Friday, January 17, 2014

Clearing Trees Like A Lumberjack

By George Dodson


Parents used to tell the tale of the great lumberjack Paul Bunyan. Of course, Paul had a big blue ox named Babe. This old tale was so popular, that people even designed restaurants around the theme in the Pacific Northwest.

Paul was nearly 20 feet tall and one thing he was good at was felling trees. You can imagine with a splitting of that giant acts that felling a tree was fairly easy. Of course those who chop down trees these days are not 20 feet tall and they do not create lakes to water their livestock.

Felling trees requires that you master the art and technicality of it. It is not just simple grabbing the axe and heading to the forest kind of business as you cannot chop a giant fir with a simple axe. If you do the above, then you are going to take plenty of time and use a lot of energy doing nothing. How do you go about chopping a tree?

You need to know that trees are dangerous when you are doing something more than sight seeing them. The reason behind loggers wearing special boots is that trees depending on their sizes can become wet and slippery.

Many trees that you might want to fell are big and weight a lot. When they come down they can cause great injury if you don't bring them down properly.

Wear the correct gear. A helmet is necessary. Your day can be ruined with a tree limb falling from 30 or 40 feet high.

You need to make sure that you get the right tool for the right job in this case a chopping axe is preferred to a splitting axe. If you do not get the difference, then make a point of finding out.

Determine which way you want to tree to fall. That means making sure that where it falls is clear of people and things that could be damaged.

begin by creating a wedge facing the direction that you want the tree to fall. Begin by chipping out the tree in a wedge shaped design until you get a vee cut on the tree side. Afterwards, move to the other side of the tree and cut it above the vee. Continue chopping out pieces while watching the tree. Though you want it to fall in the direction of the cut, most of the time this happens not to be the case. If it starts leaning towards you, make sure to get out of the way. This is simply to say that you move off the tree stump once the tree starts falling. As the tree falls, sometimes it might kick up on the end causing you injury while it does so.

Listen to a groaning sound while you are felling a tree as this signifies its weakening. As soon as the tree begins to fall in the direction you want, clear away from the stump a safe distance until it is completely down.




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