GRS vs Ash Tree

W

Will Kwan

Joined
Nov 23, 1998
Messages
1,594
Initial Survey:

Last Saturday I took my Ganga Ram special out to chop down an ash tree. My friend had estimated it to be 12” in diameter. The GRS has been quite efficient in my hands and I did not expect it would take very long to bring down a 12" ash tree. The tree turned out to be a little bigger than described. I put my khukuri up to it and explained it my knife was overall length is 21” and the tree is thicker than the overall length of the khukuri. As my friend put it 12” was based on the part that he could see above the brush. Being the fool that I am I started chopping away at the tree.

Working on the Tree:

Progress with the GRS went pretty fast initially. I had wanted to minimize environmental damage and did not chop down many of the smaller trees around me. As a result I could only get full force chops from two positions. The bark was easy to chop through and I tried to remove enough material for so that I would have enough clearance as I approached the center of the tree. The GRS suffered its first major set back after a few minutes of chopping. The knife glanced of the side of the tree and struck a rock. The blow was pretty well full force. I was surprised there were no sparks but the rock was well marked. The tip of the GRS was severely dented. The damage consisted of a semi circle starting at the tip and had a radius of 0.375 in. The GRS was the only khukuri I had with me and I had no way to work out the dent it had to continue chopping. The damaged tip was not further damaged even though I did some more chopping with it.

After about 45 minutes of chopping I was 40% through the tree. Aside from the tip damage I had no problems with the khukuri or me. I was not very tired from using the khukuri and my hands had not developed any hot spots or blisters. Unfortunately I had gotten lazy and did not leave enough clearance for the khukuri so that I could remove wood effectively. I guess my fingers must have gotten tired over the next 30 minutes. I must have allowed the knife to slide around as I my hand started developing hot spots. I went and put gloves on. Progress had also slowed down considerably.

My right arm and hand got tired soon after putting gloves on. My right hand developed a blister along the bottom of the pinky and top of the hand. I also discovered about this time that I could chop just as efficiently with my left hand as my right and that my backhand chops were almost as good as my forehand chops. The khukuri also turned out to be painful to use with two hands. Vibration is severe on hand holding the rear of the khukuri. With one hand I did not notice any vibration even when chopping with the tip of the knife. Somewhere along the line my friend relieved me and did about 15 minutes of chopping, mainly to improve clearance.

The tree started to lean and make cracking sounds about 2.5 hours of chopping. At 2 hours 45 minutes the tree went over. Every time I heard creaking or a warning from my friend I would bolt from the tree during the last 15 minutes. When the tree finally went down I was had bolted 30 yards from it.

The tree was elliptical where I chopped through it. The major axis is 22” and minor axis is 19”. This is the biggest tree I have ever chopped down. I am wondering if there is a Guinness world record for the biggest tree to be taken down with a single-handed knife.

Analysis:

A saw would have been better for a tree this size. With a saw the amount of wood removed (saw width) would have varied with the diameter squared. With chopping the amount of wood removed varies with the diameter cubed, since the blade needs a sufficient clearance angle.

Except for the encounter with the rock the GRS was undamaged by heavy chopping. There would quite a few blows where the edge of the khukuri was exposed to a great deal of stress. This usually occurred when the khukuri bounced of top of the V clearance and embedded it self on the opposite side. When I could I would twist the khukuri out when it was embedded in the tree. The knife was still relatively sharp after the tree went down. It would even scrape a hair or two off my arm. Definitely not shaving sharp. I was very impressed that the handle went through the ordeal completely undamaged. Bad blows, of which I made many during this session, that cause the knife to vibrate excessively sometimes result in cracked handle.

I don’t know what to make of the rock impact. By hammering on the chakma I was able to peen over the severely folded edge and cold work much of the material to its original position. The damaged diameter is now only around 0.25”. With a bit more work I think I can fix the edge up more. If the edge had been harder it would not have folded over as badly. On the other hand the tip might have broken off completely if the edge here is harder. I will most likely nip about 0.125 – 0.25” off the tip. The tip will be thicker but much stronger. Previously I had put a gash in a chain fence post with the knife further back along the edge where it is harder with no significant edge damage. I am curious how a blade that thickens up faster such as on an Ang Khola would have faired. The design favorable to make the GRS a good felling khukuri makes it less durable. Anyone have any experiences?

It is important to leave sufficient clearance with chopping implements. I had neglected to do this and it hurt my efficiency as I went deeper in the tree. The knife was unduly stress as well. The knife bounced of one of the V faces and wedged it self of the opposite side.

Will
 
Will, I had almost the same thing happen with a 15" AK blem (blem because of handle), a small "fold" near the tip from hitting a rock.

I never got it back "right" using some "steeling & hammering", but as this is my "yard chopper", it didn't bother me. It still does great work every spring & fall, and has probably had more actual use, except for an everyday carry BM 350, than all my other knives combined.
 
That is more chopping than I would care to do and fine report from the field, Will. Claim it as a record until somebody challenges.
 
Will you're a better man than I.:D
I wouldn't have even began to attempt a project of that sort even when I was younger!!!! Ash is downright hardwood.
But I'm right glad that you did as it showed several things about the nature of H.I.Khukuris all of them very positive!!!!

Any of it knot free enough and long enough to carve a long bow out of?
I once made a 65# draw short bow out of a small ash sapling and it was the only bow I ever made that was stolen from me.
I spent a lot of time on it, firehardening it and everything.:(
 
WoW:cool: I am impressed!! I have chopped down trees that were about 9-10" (hardwood)and that was MORE than enough:D Thanks for cool report!
 
...you are a braver and more determined man than I was, or ever will be :D I notice that this was not the tree you planned to attack from the back of your riding lawnmower :eek: Probably a good thing, unless your mower is built on a D8 Cat chassis. :cool:
 
Besides being the Paul Bunyon of the khukuri world Will is also a sharpening fanatic and I always try to send him the dullest khukuris I can find.

I remember once I was tormenting Will a little about the senselessness of keeping a razor edge on a khukuri. "You don't shave with it and after ten chops on an oak tree the edge is gone anyway so it's just a waste."

Will replied, "It gives me the same starting point every time and allows me to evaluate blade performance better by always starting with the same edge." Then he added, "And I like to get a razor's edge simply because I can."

I liked that comment. I guess that's why I remember it.
 
Jon, how big of a dent did the rock make in your AK tip and how hard do you think you hit the rock? I am very interested in seeing how much more dent resistant the thicker AK tip is. I am not interested enough to dent my own AK. I use my khukuri for work and stress relief so the dent does not bother me much, it is a bit of a scientific curiosity. After working on the edge it does not seem likely I will have to take anything of the tip.

Yvsa, I do not know much about bow making but you have tweaked my interest. We were actually shooting our bows in the morning. There are quite a few limbs and sapling from a tree that size. My friend is planning to turn the ash into firewood. He is taking a picture of the tree first. I will keep an eye out for piece to make a bow with. I can keep an eye out for a piece for you if you want. Give me an idea of what to look for. It is unfortunate that your bow was stolen.

Rob, I know how you feel. If I were a saner man I would have not proceeded after I put the GRS up to the tree.

Walosi, the Cat would be too slow to make life interesting for spectators.

Except for the encounter with the rock the khukuri was only dulled by the ordeal. The knife was still capable of cutting and I had to be careful when I was working on it. Amazing that you can still remember that comment, Uncle Bill? I suppose the same can be said about chopping down this tree.

Will
 
Originally posted by Will Kwan
Yvsa, I do not know much about bow making but you have tweaked my interest. We were actually shooting our bows in the morning. There are quite a few limbs and sapling from a tree that size. My friend is planning to turn the ash into firewood. He is taking a picture of the tree first. I will keep an eye out for piece to make a bow with. I can keep an eye out for a piece for you if you want. Give me an idea of what to look for. It is unfortunate that your bow was stolen.
Click to expand...

But I have some Bois D'Arc curing out I hope to make a couple of short ndn bows out of later down the road.

The larger limbs of the ash would be the best because you have to take the back down to one common grain layer. And on Bois D'Arc the heartwood is used which means you have to have a rather large piece in order to have the back of the bow as flat as possible.
Somewhere in my old e-mail that I transfered from WebTV over to the computer I _think_ I had at least one website that gave details and measurements to layout a bow blank, but trying to find it would be very difficult if not impossible right now.
I'm thinking a new search of the internet would be faster.
But I have a couple of Laudin's, I believe his name is, book's that give details on ndn bows.

Another potential problem is getting the wood seasoned without it splitting. The wood is best cut in the winter if possible so the sap will be down and that generally helps with potential splitting.
I paint the wood down with vegetable oil until it won't soak up anymore usually, but I've been kinda lax on the Bios D'Arc and it has a few splits, don't think they're in places that will hurt, but that will be found out when the stave is beginning to be worked.

If you decide to make a bow please let me know how it turns out. I would be most interested!!!!:)
 
Split out your bow staves now so the wood won't crack as it dries. The reason round logs crack radially as they dry is the wood shrinks more circumferentially than radially -- if you split it into wedges the wedges will get narrow without cracking. If you don't have time to do any more right now just split the log in half and that'll be enough to prevent cracking, but it's better to split it into staves immediately so it'll dry faster. Put aside three or four bow staves that look perfect and you should get at least one good bow out of them....

There's a wealth of information on making bows on the web; run a search.
 
That is a fine sized piece of wood Will, and a very detailed and informative report, I think you can claim an equally impressive determination as quality of the tool used.

I have gone through 12" wood on multiple times, and as well went through one piece that was significantly wider than the blade of my 22" AK, but not wider than the whole piece itself, it was also Pine a fairly soft wood. My brother took down a large piece of spruce awhile ago, about 16-18" across with a small hatchet. There is not a lot of 20"+ wood around here now.

In regards to clearance, on larger wood, there is no way you can open up the cut enough to start, on that size of a tree you would need 3-5+" of penetration and you would be hard pressed to do that even with a large felling axe. The optimum way is to make a notch and then when you v-out, make a notch above it, knock out the waste in between and repeat as necessary.

I have also found the exact same thing as you in regards to comfort and fatigue. As soon as my grip starts to get sloppy my skin gets torn up really quickly. I don't have no where hear the ability with my left hand though as I do with my right, although I do use it on occasion for rough work to increase its abilities.

-Cliff
 
Thanks for the tip Cliff. I will give it a try sometime.

After banging the tip out the best I could I sharpened the damage area on a belt sander. The knife was not shortened noticably. There is still a very small peice missing (< 1/32") where the damaged was centered. A bit of denting remains and off course my hammer marks. One would have to look carefully to find the damage. Pretty well good as new.

Will
 
Will sent me a pix of the repaired tip and I can't see any damage left at all. I'll try to get the pix posted later.
 
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