- Joined
- Jun 9, 1999
- Messages
- 4,729
Yesterday my Dad, brother and I were riding four-wheelers along our trail and we found a tree had fallen across one of them. It was a quaking aspen, a tree with very soft wood. They grow around here exceptionally fast, but are so weak they fall over in their prime, as this tree had done. It was about 12" or so in diameter, so I decided to chop through it with my GS.
The GS did an excellent job on the soft wood. It bit in very deeply, and within about 3 minutes I was halfway through. It didn't stick in the wood at all, even on my most powerful chops. I did have a slight problem with vibration of the handle though. Part of the problem was the cold, it was a little under 40 degrees at the time. I don't like chopping with gloves so my hands were pretty cold. The vibration of the handle seemed to be concentrated mostly at the butt, making my pinky and ring fingers sore, as well as the half of my palm below those two fingers. It's pretty easy to tell where the vibration hit the worst now, I can feel it every time I flex my hand!
The chopping performance of the GS diminished quite a bit once I was deep enough into the wood that the face of the cut was flat rather than round. I got around that by taking chunks out of the edge of the cut, which worked since I wasn't trying to go all the way through the trunk, I just wanted to weaken it enough that the four wheeler would be able to crack it apart the rest of the way.
Now for my warranty question. After I got about 3/4 of the way through the tree, the trunk cracked part of the way, but not far enough for the four-wheeler to break it the rest of the way. I decided I could possibly pry the trunk the rest of the way apart with the khukuri. My dad didn't like that idea though, he thought it would break. I decided not to argue, but it got me thinking; if I did manage to break a HI khukuri while I was prying something with it, would it be replaced under the warranty? I want to know for sure so if the situation occurs again I can tell dad it won't break and if it does it will be replaced.
The GS did an excellent job on the soft wood. It bit in very deeply, and within about 3 minutes I was halfway through. It didn't stick in the wood at all, even on my most powerful chops. I did have a slight problem with vibration of the handle though. Part of the problem was the cold, it was a little under 40 degrees at the time. I don't like chopping with gloves so my hands were pretty cold. The vibration of the handle seemed to be concentrated mostly at the butt, making my pinky and ring fingers sore, as well as the half of my palm below those two fingers. It's pretty easy to tell where the vibration hit the worst now, I can feel it every time I flex my hand!
The chopping performance of the GS diminished quite a bit once I was deep enough into the wood that the face of the cut was flat rather than round. I got around that by taking chunks out of the edge of the cut, which worked since I wasn't trying to go all the way through the trunk, I just wanted to weaken it enough that the four wheeler would be able to crack it apart the rest of the way.
Now for my warranty question. After I got about 3/4 of the way through the tree, the trunk cracked part of the way, but not far enough for the four-wheeler to break it the rest of the way. I decided I could possibly pry the trunk the rest of the way apart with the khukuri. My dad didn't like that idea though, he thought it would break. I decided not to argue, but it got me thinking; if I did manage to break a HI khukuri while I was prying something with it, would it be replaced under the warranty? I want to know for sure so if the situation occurs again I can tell dad it won't break and if it does it will be replaced.
