Wet Felling, or syrfällning in Swedish. AMAZING firewood cutting! Hults Bruk vintage axe!
2024 ж. 24 Сәу.
1 652 Рет қаралды
In this video, I demonstrate a tree felling method useful for firewood production after the sap has started rising in the trees. It´s called "syrfällning" in Swedish, which means felling wet trees. This traditional forestry technique helps drying out the tree after it has been felled, much quicker than regular limbing, bucking and splitting.
I take the opportunity to try out my recently acuired Hults Bruk Agdor, that I just made a new ash handle for. Welcpme to watch the video and learn something new and useful for your firewood cutting!
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Kul att du gillade den!
hey from nova scotia........the forest your in looks very similar to some areas in this province.........i'm a 'bit' of an axe and wood hound..... thanks for sharing brother.
Hello there. Glad you like my content! I’ve noticed similarities between our regions too. Been watching Shawn James’ channel My Selfreliance for some years, for one thing. And it often looks a lot like home where he’s at too.
Very interesting technique! I love learning the traditional techniques used in different regions and climates👍 I live in a wet climate in Denmark. When I want to rush the drying out of wood destined for the woodpile I ring or girdle the tree in spring or summer while the tree is still standing: saw or cut with the axe thru the outer water transporting layer (cambrium layer) all around the trunk forming a ring. Move up/down 20-30 centimeters and repeat. Use the axe to remove the bark and cambrium layer between the two rings. Now the water can no longer rise past the ringed part. The trunk holds enough water to allow leaves springning from the buds. If leaves are already present that is fine too: the leaves will draw the water from the trunk and water will evaporate from them drying out the trunk: we have created a dying/dead standing tree that will hold much less water when eventually felled, bucked, split and stacked.
We use ringbarking on trees that produce a lot of root shoots when felled, like cherry. Especyally close to the garden, felling cherry without ringbarking first gives you a small forest of shoots straight away.
@@myoutdoorways I see, thats clever👍
It’s good, if you don’t want a lot of cherrys. But usually that’s not desirable close to the house. A few strategically placed is enough.
Excellent video Ola !! Really enjoyed it ! Ive only ever heard it fererd to as a bark spud. They do give you some advantage as a push pole if you need a little more oomph to get a tree past centerline. Also, by holding the end of the handle in 1 or 2 palms of your hand at roughly waist level. You can lift to push instead of pushing with your back and shoulders. Just stab 1 corner in up as high as is comfortable. Yup. Another excellent video.
Thanks. I think it’s called barking spade in the UK, after watching a british video where it was mentioned. A video with Ben Law in it, if you’ve heard about him. He became popular many years ago when he appeared in the british TV show Grand Designs, building a really nice round timber frame house with locally sourced materials. I have a few of his books.
Very interesting technique.
Thanks. I’ve been discussing it a bit with Glen Urquhart, learned a bit more from that.
This is an interesting technique. I felled a spruce last year in the spring and tried to process it all at once. Which was a terrible experience. Didn’t occur to me to let it sit and let the sap run. Thanks !
Glad you liked it! Stay tuned for the followup video in 5-6 weeks too … Not sure how it would work for spruce, but for birch and other deciduous trees it’s great. And also relevant if felling after winter, since especially birch is so wet from all that sap.
Very cool ❤❤❤
Thanks! We usually try to fell in wintertime in Sweden, when the trees are dryer, but when you’re late this is a good method.
I have a similar Agdor but its way shorter head due to grinding, its my favorite splitting axe. It never gets stuck hard!
There are lots of similar axes that work for splitting, I’ve had a slightly smaller one for many years. But this larger one I got more specifically for felling and bucking, and for that it works great. The hollowed out cheeks are good for preventing sticking.
Great video! I have not been aware of the wet felling technique but it makes sense. I have only heard bark spud not spade.
It’s a good method for felling in the spring. I think they say spade in Britain.
😊❤ cool
Thanks!
I always enjoy your videos. Your axe looks like 95% of the axes commonly available in the U.S.; a Dayton pattern on a 32" or 36" handle is ubiquitous here. Also, I've heard those bark removal tools called a "spud" before, "spade" is one I hadn't heard previously.
Glad you like my stuff! This type of axe is probably one of the most common ones, and Hults Bruk exported a lot to America in the early days. But those bigger ones is not very common in Sweden, probably because we don’t have that kind of giant trees as you do over there. Maybe they say barking spade in the UK and it’s barkspud in America. I watched a video about roundwood timber construction with Ben Law last night, and he called it barking spade. So maybe that’s the answer.
@@myoutdoorways I'm not knowledgeable enough to say what's right or wrong. I will consider both terms acceptable. I learn something new almost every time I watch one of your videos.
That’s great to hear. I usually learn a lot from the comments on the videos too. Great win-win situation.
Very cool. I always learn a lot here.
Glad to hear it. This time I learned a thing or two also. There’s a long comment from another viewer, he made some good points that I will adress in future videos.
It always strikes me as odd when people say that there's more moisture in the wood in spring. Like, there's absolutely more moisture //flowing// through the wood in spring, but it isn't like there's air bubbles in there in winter, or anything like that. It's just not flowing. I'd love to see some measurements of two neighboring trees of the same age, one cut down in spring, and one in winter. I imagine they would be similar
Yeah, that’s what I was talking about in my latest reply. I don’t really find it strange to assume there can be more moisture in wood in different seasons though. But it’s absolutely interresting to get some scientifically proven facts on the matter. For the person working in the forest with tree felling though, I think you get a pretty good sense of how the trees behave in different seasons and what to do accordingly. Like leaving the limbs on in spring, or felling in the fall when the sap isn’t running anymore. I’ll probably keep doing a lot more wetfelling, since I want the whole warm season to allow the firewood to dry as much as possible before it freezes.
Hello, I love seeing the next generation embracing traditional life skills. Your English is wonderful and certainly better than my Swedish. There are some points in your video that are not quite accurate (feel free to look these up for more information or questions you may have.) As validation and speaking from several professionals including arborists and eclogists, as well as, natural/traditional design-builder, there are a lot of..."old wives' tails"...shared in the video but some are true to a point as well... First, trees do not have more or less sap in them from summer to winter...that is too often repeated and untrue. Some have more "sugars" in one season than the other. The actual reason that timber was harvested in the winter was for two main reasons. Ease of transport and no mold or beetle damage would take place under the bark so log bolts could be moved from forest to mill effectively and without the worry of having to remove bark or keeping the logs in a mill pond or river to stop them from drying out... Rot in a tree is not a sign of anything bad for many species, especially in the pith of the trunk. This is a very common characteristic for many species, especially those related to the Acer, and Betula genus. Trees of these genera like all trees naturally..."encapsulate"...regions of intrusion into the tree; be it a foreign object or the dead wood that is in the interstitial regions of the tree like the pith. If some decay takes place, it is cut off from the rest of the tree and provides space for wildlife. Some species of trees even have symbiotic relationships with certain ant species that will then protect the tree from harmful insects and fungus even... The "wet felling" was often a common practice in many "wood use" cultures around the globe. There are different names and methods, but leaving the branches on is critical to "pulling sap" (aka sugar) out into the thinner limbs where it can desiccate faster. Bark removal on the main trunk is crucial because of beetle damage and to aid in drying the wood... The other thing I noted that could be improved is your wood stacking method. It would benefit from being "railed" up off the ground, and either a "scale" or "box" stacking style to aid in drying faster, not just place one piece atop the other. Look up "Holz Hausen" or the German style of "shingle" or "scale" stacking...This typically done after it has dried out a bit more in a more open style of stacking but can be done as soon as it is bolted from the main log and split. More questions are always welcome. Thanks again for sharing your process, culture and asking questions...I look forward to more videos!
Some interresting pointers there … if the amount of sap is the same in wintertime it doesn’t really make sense to fell the birches then, if the sap is frozen inside of the trunk … just harder to cut it down when it’s frozen. Except for the advantages in logistics, but to me that’s not really relevant. The warty birch I’m felling for firewood is very prone to rot around here, and a lot of them die from it and fall down. That said, not all of them do. Some grow very large and old without any signs of problems. I try to take down the ones that look unhealthy, or that stand in areas where others have died from rot before them. Maybe it’s in areas with an abundance of water they attract such amount of rot that they die easily. I usually put some of the branches on the ground before I stack my firewood out in the forest, down by the house I put it on pallets. I did stack it in boxsection before, but I found it a bit unstable and it also needs more space stacked that way. My plan now is to stack it in the woods for initial drying, then bring it down to the house and stack it on pallets if it isn’t dry enough to go into the shed by then. Thanks for your feedback, it’s a good thing when experienced people share their knowledge.
@@myoutdoorways Think of sap as blood metaphorically...what is different (just like in vertebrates)...is "blood chemistry" or in this case "sap chemistry" between rest periods (fall-winter) and active periods (spring-summer)...For firewood, you can cut a tree anytime you please, just understand the traditional modalities for "how" it is done...JUST...like you did in this video which is more than fine...!!!...Drop the tree, de-bark, leave limbs till leaves bud out and fall off (some species will continue to grow...!!!...like willows and some aspen, etc)...buck up into sections, and stack to dry... Wet wood cuts more easily than dry. "Frozen" wood may cut easier than just being wet if the temperature is not too cold. The ice crystals act as a lubricant on the bit of the cutting tool, and you don't overheat in the process. When it is really cold... the sugars are frozen too. Sucrids (aka sugars) have a lower freezing point than water alone... You may have an endemic "birch blight" in that area. Though some species, in some regions, all have it and have learned to live with it. Some of the bracket fungi from this species rely on the blight (it seems?) and are used in many traditional medicines. You thinning out and managing your forest for healthy trees only is good stewardship as long as there are enough "untouched" natural forests around to function without human encroachment... The branches on the ground are great!!! Getting them at least 100mm up is good with 200mm being ideal...There are several methods for doing this... Looking forward to your next video...
I think I’ll avoid winter felling mainly because the frozen wood means harder work, and takes a greater toll on the axe. That may depend on the type of axe, of course, Glen Urquhart has talked a lot of that in our frequent chatting … I’ve seen this tendency to rot down on birches in a lot of places around, but also vast areas full of birch with no such problems. So it’s not as much everywhere, and where I see it clearly I try to remove those trees. I’ll probably take your recommendations with me for next time I stack wood in the forest, perhaps I’ll try to achieve even greater ground clearance. Can’t hurt the process, for sure.
@@myoutdoorways This. Today I processed a birch and had to take a few branches off when I fell it... sap was pretty much pouring from the stubs until my felling cut made it through the heart. All the stumps of previously processed birch were also soaking wet... neither of these conditions were present two weeks ago in my area. Regardless of jargon and technicality's, thats "more sap" enough for this ignorant woodsman. I would argue, that the presence of copious amounts of sap suddenly pouring out of the stumps of trees that I processed over a month ago, does in fact indicate that the root system is indeed sending more sap up the tree now than it was during the winter. In regards to the rot I would be curious to compare notes with you. In the areas where I cut there is often very little visual indication of the rot, I typically look up at how many good-sized branches seem to be inexplicably broken off and make my best guess off of that. After a decade of harvesting mostly birch, my working theory is that if thick spruce growth is present there tends to be more rot, I think that as the young coniferous growth starts to take over their root system out-competes the birch. I'd be interested in seeing if your ongoing observations agree with that.
@@bushleague3472 Birch, especially mature birchbis not very shade tolerant. And Birch is often the first tree species to get going after a forest fire or other ground disturbance. Spruce on the other hand is very shade tolerant. Once the spruce get tall enough they kill off the deciduous species. The roots stop sending sap up the treebefore the tree stops growing each summer so the capillaries aren't full of water when the tree freezes solid. Then in spring the sap starts flowing upward. Anyone that taps maple trees to make syrup knows that. Also, many deciduous trees are lighter weight in the winter than the same piece would be in the summer . Also , anyone that has fell Birch trees in the spring and early summer has seen how much sap flows up from the roots. Where as when fell in the fall , just before freeze up. There is very little sap flow.
By the way: I guess that the stripped birch bark must be an excellent fire starter: do you collect and use it for that?
I’m not sure if I’ll pick them up or not. Usually I get more than enough bark from the firewood pieces themselves. And we also have quite a lot of fatwood kindling in the shed. So we’re not in any desperate need of such things right now.