coppicer

First the Blue Oyster bar, now this. The thread is taking a worrying turn

He is a Stihl dealer but these weren't Stihl chaps - cheaper stuff, I forget the brand.

My local dealer was persuading me to buy chaps instead of type C. His argument is that if you're using a chainsaw properly, on the ground, you should only ever need front protection. My feeling is that he may have a point, but it's the unexpected accidents that get you, not the ones you can reasonably foresee. So better safe than sorry. I will be using the saw mostly in the winter, so overheating due to clothing is probably not going to be a major problem. Is there a consensus on which is preferable?

Thanks for that, went for another look. It's fairly firmly wedged. To cut I would have to reach around the tree in which it is wedged. Possible for an experienced user I would think.

Thanks, found it: 16mm Marlow 3 strand lowering rope per metre | F R Jones and Son

Sunny North Pembrokeshire!

Fair enough. Suppose I do meet something a bit further down the road that does have weight? Is there rope made specifically for winching?

Thanks to yourself and Steve - bowline and running bowline being studied. Is there a specific type of rope I should use? This kind of stuff looks expensive: Marlow 16mm x 4m Dead Eye | Clark Forest : Rigging

I have a sort of green lane partially blocked by a half-fallen tree, like so: It looks to me as if a tug with a 4x4 would do the trick. The plan is to then cut it up and dispose of it or use it for firewood if it's not too far gone. I have more falls of this kind to deal with further down the track, most of which look pretty innocuous. I don't plan to be skidding these any distance, I just want to get them safely on the ground. My thought was to use a choker chain to wrap round the trunk, attach one end of a rope to the chain and the other end of the rope to the tow bar. Pull. Sophisticated eh? What I don't know is: 1) Choker chain, whether they're all the same. 2) What kind of rope I should use. 3) How (which knot?) to attach rope to choker chain. 4) Best way to attach rope to towbar. Any advice welcome! TIA

You mean paying out the line/sling holding the limb while the truck pulls, so that it ends up in the field without hitting the fence?

I thank everybody who has posted. I wouldn't expect to pay for 15 minutes for a job like this, or any other job (in any field) that requires a trained professional. I think we all know that's not the way the world works. The truth is that this job doesn't actually need doing. I was passing by and thought "yeah, there's some wood there" and then wondered how it would be tackled given the hangup and the fence. Having said that, I'm still not entirely sure about the procedure being outlined in some of the answers!

By "behind the wire", which side do you mean? Sorry, just having problems following/visualising this. Looking at the tree, it seemed to me that cutting the limb in contact with the ground pretty much anywhere could lead to a loss in balance and a large lump of tree flying around, potentially flattening the fence. Or unwary bystanders.

So you'd secure the falling limb to the tree in which it is caught, to prevent any unwanted slippage? Presumably while still perched up in the supporting tree? Lateral thinking! Maybe that would be easier. Would be interesting to watch a pro get stuck in. Thanks for comments.

How would you deal with this situation? The upper trunk of a tree breaks off for some reason, falls to one side and is caught in the fork of the tree next to it. The tip of the falling trunk reaches the ground and seems to be supporting some weight. (See photo below.) Just to complicate matters, there is a fence underneath the two trees that should not be damaged. I should emphasise that I have NO plans to tackle this myself as it looks to my layman's eyes to be something that could leave you squished against the floor pretty quickly. But I'm interested as to how a professional would approach it. I was thinking maybe a rope around the upper part of the trunk caught in the fork and then gently pull forward with a tractor or 4x4, leading the trunk to fall forwards on to the floor?

The ground is - in the area of the coppice - level in the sense of there being no hillocks and gulleys. However, I have animals on the field and they do leave the ground uneven. I would have to experiment with a friend's tractor before actually buying one myself.

I have looked into delivery of the aggregate I use for filling holes on the track. They'll only deliver in bulk and they will dump it in one place. So I'd still end up wheelbarrowing it up and down the track and as I can't use everything at once I'll have a mini-volcano of aggregate sitting in a corner of the garden for most of the winter. First world problems perhaps, but I want to avoid them if I can. Something along those lines. I mean, the woodburner is an integral part of the house's heating system so supplying my own fuel will help with the fuel bills and give me some exercise too. But the financial return on investment is going to be principally determined by the size of the investment, so the key issue is keeping the "I" in the ROI as small as possible. Your comments about people spending lots of money to be able to claim, in effect, that they're not dependent on money are bang on the mark. I was brought up on a series of smallholdings by "back to the land" parents in the 1970s, so I understand the self-sufficiency mindset and the associated traps pretty well. (Ironically my property lies less than a mile from the farm where John Seymour wrote his classic [ame=http://www.amazon.co.uk/o/ASIN/1405345101]book on the subject[/ame].) I have repeatedly reminded myself that a quad/mini-tractor and an arb trailer would be cool, but they would have no utility outside of a very specific task. That's why I keep coming back to a 4x4 banger, although it wouldn't do that particular job as well as a tractor and although it would incur, as you point out, various other costs. In addition to extraction a decent 4x4 would be able to haul road stuff and allow us to get out of the house when the river floods across the half mile of woodland track that connects us to the outside world. So the cheap-second-hand-farm-vehicle 4x4 has always been the "sensible" choice. I was just rather hoping that somebody would argue me out of it and persuade me to buy the Avant with the tree shears. Anyway, it's been an interesting discussion so far and I thank everybody for their comments and advice!

Mmm, don't have access to a braked trailer. I plan to use the trailer chiefly for carrying hard core from the local quarry to the house, a route with some fierce hills. Don't really want to try using my 1.6L work car (on which I depend) for that.

If budget was no object I'd get a compact Kubota and a trailer just for the coppice and buy a secondhand 4x4 separately for occasional road towing. It's trying to squash all my requirements down to one vehicle that's causing the pain.

Brilliant I was thinking this - a relative may have one surplus to requirements - but a friend talked me out of it saying that lawn tractors have no articulation and wouldn't be suitable for rough ground. I mean, he's right, but maybe it's flat enough?? Must have another chat with relative!

No, I hadn't thought of billets. It may be a useful approach once the trees are a little bigger? I took a stroll through the coppice yesterday (translation: I pushed myself through a mesh of dead brambles while cursing profusely) and while there are some large trees, most are still in the 4-5 inch range. I think any cutting I do this year would be quite limited, but who knows what next year will bring. I think I'll end up with a lot of ash about an inch thick and a couple of metres long; perhaps as you suggest I could store these on site and worry about how to cut and use them later. The Landy pro/con debate rages fiercely in my circle. I would never buy a new Land Rover. Every survey ever done shows that they're at the bottom of the heap for reliability. Every marque has defective vehicles, but Land Rover just has so many more than everybody else. Having said that I think there's a lot to be said for buying an older Defender that has been well looked after and that has benefited from some sympathetic upgrades. 110/90/Defender parts are cheap and plentiful, there's tons of accumulated mechanical know-how in the UK and the user forums are great. Best of all, you can bang into things and crunch over stuff without worrying about the cosmetics! The problem is that a well-sorted Defender 90 with a passable interior, solid bulkhead, chassis, rear crossmember and lowish miles is unlikely to be found for under 5-6,000 quid. There are lots on Ebay for less than that, but very few are convincing. 5k is way above my budget. Series 3 is cheaper but probably a step too far in the direction of outright masochism. I like the little things like power steering and enough sound proofing to permit conversation. Wouldn't consider a Disco or Freelander. It looks like Fordson Majors have been well and truly discovered by collectors! Nothing on Ebay under 2k that isn't basically a project. But the principle is sound isn't it. Small tractor, link box, PTO-powered equipment...

Had never heard of Avant until today - great little toy! Bit overkill for my sporadic/low volume demand pattern though.

It would fit places most 4x4s wouldn't go, that's for sure. Like that trailer you linked to by the way.

I considered these because of their well-known offroad ability but dismissed them because of the 1.3L engine. If I went for a 4x4 for extraction I'd want it to be able to pull half a ton or more of hardcore in a trailer on the road, up and down some serious Welsh hills. Is a Jimny really up to that? That may be so but I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to piloting a quad! Fortunately it's not really an issue on my property.

Sweet, wish I was in that situation. I'm told that I do, in fact, have more wood than I need but I'm not yet convinced. I suspect being easily scared in forestry is A Good Thing and I personally would never drive an ATV on serious slopes. I was looking at that thread here where the flail mower on a quad jack-knifed on a slope and threw the quad over; that could have been very nasty. My property is next to a woodland that is unlike my coppice not at all level and is managed by Natural Resources Wales. They often use a little alpine tractor to trundle about the woods, so I'm guessing they scare easily too!

Nice idea Arthur, if I go the tractor/quad route this is definitely on the cards. My dad had a little grey fergie when I was a kid, which I sometimes drove on the farm, so it's familiar territory. Spares I guess are cheap, though not sure about whether availability is still good? Not 4wd, but arguably if it's wet enough to need 4wd to get out I shouldn't be working the coppice. Some intriguing suggestions, I have just been reading up on besoms! I guess my mindset has been that this is a coppice for firewood and I haven't looked beyond that. I failed to mention that I have a full-time job so I'm strictly amateur when it comes to wood and I have limited time for the coppice. If I can supply my own firewood for the woodburner by spending a few hours a week on my woodland I'll be happy. I'd just like to do it efficiently and effectively. I accept your argument about learning from others. I have signed up for a chainsaw handling course with an experienced local tree surgeon and will do small tree felling course also. Coppicing is a possibility, though I suspect there are not many people out there with practical experience of a newly planted high-density ash coppice. Most coppicers seem to be dealing with hazel or chestnut and for tool handles or hurdles, not for firewood.