Chainsaw fantasies

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I knew I would be cutting wood today, so last night I sat down with my files and my chains, and carefully and perfectly I filed away sharpening and sharpening my preciouses to perfection.

“You are my friends,” I tell them. “You will never hurt me.”

The sharper the chain, the safer the saw.

I took the day off this morning, woke up up early, and cleaned the mechanism of my 18" chainsaw. Carbeurator, beautiful. Get all that dust out. Forty to one gas to oil mix. Fill the reservoir with bar oil.

I placed the chain on the bar, and adjusted the tension sensually with a screwdriver. Like the Budha says, you must take the middle path. Too loose and the chain will fly off the bar and kill you. Too tight, and the chain will snap, killing you.

Up amongst the trees and scrub brush I adjusted the choke.

“Oh Stihl, once again I call upon thy might and power to smite the brush, branches and trees that offend thee, in thy name, amen.”

I placed my foot on the stop and pulled the start, and, as Stihl always does, she roared into life on the first start.

Chainsaws are always named after women. Treat them badly, do not tend to them, and they will surely destroy you. Treat them well, and they may still destroy you, but they will be perfect objects of worship.

Stihl is a professional quality chainsaw, and when I squeeze her throttle her 28 pounds torque in my hands with a will of her own.

I am barely man enought to control her, and after ten or fifteen minutes I have to stop and rest from muscular fatigue. Stihl though is unsatiable.

I will be decimating a line of trees and brush that the previous owner of this house has neglected for nigh unto fifteen years.

I select the biggest tree first. It is a maple with about a two foot diameter trunk, about 100 feet high.

If I lay her to the right there are power lines. The horse fence is to the left. I have about a fifteen degree arc of safety into which the tree must fall.

I am but an amateur with this tool, with this process. Nevertheless I will proceed.

But how?

There are many possibilities. The most elegant is a single cut at ground level, straight through. Done properly with the right wind, the tree will fall away from the cut as I proceed. Done improperly the tree will pinch the blace resulting in either a trapped chainsaw, or a sudden maiming/death incident. I would have to cut perfectly to make the tree fall in my target area.

Dare I?

I dare not.

As I rev and torque, I contemplate three cuts and proceed.

The first starts at just about waste level and is at a forty five degree angle, and I will proceed with this cut until I read the midpoint of the tree. The second will be parrallel to the ground and intersect the first cut at its terminus. The third, killing cut will come from behind and intersect the other two.

Thusly I will aim the tree.

Scylla, fucks around, and does stupid things with a regularity not to be ignored, but if there is one area in which Scylla is unwilling to play game it is with the chainsaw. It is a perfectly tuned intstrument in peak condition, and I am wearing leather gloves, a long sleave denim shirt (tucked into jeans,) and cowboy boots. Sunglasses protect my eyes as I squeeze Stihl’s throttle , bringing her to a feverous scream, and I make the first cut.

Long curls of wood come flying from the back of the saw, the mark of a fresh sharpening, and Stihl cuts through the wood as fast and easily as a gentle push will propel her. There are few pleasures that are the equal of this experience. Any idiot can cut a tree. I know enough to feel the adrenaline of fear, and appreciate the fineness of my instrument. I feel the chain with expansion from heat as I cut, and it gets slightly wobbly in my grip, the beginning of danger, but no problem yet. I smell that unique smell of searing bar oil, and cut. At midpoint I throttle back, turn the chainsaw off and remove it from the cut (leaving it running while backing it out of a cut is a good way to suffer kickback and lose your face.)

I tighten the chain, restart, and make the second cut. No more big curlicues (that level of sharpness doesn’t last.) but big dust chunks of sawdust fly. Finally, the center live a slice of orange is freem, and pops out.

I again shut the saw off, place it down and rest. My wrists and forearms ache from controlling Stihl.

I survey my third cut. I will need to be at my best. The tree leans slightly away from the directin I wish it to fall, nor does the wind favor me.

Once again, I fire up Stihl. I cut, analyzing depth and angle, waiting for sounds that are barely perceived, a rustle from way up in the tree.

I throttle back.

Now is the moment. The tree is basically hovering, balanced on a few threads of wood. I can watch it sway. If I wait too long, a strong wind will blow it down.

A wind is nevertheless what I wait for.

The tree sways and sways again. When momentum favors, I squeeze Stihl to a venomous scream and stike deep into the wood. A moment later large CRACKS! like gunshots sound. I turn Stihl off, place her on the ground and run ten feet.

If I have done my job inadequately I am in great danger, as I now risk a hugh tree falling on me, and squashing me like a bug. For that matter, I am in danger no matter what. Trees can surprise you and fall in the wrong direction. Even worse, the cut can sepertate from the trunk where you cut and the trunk can can come flying at you like a freight train. I had a neighbor , who literally had his face detached from his skull by a flying tree trunk.

CRACKS! sound again, and the tree slowly begins to lean. I move from directly behind it to avoid my neighbors fate, but this is one of those weird times. The tree has found a new stability in its slight lean.

I walk back to the tree and again pick up the saw. I know from experience that there may be only a single fiber of wood holding the whole tree together.

I cut, and within a moment I hit that fiber, and the tree begins to fall for real. Again, I shit the saw off and run.

And the titan falls, right into the alley I’d planned for her, and the ground shakes with her passing.

Then I make a cut at the base of the trunk at ground level. Tomorrow I will drill and fill with charcoal and lighter fluid, obliterating the trunk. Tomorrow.

Today I cut through the trunk and branches into manageable pieces and cart them away in my old truck to my burn pit.

When I’m done five hours later, the ground is clean, and I take my family out to dinner.

A fine day. I can’t wait for tomorrow.

2

Did you live?

It’s always a good goal when messing with a chainsaw.

3

Yep, I know* that *feeling. Which way is it gonna fall. I’m sure it was a typo, but man, it was appropriate. I’ve had a couple go wierd on me, falling in an unexpected manner. I couldn’t see what was happening behind my back as a ran away, but I sure as hell could hear/feel/sense a very wrong commotion behind me. That hole moment can be described in your typo.

I shit the saw off and ran.

4

As someone who has a few tree trunks around the yard, could you elaborate on your stump removal method? What safety percautions do (or should) you take? Do you drill in with a standard drill and bit, or is it a specialty tool? I have a number of Red-Tip Fetinia bushes with have also left behind unruly stumps, but I doubt this method would work for them…the stumps are smaller and twisty, like bushes can be.

I’d appreciate any input. I’d like to remove some stumps, not become one. Thanks to all in advance.

InkBlot

5

InkBlot, you can get a stump grinder from a rental company. Think very big roto-tiller.

Burning things (trees, leaves, trash) is illegal in some areas so check with your local ordinances before doing this.

6

My dear old dad was once discussing with some cow-orkers whether he could cut down one tree without killing two others that it would probably fall on. He put a stake in the ground between the two trees that they were trying to save. Then he felled the original tree so exactly that it pounded the stake into the ground.

7

Gotta love that tool.

My last adventure was felling a huge pecan growing about a foot and a half from my parents place, an old plantation house built in 1851. This house had seen Jesse James come dance and trade for a horse. It had been the headquarters for MacArthur’s dad and visited by the general himself when he was a boy. If I’d done it wrong I could have seriously damaged all that.

Heh, dropping it just right was a Carharttic orgasm.

8

What are you going to do with the wood? Use it for firewood once it’s properly seasoned?

9

These are the lessons of the secret art of stump removal:

Small clumpy stumps like those from bushes can be removed by hand. Dig around and yank the roots out one by one until the whole thing comes free. If they are a little bit large you can still get them if you can get a chain under a root. Yank the root out with a tractor or a car.

Larger stumps are treated in one of three ways. The first method is to cut that sumbitch off right at ground level. Do this by digging around it. Then drill the stump a gazillion times with a thick drill bit. It will rot away on its own pretty quickly, and you can mow over it. You can also by stump removal liquid at a hardware store which will quicken the process.

The second method, which is my favorite is to again drill the stump. Then soak it with lighter fluid several times, letting it soak in over several hours. Make sure your area is safe for a fire, place a bag of matchlite charcoal on the stump and light the bag. It will burn for a couple of days leaving you with nothing more than a hole in the ground.

The third method is my least favorite. You pull the sucker out. You’ll need a small shovel and a hatchet. Dig around until you expose the roots and chop them off and yank them out. Do not use a chainsaw to cut roots in the ground. They often have rocks embedded in them, and even if they don’t the dirt and grit can ruin your bar, dull your chain, and maybe snap it which can hurt you pretty bad. Once you’ve cut all the roots you should be able to remove the stump. Again, a chain and a tractor, truck or car is helpful.

Medstar:

I just burned the wood in a pit. My new house doesn’t have a fireplace.

10

Thanks for your response. I’ll probably stick with method #1 for my larger stumps, as we’re in a pretty suburban area and fire would likely be frowned upon. Plus, I’d lose some good turf in the process. Fortunately for us, when they were removed they were cut off at ground level so we’re already halfway there.

For our bushes, I was afraid you’d say that. It’s the method we’ve used before on some others, although we haven’t tried the chain/vehicle method yet. We plan to: we still have Fetinia bushes remaining in our front yard, and plan to remove them soon. I’ve been told a rim from a car wheel can help make removal “cleaner” by acting as a pulley for the chain. Set the rim on edge, run your chain from the stump over the top and to your truck. As you pull out, the stump is drawn up instead of sideways doing less damage to your lawn.

On a side note, whomever introduced Red-Tip Fetinia to Texas needs a good, swift kick. They’re unsuited to the climate, highly susceptible to disease (and wonderful carriers), and favored dishes for termites and other nasty insects. If we didn’t dislike them when we first bought our house, a case of black-spot (bacterial rot) had already infected them before we moved in. Apparently it was moving through our neighborhood, and in a matter of weeks all Fetinia in the area were nearly wiped out. We stopped it halfway into ours, but we lost some holly bushes we liked, and nearly lost a Live Oak. While the Fetinia seem to be recovering this year, we’ve already decided to do away with them all, and replace them where needed with something better suited to North Texas.
InkBlot

11

A little sheet metal on the rear window might be recommended here. Lest not you pull the chain nice and tight, and end up with a stump impaled into the back of your head when the stump breaks free. Shopping for hats large enough to accomodate a root ball is a source of great consternation for those folks over in Wisconsin. That’s why the cheeshead hats are in vogue over there. They cover the rootball rather nicely.

12

I’ve always used dynomite.

13

I wish youze guys would come over to my house and take care of the pile o’ wood and stump that my dear husband has been blowing off the removal of for THREE FUCKING YEARS NOW. It’s just so ugly. And there’s probably families of critters setting up house in there somewhere. I cannot handle a chainsaw (they scare me…like they have a mind of their own) and the pieces left behind by the tree guys are too heavy for me to stack neatly.

14

Be very wary when yanking the roots out with a truck/car. Many a transmission has been destroyed by overzealous root-pulling.

On a lighter note, I never saw my dad quite as happy as when he was pulling the bushes out of our front yard with his Dodge M37 PowerWagon. You could have pulled out house off the foundations with that sucker - it had such a low granny gear you could have probably felled a large oak tree with it!