth having just cause, but I'll take a chainsaw to do my primary work.

 

[stikine]

Just get one that's ported with a muffler mod

 

[lxskllr]

Meth?

 

[davidwyby]

That feeling is likely to fade, once acted upon.

My idea is for removing deadfalls where a heavy saw and godawful racket is undesirable.

 

[Marc-Antoine]

The main problem is that you have to supply the working energy, not the gas. On big, dry and extra hard stuff like you have, your happiness risks to fall quickely. Second problem, the crosscut saw is less forgiving than the chainsaw in the mater of bind and correction of the kerf's path.
My father bought one about 50 years ago. He isn't a woodsman by any means, but he loved to look his grand father working in the forest as a pit sawyer (one between many tasks). He regret to not have kept his old tools. The new crosscut saw was purchased to fell and buck a big chestnut, the small chainsaw didn't match at all. He did that with his step-father, both with about zero practical experience in it. The few which I recall is that was a hard work. But that was its only use and it stayed untouched since then. So now, it's rusted prety bad and I don't know too much how to put it back in a usefull state.

 

[davidwyby]

The deadfalls are in the mountains, punky pine not too big.