"Who taught you how to cut" thread

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I learned how to cut logs and split firewood with an axe starting at age 11 mainly from instruction and training from the Boy Scouts. At about age 15, my dad taught me how to cut big firewood with a 2-man, cross-cut saw. At age 29, I purchased my first chainsaw and taught myself how to use it. My first chainsaw was a Sears Craftsman/Roper 3.7 with 18 inch bar. The Boy Scouts taught me to always keep a sharp edge on my knives, axes and saws.
 
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My dad taught me from the time I was old enough to go along with him. He did quite a few years of logging in his day and knew how to fall trees with the best of them. His favorite saw back then was a CP125 Mcculloch. I learned on his 480 Husky that he still has. I hope to some day make it mine.
 
Dad taught me. We heated exclusively with wood at home (minus the oil fired hot water for showers), to the tune of 6-8 cord a year. As soon as I could walk in the woods on my own I went with dad. I played with an axe a lot yet received no training in cutting until I had first learned to stack (7y/o), then split(10 y/o). I think i was 13 when I got to file chain, and around 15 I was blessed to pick up the saw and actually use it. Dad passed when I was 25 and by then dad and I had been cutting around 30 cord a year to sell on top of what we burnt, during those years I learned tons of tricks that dad had picked up in his lifetime of logging and construction. I wish he was still around as to this day I still run into a new situation every so often that I could use his guidance on, but I take a very dad approach to it, Evaluate situation, look at all possible option/outcomes/ choose the safest sounding one/be prepared to retreat.
 
I learned from my dad with an old xl12. I was already felling/hanging trees in the fourth grade. I made every mistake at lease twice and only lived because I always cut a planned run for your life route. In my teens I had a job with the local parks department and handled all the felling for them, including a few tricky ones that still make my pulse race when I think how they could have gone wrong. Every once in a while I go back to town and look at the areas and still wonder how I never put one on a building. I did once nail some wires good! Man those things can hold some weight! I guess it is safe to say that I am still learning as every tree is different.
 
my dad taught me we had a cyclone go through the year i left school Trees every were so was dropped in the deep end,
Still run a saw every week tho
 
I taught myself as I don't know anybody who I'd trust to teach me the proper techniques for tree felling. Lots of studying forestry manuals (I have a good collection), the internet, and practice in the field - that alone is the key. The more practice the better you get without a doubt, and you try to learn from your mistakes - we all make them.
 
I wish I could say my Dad taught me but I was so scared of chainsaws when I was a kid I would run when he started the saw. I always envisioned the chain flying off and cutting anything with in 30 yards. I do remember him getting the two man saw out and we would buck up the logs. Now he is 80 years old. When he came to visit I put the 32 inch bar on the 7900 and got a few pictures of him running it. He had a blast.

Most people who taught me did not know what they were doing. A friend that cut wood mostly for selling told me to cut with the end of the bar on big logs. I always used the area near the dogs. I tried his way for a while but went back to my old way. I listened to him just because he had more experience than I did. Well experience does not mean you know what you are doing.
Another person told me to cut the felling cut at a deep angle down to the wedge. He felt the bar would have less of a chance of getting pinched. Sounded good to me. Until I learned from this site how to correctly use wedges. I have not said anything to him because he has been cutting trees for a long time.

I guess I learned most of the valuable saw lessons on A.S.
 
I started with my uncle in the early sixties. He was a faller who'd been hurt and, while he could still cut, he couldn't pack anymore on rough ground. He hired me for five dollars a day and lunch to pack his tools, knock wedges, and run the jacks. For a fifteen year old kid that was a good deal...especially the lunch part. The saws were Mac 125s and two-man Malls. I think the Mac weighed as much as I did and I'm still convinced the Mall weighed more.
We cut OG redwood and I put in a lot of time bucking before he ever let me fall one. A lot of time. He was a good teacher, strict and severe in his criticism, but not unfair. Things had to be done a certain way. To him timber falling was a craft and he took immeasurable pride in it. What we did wasn't special or unique for those times but the things I learned have kept me alive and put food on the table for many years now.

That being said...I still learn things from everybody I work with, even to this day. I try to pass along what I can.
 
I have been falling trees for about 12 years started by heating my dads garage with wood. Then about 4-5 years ago started clearing some woods that is when I decided that there must be a correct way to fall trees started reading everything I could to find a better way and trying what I read as I went along. Now I am proud to say I have not pinched a bar or bent one in a tree I was falling in quite a few years now not to say it will not happen again but has not in a couple years. One thing I did realize is just how dangerous it is and I am amazed that anyone could just walk in off the street and buy a brandy new 372xp no training needed and go kill themselves no questions asked. Stay safe.
 
I taught myself to saw about 10 years ago. It is really scary to look back at some of the stuff I got away with! I don't know how I avoided serious injury and property damage. The first time I saw a sawer call the lay for a tree I was awed - no more random drops "gee I hope it lands somewhere over there".

My most recent large oak drop was at a 90deg angle to a considerable lean and it fell within a yard of the predicted lay - safe and under control.

Husqvarna offers some good basic instruction in the manual for their saws but I am tempted to think that it wouldn't be crazy to require saw dealers to offer free training.

I also didn't know anything about PPE until a few years ago - good grief. Stupidity, ignorance and NO PPE combined with powerful professional saws.....my guardian angle is probably one of the more severely injured guys on his team.
 
Dreaded family traits!!

i am just guessing here ? but being born on a farm around the logging community really never gave it a thought. mostly my DAD, would be the best guess or just it being a possibility that were born with the talent in our "baileys wild ass jeans" ?? old school ways seem to stray from one woods hermit to another some how.... cut wood, cut safe, cut often or get cold.... " HAPPY NEW YEARS "
 
I've only been cutting for about 6 years. My dad-in-law gave me some pointers...some of which I remember and do and some that I have thrown out and learned on my own. Mostly from reading here. The majority of my experience is in bucking but I'm wanting to learn (and experience more of) felling techniques. I'm always on the look-out to find out where/who is giving saw classes...mainly about felling.

Kevin
 
I listened to him just because he had more experience than I did. Well experience does not mean you know what you are doing.

Sad but very very true. When people say "I've been doing this for 40 years" I normally have alarm bells go off.
 
Dad ?!?

Well I learned to drag brush, load, split, unload and stack. However no cutting til I bought my first house. Mostly trial and error I'd say.
 
I went bush many times with my dad and his mates from when I was about 6 years old. Dad was a faller, started with axes and crosscuts but by the time I was 6 the first chainsaws had come in. I carried the fuel and oil through the bush, he carried 2 chainsaws with 42" bars plus a bag of axes and wedges. At home I was allowed to clean his saws and file chains but never allowed me to run then.

When I was 9, on saturdays and school holidays I started riding shot gun on top of the fuel tank of one of the D9 bulldozers that hauled the karri and jarrah logs, from where dad had dropped the trees, back to the landing where the logs were loaded onto trucks. My job was to hang on for dear life because "Macca", the dozer and truck driver, was an alcoholic and had two speeds, flat out and stop. Macca would back the D9 up close to a log and was supposed to hook up a steel cable or chain around the log. Because Macca was also a fat and lazy I used to do the hook up - I was only allowed to ride the D9 with Macca if I did the hook up. The trick was getting back up on the dozer before Macca realized the log was hooked up otherwise he woudl just take off! He also taught me how to stand on a moving track and it would lift me up to the height where I could grab hold of the canopy frame and pull myself onto the fuel tank. I just had to watch out he didn't decide to go backwards.

Sometimes the bottom of the log would be buried in dirt so I had to lay out the chain or rope and Macca would roll the end of the log across the rope. Back at the landing I used to wrap the steel cables around the logs and he would pull them up onto the truck. I liked doing it, Macca paid me in cigarettes which I gave to my dad at a the grand exchange rate of a penny per fag. At the end of the week I also got a free lemonade at the mill workers club bar - that was it.

In winter and spring I used to light a fire and boil the billy for morning tea and even cook bacon and eggs or sausage links for lunch. In summer and autumn, when we couldn't light a fire we used to heat cans of baked beans and irish stew by tucking the cans in between the exhaust manifold and the D9 engine block. Sometimes a can would explode and the contents spray all over the manifold and exhaust and burn away making that charred food smell for the rest of the day.

It makes my skin crawl today when I think about it, but hanging around those guys but even at that age I learned so much. I had been going bush with dad since I was 6,

When I was 13 dad was injured in a log truck accident and we didn't have any saws around until my twenties when I started using my BIL McCulloch saws and taught myself.
 
My Dad, cutting fire wood starting when I was 5 or 6 years old. I was allowed an ax by age 10, chainsaw by 14 on trees that were down and dropping them when I was 16 or so. Purchased a used 041 Farm Boss, that is still at my parents house! Been cutting on an off since then. Just cut some trees for my Dad a couple of weeks ago. Definately brought back memories, kinda of time warp with my 5 year old there "helping".
 

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