Here’s the rub: when chainsaws first appeared, they represented a huge technological advance that gave a competitive edge to the people who could afford them. ![]() Off-grid forestry at Tinker’s Bubble with hand saws & axes, horses and a steam mill. Then the chainsaw will break after a certain number of years use, and of course there is the consumption of fuel over its lifetime, with the accompanying monetary and environmental cost. The chainsaw, plus protective gear and certification course can come to over £1500. If you’re felling and cutting up the odd tree, as on a smallholding – if you do without a chainsaw, you might spend £170 on the axe and the saw, which will last for the rest of your life (and maybe your children’s). However, for a more detailed comparison, we should factor in the embodied energy of the equipment, plus the fuel used in the chainsaw versus the food going into the people doing the cutting. The first is that in reality, if this contest was run over the course of a day, the chainsaw operator would win. There are some additional factors behind this simple contest. It’s usually a very close call – sometimes one wins, sometimes the other. Go to any woodcraft fair, and it’s highly likely that you’ll see a comic demonstration involving a contest between a chainsaw user and a two-person crosscut saw team cutting logs of the same diameter in two. What are the benefits of felling axes and crosscut saws? Felling axe vs splitting axe, or maul: the felling axe has a very sharp, thin blade, and is lighter than a splitting axe, which has a heavier, thicker, wedge-shaped blade for splitting along the grain rather than across it a splitting axe also has a hammer opposite the blade, for hammering in wedges. This means that the cut will be wider than the thickness of the saw blade, and prevent it getting stuck. To visualise this, put your hands together and push your fingers through each other so that the fingers of each hand point in opposite directions – so that the distance between the tips of your fingers is greater than the width of your two hands. Teeth on a crosscut saw are ‘set’, which produces a wider cut than the thickness of the saw. Saws come in a variety of lengths depending on the wood you’re cutting. The only company still manufacturing crosscut saws in the UK is Flinn-Garlick, and they only manufacture saws with this tooth arrangement. The easiest to maintain is the peg tooth configuration – the same as on a normal panel saw. ![]() They come in a variety of lengths and tooth configurations. They’re used for both tree felling and cross-cutting. A felling axe is a combination of these 2 functions – first the cut, allowing the axe to penetrate into the timber then the wedge, splitting a chip of wood out of the cut.Ĭrosscut saws are usually operated by two people – one at each end. For example, a cut-throat razor is very fine and only cuts, whereas a splitting axe or maul (used for splitting logs rather than felling trees), is very wide and only splits like a wedge. The profile of the tool is honed to give exactly the right combination of cutting and wedging. It has exactly the right weight over the length of the tool so that when swung, the edge is driven into the wood with a huge amount of force. A felling axe is a cold, brutal lump of steel on the end of a stick, with a razor-sharp edge. AxesĪxes have been around longer than saws. Using felling axes to make a wedge-shaped cut on the side of the tree facing the direction in which it’s going to fall. Essentially, they are an alternative to chainsaws, without the engine, moving parts and burning of fossil fuels – but the cutting technology is no different. They’re the manual tools for cutting and chopping wood that have evolved over thousands of years and become in their own way extremely sophisticated and efficient. ![]() “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln What are felling axes and crosscut saws?įelling axes and crosscut saws are edge tools made from tool steel (hardened to maintain a sharp edge for longer).
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