An Idiot's guide to Ancient Woodland management

[the village idiot]

6 minutes ago, doobin said:

How much do you charge per m3 wholesale? 

£60 plus VAT. collected.

[the village idiot]

6 minutes ago, Stere said:

Just something i remember seeeing online

 

 

 

 

Looks like it never caught on

 

The Chainsaws Rule - Help Us Create Jobs & Start Our USA Business

WWW.INDIEGOGO.COM

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Help us create local jobs and keep our business in the USA. The Chainsaws Rule is a new tool that makes cutting...

 

 

You can get a mingo though

 

https://www.amazon.com/The-MINGO-inside-splash-265-01/dp/B0013LGQ3A/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_86_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CCP2VY734YPVYXRQ5WJG

 

 

 

 

 

Wow!

 

That mingo looks like a device that never needed inventing.

[Stere]

Yeah its abit chocalate teapot ?

 

Seems popular though.

[openspaceman]

8 hours ago, Stere said:

Chunky branch union bits are good for keeping fire in longer

This is right, branch unions are denser wood because they have to be stronger, hence they burn longer

[the village idiot]

THE OLD TOOLS ARE THE BEST..  OR ARE THEY?

 

So far in this thread we have concentrated on the fairly heavy machinery side of woodland management. Whilst these machines are extremely valuable tools which help make our operations safer and financially viable, there are also a large range of smaller 'hand' tools which are an integral part of our daily doings.

 

Let's start with a brief photographic look back at the tools of the past. These were the cutting and log handling implements used for woodland management for many hundreds of years. These were the days of woodlands filled with workers, no doubt very happy in their work but also subject to gruellingly long days and a staggering high level of serious injury and death!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For many centuries the tools of the forestry trade were double handed saws and axes for felling, cross-cutting  and snedding (de-limbing), cant hooks for log manipulation and various beasts of burden for hauling out material. A billhook, froe and side axe were the implements of choice for those charged with converting the smaller material into product.

 

You can hopefully get some idea from the pictures that in the past woodland operations required the labour of a great many people. Those days are long gone as the woodland resource became less and less valued and new technologies became available (most significantly the internal combustion engine) which enabled machines to do the work of many men, much the same as in the agricultural sector.

 

Forestry work of old was unbelievably hazardous with very serious injury and death being relatively commonplace. We have all but lost our woodland workforce due to the reasons in the previous paragraph, but those that cling on have a much greater chance of reaching old age, and with all their appendages intact. A lot of this is due to a significant change in the tools of the trade, in particular the introduction of the chainsaw, which despite it's somewhat grisly image has actually made woodland operations a great deal safer.

 

The next couple of posts will cover some of the most important smaller tools used by modern day woodland operators. We'll start with the tool at the top of everybody's list. The chainsaw.

 

 

[Bolt]

I reckon there was a pretty high chance of death just posing for the photos back in those days.

 

Amazing how much was achieved using so little.

[Bolt]

It’s easy to glance at an old photo and think nothing of it, but even a photo as initially unimpressive as this poses so many questions...

 

 

.... just two horses?? Really? What happens if you get to an uphill bit.... or possibly worse, a downhill bit?

 

....what about the most innocent looking side slope.

 

....how do you get them up there?

 

.... how do you get ‘em down again without breaking your neck?

 

.... what stops everything from bulging or  spilling out the sides?

 

.... what kind or ropes and knots puts up with that kind of loading?

 

.....how the hell would you ever manage to undo knots subjected to those temperatures and loading?

 

If we all tried to recreate that simple picture using modern kit, I reckon we would struggle (and that would probably just be in doing the paperwork)!

 

Respect.

[the village idiot]

8 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Amazing how much was achieved using so little.

Absolutely.

 

Manpower was really what made it possible.

 

I can't find the figures for woodland workers, but in UK agriculture there were 5 times more workers on the land in 1920 than there are now. It may well be a similar story for forestry. It was pretty standard for farm labourers to go into the woodlands over winter. 

 

There are currently around 40,000 people employed in the UK woodland sector. A lot of these people will be in office type roles. You could fit 40,000 people into a reasonable sized football ground and yet the UK has 

7 million acres of land under woodland cover. There's plenty of work out there if we can make the sector more valued, and thus more viable.

 

When you consider that the UK is the second largest importer of wood products after China, the situation begins to look even more ridiculous.

[the village idiot]

15 minutes ago, Bolt said:

It’s easy to glance at an old photo and think nothing of it, but even a photo as initially unimpressive as this poses so many questions...

 

 

.... just two horses?? Really? What happens if you get to an uphill bit.... or possibly worse, a downhill bit?

 

....what about the most innocent looking side slope.

 

....how do you get them up there?

 

.... how do you get ‘em down again without breaking your neck?

 

.... what stops everything from bulging or  spilling out the sides?

 

.... what kind or ropes and knots puts up with that kind of loading?

 

.....how the hell would you ever manage to undo knots subjected to those temperatures and loading?

 

If we all tried to recreate that simple picture using modern kit, I reckon we would struggle (and that would probably just be in doing the paperwork)!

 

Respect.

Yup.

 

I can only imagine what the horses are saying to each other!

Edited December 14, 2019 by the village idiot

[the village idiot]

6 minutes ago, the village idiot said:

Yup.

 

I can only imagine what the horses are saying to each other!

This reminds me of a story I heard a while back about a horse logger in the UK.

 

He had been working the horse hard all day out in the Woods dragging stems to the loading area. The light was beginning to fade but the woodsman was keen to extract one more mighty log before putting his feet up.

 

He hitched up the log and was walking back up to gather the reigns when his horse, who had evidently decided that his day was done, gently leaned over to the side and pinned the chap against a big tree. ?

 

The woodsman got the message load and clear. He unhitched and they walked back to base together without their cargo.