Winch Work

My wood contained a particularly tricky tree that I hadn't felt equipped to deal with until now. It was a wind thrown pine that was firmly stuck in a nearby oak and I knew I'd need the right kit before I could tackle it. Apologies for the terrible photo, my phone camera didn't do a great job with the light but here it is!

First up was a slightly longer bar for my chainsaw to help cut the butt from the root base more easily. This worked out but the tree was still firmly stuck. I tried edging the butt backwards using a felling lever but it wasn't going anywhere without a bit more persuasion. I'd recently purchased some rope, pulley and hand winch and was time to put it all to the test. First off I tried roping the base to the winch in a direct line but found that the butt was simply getting pulled into the soft ground as I tried to drag it backwards. I thought this might happen and already had another plan up my sleeve.

This plan involved attaching a pulley a little higher on the tree and running the cable back down to an anchor point on another tree. This worked well as the higher position of the pulley stopped the butt of the tree being dragged into the ground. It was great to see the tree slowly moving as I worked the winch handle. The winch made light work of moving such heavy material.

Another benefit of this approach was that I was able to stand well away from the tree and also to the side of the action when working the winch. There would be an awful lot of strain in the whole set up so standing in a direct line of it all would be a little unnerving. I had confidence in the equipment but there's no point taking any risks. The winch was bought through a forestry outlet so should be up to the tremendous weights involved. The same applied for the rope and pulley. I certainly wouldn't want to try it without believing I had kit up to the job.




I had to shift the pulley point as after the butt moved a little way it started rubbing against another tree. Changing the rigging point changed the angle and after this readjustment it was back on the winch again. I had to move it much more than I had expected as there were so many branches entangled with the oak. No wonder it had been suck for so long. Eventually though those branches started to snap as it began to release it's grip on the oak and it finally fell to the ground. It was great that it all worked out and quite amazing what a human can achieve with some rope and a hand winch. I would never had thought it would be possible to shift such weight around without some heavy machinery involved.

After getting the tree on the forest floor I discovered that the top of it still had green pine needles. This showed that even though it had been leaning over for some time it was still alive, amazing really as much of the root ball had been unearthed. If it had been rotten I would have just left it for the woodland to slowly devour but, given it's great condition, I decided I should make use of it.

I didn't have time to finish everything but managed to strim a lot of the side branches, saw up half the trunk into stove box lengths and put the blocks undercover. They'll need splitting with an axe yet before I'm finished with them for firewood. It will be good to mix a bit of this pine in with the hardwoods, as it should burn fast and help get the stove hot quickly. It will need drying out first though so I won't be using any of this material until next winter.


The rest of the trunk may get used to build a permanent shelter. So I think I'll keep it in long lengths and perhaps strip the bark off too to help it dry out and reduce any rot. I decided to use the butt end for the firewood as any significant length of this fatter end would be too heavy for me to handle.

One final experiment was to use the chainsaw to make a rudimentary chair from the stump. Maybe only suitable for little people that don't mind a bit of discomfort! It needs levelling off properly too!