Winter Bushcraft Skills: Tree Felling For Firewood

Description

http://paulkirtley.co.uk

Watch this video for more winter axe and saw skills: Locating and felling a dead-standing tree, then processing this into portable sections, ultimately for use as firewood.

Tags: bushcraft,winter,Wood,Snow,tree,felling,firewood,fire,axe,skills,saw,cutting,tools,gransfors,bruks,scandinavian,scandinavia,forest,sweden,boreal

Video Transcription

hi I'm Paul currently from frontier bushcraft in this video we're going to look at felling dead standing wood for firewood

you can use the axe and we're going to use the saw I'm searching for dead pine tree ideally I want one that's freestanding that won't get caught up in other trees as I fell it and I've spotted a good one I found two dead standing pine trees together and the smaller of the two is leaning away from the large one and the space in front of it is nice and clear before I do anything else though I'm going to create a more stable platform to work on I do this by trampling down the snow with my snowshoes then I need to knock the snow off the trees so I'm putting my hood up so I don't get it down my neck with little snow now still coming off the tree that seems to have done the trick and we can move on to the next stage

after a few final touches to my working area I'm ready to get on with the job of actually felling the tree one of the reasons I selected this tree was the way it was leaning and the clear space in front of it that then determines where I start to cut so it falls in the direction I wanted to felling trees is not always a simple matter and if you're unsure in any way about what you're doing you should gain some sort of professional instruction before you head out into the woods and do this sort of thing I'm using my axe to open up a cut on the front side of the tree this is known as the front cut or the undercut the purpose of this is to remove material on the side of the tree in the direction in which you want it to fall the bottom face of the cut should be horizontal and flat the back of this cut is at right angles to the direction in which we want the tree to fall the top face of the cut comes down about 45 degrees and where they meet ultimately that needs to be about in the middle of the trunk

you don't really want to be going any further back than this once we get to the middle of the trunk we're going to go round to the back and use a saw to create the back cut that creates a very controlled cut much more controlled than using the axe you can almost cut it fiber by fiber and you'll see that shortly

I've been taking the front foot to the center of the trunk I'm now going to stop using my axe and SWAT to my saw to make the back cut the back cut is a horizontal cutter an inch or two above the bottom face of the undercut perfect that's exactly where I wanted it now I have the job of cutting the trunk up in supportable sections the bottom part of this trunk is too large to cut with my saw that diameter is too great so I'm going to have to use my axe first I create a stable platform to work on and then I can start chopping here I'm using the axe in an ambidextrous way swapping it from right hand to left hand depending on which way I want to cut I cover this in more detail in one of my other videos but here you can see it in action from a first-person point of view what I'm doing here is opening up a wide cut in the log so that I can cut at least half way through it there's no point raising just a small narrow wedge to cut with your access the ax will just get stuck what we're aiming to do here is chip out the wood in large chunks here again you can see me using the X in the left hand and then swapping to the right hand back again in a very ambidextrous way this is the most efficient way of using the apps and the best on your body I cut through halfway from one side and then swap to the other again I open up the wide cut to the aim here of meeting the first one in the middle as you can see putting a log up in this way requires quite a lot of effort even if you do have a really sharp axe sectioning the tree is more work than cutting the tree down in the first place and every time you need a new section you've got to cut through the trunk again fortunately in reality I can't do it this fast again I'm going to finish the job from the other side I've rotated the trunk a little too and there are a few branches that were embedded in the snow so I'm just removing those then I just need to make sure I've got a good stable footing and I can finish the job it's a good job I have plenty of forage for breakfast as you can see there's a lot of work involved in using an axe it's quite a lot of energy exerted you get hot which means you might sweat which means there's moisture in your clothing which isn't great so you have to dress properly but even so it's a lot of energy you also waste a certain amount of wood which isn't ideal at the fact that the ends of the pieces of wood and a flat makes them harder to split and also there's an element of risk involved you're swinging an axe not necessarily down towards yourself but you're swinging an axe in your general direction which is always a risk particularly when you're standing on snow much safer more efficient option is use of a sort the safety you can put your hand through notice how much less effort I'm using with the saw rather than with the axe this should feed back into your choice of timber for firewood in the first place don't take trees down they're too large because then it will just be more effort to process it into usable timber once you get it onto the ground it's not so critical if you're having a long long fire or any other sort of open fire but if you're using a heated tents in combination with the stove you've got to chop that timber up into multiple small sections that it will fit into the stove what I'm doing here is cutting the trunk up into sections that I can carry relatively easily on my shoulder back down to camp once there I'll sawed off the sections up into small lengths that will easily fit into the stove now those lengths will probably still need splitting down further into main fuel medium-sized fuel and small splints for getting the stove going in the first place

I've covered the splits and techniques you need for splitting on snow in one of my other videos great the last section done now I can get on with carrying these down to camp and processing it into firewood for the stove here we are fast forwarded to my fourth and final trip back down to camp with a log as you can see I'm losing the light here a little bit but I think you'll also agree it's still a beautiful walk in the forest and I appreciate you for joining me on this video I hope you've enjoyed it I hope you found it useful i'm paul currently from frontier bushcraft thanks for watching and be sure to check out my other videos you