Coppicing in the USA

AKA Knife Knut

AKA Knife Knut

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Aug 15, 2002
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I would like to learn about coppicing, but all of the articles I have been able to find are UK centric. Does anyone know of any good sites that apply to US tree species?
 
coppicing

Coppice \Cop"pice\ (k[o^]p"p[i^]s), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Coppiced (-p[i^]st); p. pr. & vb. n. Coppicing.] (Forestry) To cause to grow in the form of a coppice; to cut back (as young timber) so as to produce shoots from stools or roots.

OK, I looked it up. I still don't understand what it's for.
 
I had to google to even find out what you were asking about. I don't think we do that in the US. We have a lot more forested land than you do and that sounds very labor-intensive -- interesting, but it doesn't sound practical for the US. There are far more trees than people here....
 
And here I was thinking it had something to do with "understanding it" in the Little Italy section of the city.
 
Mongo said:
And here I was thinking it had something to do with "understanding it" in the Little Italy section of the city.
Click to expand...
That would be Capisca. Capite? ;)
 
I believe that there are some real traditionalists who are coppicing various trees, ash being one of them, IIRC, for spear shafts. This is te way in which it was traditionally done way back when. Studies of graves where there are spears with both points and buttspikes, one at each end show that the socket for the spear point was somewhat larger than the socket for the buttspike, indicating that spears tapered fron the top to the bottom. For the raw data, look at Bruce Blackistone's post here:
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45203&perpage=25&pagenumber=2
 
Which species of trees are you interested in?

There are one or two people over in the bushcraft forum at BritishBlades.com or better still at BushcraftUK (can't remember the url offhand) who practice forestry.

Give me a reminder or three and I'll eventually remember to ask someone :)

Roger
 
K.V. Collucci said:
That would be Capisca. Capite? ;)
Click to expand...


Italian verb "capire": "capisca" is the singular imperative form, whereas "capite" is second person plural.

The popolar (as heard in movies) "capish" is a corruption of the second person singular "capisci".


And now back to our regular scheduled thread .... ;)
 
I've seen some folks plant special type of willow in a coppice fashion for use in crafts, making willow baskets and furniture etc. Make sense and is sustainable.
 
I must admit that I did not know what coppicing was at first sight of the word, and had to look it up.
The first time I saw it was on the thread that FullerH posted.

The species I would like to do this with are the "tool/weapon handle" woods, such as Ash and Hickory. I am unsure if they still grow wild in my area.

From what I have read so far, carefull training would even allow one to grow a custom shaped tool handle, but I am interested primarily in the straight boles.

Sorry for my delayed response, lately I have been busier than a one legged man playing dance dance remix.
 
Don't feel bad. I had not run into it until I saw it in an Ellis Peters story, a Brother Cadfael mystery, and then I had to look it up myself. Fortunately, I also had friends such as Bruce who could help me beyond the bare-bones dictionary definition.
 
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