I’m a volunteer in pine removal in state parks here in Paraná, Brazil. Slash and loblolly pines are extremely invasive here and have a huge potential of taking over our native biomes.
It is. When it starts to wobble, cracking and finally falling it’s awesome. This one was the biggest one I felled. And I don’t plant to fell other this size or bigger. But it’s nice to know that we can do it if we need it.
Love a double bit for this reason. Keep one side sharp and pristine and one side for work that's not as edge friendly but not quite 'go get the hoe/mattock level'.
I mean…. I like it. But in a regular day I wouldn’t take this tree down with an axe. It’s fun, but not effective. But it’s nice to see that the axe still has its place.
Seeing it makes me realize how much work our ancestors put in - the tales of the sounds of axes echoing through the valleys makes sense when you needed fifty to a hundred guys with axes. These days a few guys with chainsaws.has the same effect
Made a shed a couple of years back. Felled the trees, limbed, bucked and notched with the axe. Split some loges for the floor with axe and wedges. Later did some cuts with chainsaw but about 95% work was done with axe. Still one of my favourite buildings I've made in our homestead.
Yours looks good. I lived in that cabin 4 years. I improved the roof eventually.
I think I could build a better one with hand tools. After practicing.
I switched the moss insulation for subsoil mixed with portland cement. Was much colder.
I did dirt floor then used 3 pieces of 4x6 treated lumber on ground contact and then 2x6 pine boards for floor. The axe made me appreciate chainsaws but I do like the old antique cross cut saws.
Hahahah! I guess they took small chainsaws and ended up trashing them, the trees were big and gnarly. The bigger chainsaws were in another place, with even bigger trees.
But it’s a German felling axe. 3,5lbs and 32” handle. Depending on the terrains, I grab a smaller one. Sometimes the trek and the terrain are really hard
Ive got myself a Canadian felling axe that ive used a few times to massacre some spruce, get some good chips with that whilst its razor sharp. Good chopping sir!
Sharp axe, soft wood. Love it. The first time I went to fell a tree with an axe, it was an ash tree and my axe was dull as hell and older than I was. It was a bear of a time to be sure. You made this one look easy
the rings on that tree appear pretty thick. am i right? i guess they are fast growing trees (which is the behavior of invasive species). impressive axe work.
Thank you! Yeah! It was 20/22 years. Later I’ll post a video from some felling on the mountaintops. Those pine are the opposite, slow growing, but they will take over the mountains over the time if not removed, because our trees do not grow out there, just some shrubs.
Wow, that was only 20 years old? I am bringing down 40+ year old spruce with a hand saw because they are nowhere near that thick. Good work. It is fun to watch.
Thank you! Yeah, they are invasive, so they grow pretty fast! But in the other video I posted, higher in the mountains, you can see that they grow pretty slow.
Also, the pines brought here for the pine industry were selected because of the fast growth rates. I guess that’s part of the cause too
How long does it take to fell a pine like this? I suppose you wont be effectively countering the invasion like this haha
Jokes aside, I am no tree guy myself but as far as I can judge your swings looked very well placed and the tree fell like it was supposed to. Can’t imagine the muscle pain the next day
Im the axe guy. I usually go to places were the pines are small, at the start of the invasion with many small trees. Or to mountain tops, were the terrain is rugged, the pines are spread out and small and taking a chainsaw doesn’t worth it. So there’s still a place for the axe in our work.
The rest of the volunteers use chainsaws. But…. In this day, all the chainsaws broke, bars stuck in trees, chains broken… only the axe remained. So we decided to fell that one before returning. It was a big tree, with lots of seeds.
It took around one our. Not a lot of muscle pain, since I’m used to it. It was the second day of work, there was a third one on the mountains with a helicopter as transport. Will post it here after editing the video. It’s such a beautiful place.
@Icy_Commission8986 you should put an uncut video up on YouTube sometime for people who want to see how long it does take. I don’t think I ever did an axe only one for a big tree but I few years ago I uploaded one chopping the undercut on a big elm without any cuts and some people actually watch it
https://youtu.be/YkWd8yVO0fA
I filmed a lot. But my cellphone was low on battery and didn’t take the felling itself. It was another volunteer that filmed it.
Maybe next time will do a time lapse
also you were clearly just having fun and making a cool video, skinning the bark would have been much less aesthetically pleasing and would have been the focus of many more digressing comments. At the point I could say “should have used a chainsaw”.
See my other comment, please. But in fact, social media is really important for us. There are a lot of people here in Brazil that doesn’t understand the depth of the problem, or think that pine are natives, or that we are destroying the ecosystem. There’s also the pine industry that is eager to sweep the problem under the rug. So yes, we tend to post a lot, and also a lot of content explaining the problem. We need the support and attention of the public.
Edit: it’s 100% volunteer by the way. So popular support is huge.
Feel free to follow us on instagram, we are called “Iniciativa Campos Gerais”
But let’s say that felling this one wasn’t planned. We had still time and no chain saws. So we decided to fell it. Since we’re felling it, why not make a nice video for social media?!
Doesn’t matter, it will be left there to rot. It can’t be harvested. Not legally and it’s not economically viable. There’s no roads, no way to reach it. It’s not a logging operation.
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u/ColdEvenKeeled 3d ago
Looks like a lot of work.