The seventy year old family farm in Wisconsin has a large wood lot and is surrounded by forest. I played and logged there as a young man. Shortly after I transferred to the West Coast thirty five years ago, I bought a parcel of forest land in Washington State in the southeast foot hills of Mount Adams at a price that made me feel like a thief. The Washington parcel was last logged back when they used spring boards, axes, and two-man cross cut saws. The land first appeared to be a million square acres since it was so thick you could neither walk nor see through it. There was a mixture of firs, pines, vine maple, hazelnut, elderberry, wild rose, strawberry, and in the spring beautiful and delicate trillium. My biggest fear was that a brush fire would wipe out the entire stand. Consequently over the years, I have used and possess every type of machete, pruning shears, axe, hand saw, chain saw, and portable band mill to thin and trim the trees so that it looks like a park today and I can walk the perimeter in less than an hour. Nowhere near a million acres! I have worked in those woods in all seasons including winter with snowshoes and toboggan while staying in a tent.

The reason for the long preamble is to state my experience with obtaining dry dead wood for use in fire making in any season or for pruning . Dry dead wood off the ground still attached to the truck of a tree is as hard as a rock and brittle. I removed these branches up to six inches in diameter and twenty feed in the air to get them out of reach of a surface fire. They dull all axes and saws. There are better tools to harvest them. I used the blunt end of axes, sledge hammers, triple walled steel pipes, or solid metal rods to snap them off flush with the trunk. I even have used rocks and heavy green branches to snap them off. Not only do these snap off easier with less effort but many times they shatter into split pieces. The time, effort, and energy expended to harvest these branches is greatly reduced. However like any activity involving the expenditure of heavy force, care must be taken to prevent accidents from flying projectiles.

I would never subject myself or my survival tools, i.e. knives, folding pruning saw, etc. to cutting dry dead wood. I reserve that equipment for cutting green wood. You can even snap off dead branches by hand by grabbing the end of an overhead branch with gloved hand and walking back toward the trunk. However, it can be quite dangerous without a hard hat with a safety eye screen. I will race any forum member with any axe or saw, powered or not, with my methods and I guarantee that I will have more wood in less time and effort. And, I will not have to spend the time sharpen the dulled edge of a tool afterward.

Turbo:

Thanks for sharing your experience and the knowledge derived from it. That's one of the best aspects of this forum.

Bear

No to test your abilities or knowledge, I find that the easiest way in my opinion is a tiger toothed saw. I have about three saws I use one for the majority of my work, one for finer trees and the other for more brute work. I usually do not break branches when I can easily cut through them. I feel that with the trees I cut most are pines that breaking dead branches can leave jagged stubs which will stab me later as I climb through the tree, or will rip out too deep into the bark of the tree. If the tree is climbable I can usually whip through it in about 20 minutes to a half hour depending on how much dead wood there is.

I do agree that snapping or hitting really dead branches off is a good amount faster than cutting.

Frank

Hawk2064,

My intention was and is to break off the branch even with or below the bark so that the tree would heal over in a few years with no visible signs of a prior branch. Subsequent layers of growth will have no knots. I selectively harvest the trees once they attain three to four feet in diameter or two hundred feet or more in height. If any branch stubs, sharp or otherwise remain, I continue hitting until all remnants are gone. My concerns of disease entering the tree at these wounds have proved to be unfounded. I have tiger blade saws and “chain saws on a stick” as I refer to them. My next door neighbor is a dealer as this is also a large fruit growing area. I also can not afford to leave branch stubs due to safety and liability. Trespassers often plant marijuana on my land and this is open cattle range. I have seen some nasty wounds on cattle. The cattle who eat the marijuana, once I tear down the illegal fences, do not show any signs of “influence” much to my disappointment. There is not much entertainment working in the woods. I encourage range cattle because they keep down the undergrowth legal or otherwise.

Turbo:

You are a lot stronger than I am if you can handle a 20 foot long triple-walled pipe, 20 foot steel rod, and a sledge hammer at the end of a 20 foot handle. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Bountyhunter <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Hawk2064:

What is a tiger toothed saw?

Do you sharpen them yourself and please tell me how in complete detail?

Thanks!

Bountyhunter

bountyhunter,

You think thats hard. Try to hold a pencil and sign your name after a day of doing that!

Turbo:

I'm "lucky"?, as my arthritis is starting to hamper that activity and I don't even have to work up an honest sweat to achieve that limitation.

On the plus side, my writing is starting to become so illegible that some people I write to have started addressing me as "Doctor Bountyhunter" and I am getting proposals in the mail from some very attractive women, and some of those women have heavier beards than I do. <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Bountyhunter <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Bountyhunter:

A tiger toothed saw is a saw where the teeth are arranged so one tooth will face one way while the next tooth in line faces the opposite direction. It's difficult to explain in words, so I snapped a picture of my saw:



Now when it comes to sharpening, I get my tools sharpened professionally. Well mainly my saws, my straight bladed pruners and shears I can manage. Those saws are very hard to sharpen, and the cuts from them are not nice. I've cut myself before when not using gloves. I recommend gloves, cloth or leather, it doesn't really matter unless you really hit your hand hard, then leather would be best.

The saw I have happens to be a STIHL. I've been using it for about two years now and it's great. I have the PS 60 Pruning Saw with the 9.5 inch fixed straight blade.
http://www.stihlusa.com/handtools/pruning_saws.html

If you are looking for a great folding saw I recommend the Barnel 7 inch Folding Saw. I have a few of these,. They are great for everyday pruning, but if you are planning on doing some large jobs I'd go with a fixed blade saw (my opinion: straight or curved blade doesn't make a difference to me, might for you)
http://www.frostproof.com/catalog/ht03.html
frostproof.com is one of the best sites I've found for agriculture supplies.

Frank

Hawk2064:

Thanks, I thought the tigertooth was a chainsaw type blade.

If you do use chainsaws, always buy what they call the "PROFESSIONAL" style chains. The cutters are narrower so they can zip thru the wood faster. Because the cutters are narrower and smaller, they do not last as long before you have to replace the chain, but if you do it for a living, the time you save outweighs the slightly added cost of replacement. Buy them in sets of 3 chains so that when you have to replace the last chain, you may as well replace the chain drive sprocket on the saw.

UNLESS YOU ARE VERY NEW, OR INSECURE, OR SCARED USING A CHAIN SAW, DO NOT BUY SAFETY CHAINSAW BLADES. THEY ARE SLOW CUTTERS, AND A PAIN IN THE RUMP TO SHARPEN.

Bountyhunter