Rock, Paper, Chainsaw

Remember rock, paper, scissors? Well, using a chainsaw is much the same. As we know, rock blunts scissors, paper wraps around rock (I'm not sure how that defeats a rock but hey, I didn't make the rules) and scissors cut paper.

Now, if we were to substitute 'paper' with wood - as paper is made of wood - and 'scissors' with chainsaw we have the following: chainsaw cuts wood, rock blunts chainsaw and wood doesn't necessarily wrap around rock but it does occasionally wrap around a chainsaw.

To explain: we were out crosscutting a load of fallen branches today. To cut a long story short, it was close to the end of a hot day that I'd spent in a pair of thick chainsaw trousers. Most of the work had been completed and the boss (it's a work placement, so I do the majority of the work their for free but he's still very definitely the boss) asked if I could take down the cracked willow to finish the day off.

The cracked willow was a tree that had cracked quite close to the bottom and then regrown as two trunks from the same stump. One of these trunks had cracked again and, despite having a rather ugly looking 6' long tear above this crack, had continued to grow. This is fairly typical of willow, which will push on through pretty much anything that you or the world and it's weather can throw at it.

The place where the willow tree was growing was at a field boundary, with a barbed wire fence on one side and a ditch immediately behind. This left a very small space for me to work in and, if you have ever done a tree felling course, the one thing that they drum into you is that must always have an escape route. Now, between the ditch and the fence and the hawthorn thicket directly behind me, my options for escape were limited to say the least. Vaulting a 5' high barbed wire fence is not ideal at the best of times and especially not in chainsaw trousers.

Anyway, nothing ventured... the next problem was the actual felling of the tree. It had a considerable lean on it in the direction of fall and so I opted for the text book 'dog's tooth cut'., or 'boring' cut. For this, you cut out the wedge in the direction that you want the tree to fall, as is normal in tree felling. This wedge cut, or gob cut or whichever of the many names it has, gives the tree a little clear space to fall into, so that the felling can be nice and safe and controlled. With a normal tree, you would then do a horizontal 'felling cut', leaving a 1' by 1' "hinge" of wood in a nice, controlled, safe felling. However a strong lean in the direction of felling means that there is already a lot of weight in one direction and the trunk is already under a lot of tension. The tree can split before you have cut through. Which is a bad thing. This, as you'll know if you've ever watched 'Axemen', is called a "barber's chair". I'm not sure why it's called that but it's still a bad thing and is particularly likely with a willow.

So, instead you get the nose of the bar (the bar being the thing the chain goes round, the nose being the bit of it that is s'posed to be furthest away from you) and cut with that directly into the wood. A 'bore' cut, y'see? Or a letterbox cut. You bore your way through to the other side and then widen this slit until it is about a third  the with of the tree. Then, you do the final cut, 45 degrees down from the edge of the tree to the wood-free space left by the bore cut. And then, bam, the tree comes down.

Of one third of the tree in my case, as there remained the tricky bit still to do. Also, smoke was actually coming off the chainsaw so I decided to walk across the field to get the slightly meatier spare one to finish the job. Once across the field, where all our kit, fuel etc was stored, I inspected the spare chainsaw, then had a quick drink to replenish my fluids and set back off across the field. Arriving back at the tree, I fired the chainsaw back up, surprised that it started so easily, having not been used all day and set to work.

Not long afterwards, it ran out of petrol, which was odd as I'd just checked that it was full. Then it dawned on me that, when I'd stopped to have a drink, I'd put down the new chainsaw, then picked up the old one and carried that over. After a few choice words, I trudged back across the field, swapped chainsaws over then lugged the big one back over to carry on with the task in hand.

There remained the second trunk to cut which, from a safe felling point of view had 'aaaaaaaargh!!!' written all over it. A big split running through it and a big hollowed out centre. I'd cut the other trunk quite high up, so had to cut it again much lower down. This came away as one lump, leaving a crescent shaped, hollowed out, trunk from which the remaining two cuts sprouted. With 1/3rd of this trunk already missing, I did a felling cut from the back and, bam, down this bit came as well.

So, very tricky tree felled safely. I would have been quite smug if I wasn't hot, aching and wanting to get this job over and done with. It was still leaning on the fence, so I had to cut it free. Wire blunts chainsaw although chainsaw also tends to break fence. Basically, don't get the chainsaw anywhere near the barbed wire. Bad things will happen.

Now, the final little twist to the tale is about tension, as the tree is now lying along the ground and, if you cut into it willy-nilly, the branch will 'pinch' the saw and jamming it in place. The chain will not turn, the saw will not cut and there's nothing else to do but switch it off, swear a few times and then trudge back across the field to pick up the other one. Then, fuel it up, walk back across the field and cut the same branch a few inches to one side.

Having finally cut everything away from the fence so that it was all lying on the ground, I decided to quit while I was ahead, pick up both chainsaws and then lug them back across the field one last time. Happily, everyone else was about done for the day and so all we had to do was lug all the kit back to base. Oh and go home, shower, eat, replenish fluids and then go and do my actual job working in a pub for the next five hours.

So, just to summarise: Scissors (chainsaw) beats paper (wood). Paper occasionally pinches scissors. Rock still blunts scissors and barbed wire just plain ruins your day.