Fred.Rowe
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- May 2, 2004
- Messages
- 6,848
Moon had seen this burl, attached to a standing dead snag, residing along a clear cut ridge; he was in his pickup, on his way to my forge, for a day of hammering, when he spied it. After he had parked his truck in the usual spot, outside my shop, he came inside and asked; " have you seen that nice looking burl, on the left as you come down the hill towards the bridge?" I said I hadn't and asked him exactly where it was standing. We talked it over a little and decided to take a closer look in the near future. As the day progressed and we got the air hammer humming, the burl got lost in other conversation.
Moon and I had made plans to insulate the last of the smithy walls, a few weeks later and so I had picked up the materials to do so. When we talked on the phone before he came by, we decided to take a closer look at that nice burl, when he was at the forge for those, planned, two consecutive days.
Moon had a plan when he arrived.:thumbup: "I've got a couple of big spikes we can drive in the ends of that burl, after we cut the tree down; then we can grab a hold of those and walk it up the hill" Sounds good to me Moon!
I thought it might weight up around a hundred pounds or there abouts and figured we could get that beauty to the truck with no problem.
We put the chainsaw in the back of his Dodge and headed for the ridge.
With the truck, parked along the road edge, waiting to carry the prize home, Moon and I, chain saw in hand, walked the 25 yards to the dead tree. The burl loomed 15 feet in the air; As we cleaned around the base of the tree, to make felling it safer, We talked about, how, when we got it to the shop, we would cut it up and see what we had. I know now, we were getting a little ahead of ourselves.
I have felled a lot of trees and this one appeared to pose no real problems.
As I powered up the Stihl and got ready for the cut, I was dreaming about those nice maple burl handles we would be putting on some blades, real soon. As I bought the revs up on the saw and the teeth made contact with the hard maple, I leaned into the cut. It didn't so much cut the tree as it did grind it away. Man, was that thing hard.
After taking a big wedge out of one side I moved to the other side, for the felling cut. I cut half way through and stopped; there was just three quarters of an inch, left in the center of the tree holding it from falling.
We decided to drive the half mile back to the shop and get a steel wedge to get the tree down. We were almost there, soon that burl would be ours.
We returned with the wedge in a few minutes and drove it into the cut with a splitting maul. Just a couple of blows and our burl was headed earthward.
Now remember, Moon and I were set to carry our prize as soon as the spikes got driven into the ends of the burl. What could go wrong.
Nothing really! It was just our estimating, the size and weight of the found materials that became abundantly clear.
When Moon yelled; "shes moving Fred, get clear, thats when all our planning came to a screeching hault.
As the tree came crashing to ground, our prize burl along for the ride, both our eyes getting as big as saucers; we realized that the burl would not weight in at the estimated one hundred pounds or so.
We both broke out laughing at the same time, not believing the true size of this thing. Half as big as a VW bug and weighing in at somewhere around 5 to 7 hundred pounds. Our plans needed amending. No spikes would be used as carrying handles today.
Moon and I are making a new plan:foot:
Fred
Moon and I had made plans to insulate the last of the smithy walls, a few weeks later and so I had picked up the materials to do so. When we talked on the phone before he came by, we decided to take a closer look at that nice burl, when he was at the forge for those, planned, two consecutive days.
Moon had a plan when he arrived.:thumbup: "I've got a couple of big spikes we can drive in the ends of that burl, after we cut the tree down; then we can grab a hold of those and walk it up the hill" Sounds good to me Moon!
I thought it might weight up around a hundred pounds or there abouts and figured we could get that beauty to the truck with no problem.We put the chainsaw in the back of his Dodge and headed for the ridge.
With the truck, parked along the road edge, waiting to carry the prize home, Moon and I, chain saw in hand, walked the 25 yards to the dead tree. The burl loomed 15 feet in the air; As we cleaned around the base of the tree, to make felling it safer, We talked about, how, when we got it to the shop, we would cut it up and see what we had. I know now, we were getting a little ahead of ourselves.
I have felled a lot of trees and this one appeared to pose no real problems.
As I powered up the Stihl and got ready for the cut, I was dreaming about those nice maple burl handles we would be putting on some blades, real soon. As I bought the revs up on the saw and the teeth made contact with the hard maple, I leaned into the cut. It didn't so much cut the tree as it did grind it away. Man, was that thing hard.
After taking a big wedge out of one side I moved to the other side, for the felling cut. I cut half way through and stopped; there was just three quarters of an inch, left in the center of the tree holding it from falling.
We decided to drive the half mile back to the shop and get a steel wedge to get the tree down. We were almost there, soon that burl would be ours.
We returned with the wedge in a few minutes and drove it into the cut with a splitting maul. Just a couple of blows and our burl was headed earthward.
Now remember, Moon and I were set to carry our prize as soon as the spikes got driven into the ends of the burl. What could go wrong.
Nothing really! It was just our estimating, the size and weight of the found materials that became abundantly clear.
When Moon yelled; "shes moving Fred, get clear, thats when all our planning came to a screeching hault.
As the tree came crashing to ground, our prize burl along for the ride, both our eyes getting as big as saucers; we realized that the burl would not weight in at the estimated one hundred pounds or so.
We both broke out laughing at the same time, not believing the true size of this thing. Half as big as a VW bug and weighing in at somewhere around 5 to 7 hundred pounds. Our plans needed amending. No spikes would be used as carrying handles today.
Moon and I are making a new plan
:foot:Fred
