Tricks of the Trade

Your beloved chainsaw engine is essentially a fiery air pump. The process starts by drawing in fresh air, compressing that air, and then adding a dose of fuel and a spark – resulting in…

One of the most common questions that foresters get is, “How old is this tree?” Often, the response is less than satisfactory, as the forester carries on about site…

Forestry often involves the blending of technical solutions with ecological knowledge. Such is the case with scarification of the forest floor, which is typically done in conjunction with a…

Axes and crosscut saws have survived in the American mind as evidence of our utilitarian relationship with forests. Most of the crosscut saws I see today are hung above mantles or serve as a…

A few Northern Woodlands readers have confessed privately that what started as the innocent acquisition of an old axe has evolved into a full-blown obsession. Like any obsession, management is…

In the Spring 2022 issue, we tackled the task of removing a broken axe handle from the eye of an axe or maul. Now we’ll begin the process of hanging (or hafting) the axe. 1. Fit the eye.…

Sitting on the passenger’s side floor of my pickup are three broken axes/mauls, all succumbed to the same fate by excited friends and neighbors who had “wooded” and snapped…

Using a bucking stanchion not only keeps the wood off the ground (and your chainsaw out of the dirt) but also allows you to cut multiple logs or slabs at once. The design I use is sized so…

A friend recently showed up at my workshop complaining that his chainsaw was “bogging” and wouldn’t run at full throttle. He assumed the issue was related to fuel delivery…

For foresters in the Northeast, spring means mud season. In addition to making timber harvesting more difficult, operating heavy equipment during mud season can be detrimental to soil and tree…

A decade or so ago I had the opportunity to try out some of the early battery-powered electric chainsaws. I wasn’t impressed. They were heavy, underpowered, and had a pitifully short…

Woodland bodgers were the itinerant greenwood craftsmen of western Europe who moved around the forest in search of good stock for making furniture. Their forest office provided coppice wood…

In the last issue we looked at a few handy devices for smallscale, low-impact logging, including the skidding cone. One alternative to the commercially available skidding cone is a homemade…

One of my favorite things about writing for Northern Woodlands is that I get to meet so many folks who are incredibly passionate about forestry and equally “woods smart.” Al…

Small, maneuverable four-wheel-drive tractors create an opportunity for woodlot owners to do more of their own forest management work. Since these types of tractors are primarily designed for…

Before free time was subjugated to the mighty X-Box and “reality” TV, entertainment often took the form of functional crafting. Those looking for a break from digital overload…

Maintaining a sharp chainsaw chain not only makes for faster cutting, it also reduces wear and tear on the saw and the sawyer. Given those obvious benefits, it still surprises me to see people…

I recently walked a woodlot with a landowner who had pruned his younger trees according to instructions that he found online. The problem was that those instructions didn’t differentiate…

Several years ago I was traveling through the mountains of central Mexico and was impressed with a simple rope firewood carrier that virtually every rural household used. Children had a…