I feel for you James, I have suffered for many years from a back injury when I was young and invincible for twenty years. I appreciate your desires to do wood work by hand, but, in some cases power tools are much healthier. Good luck and keep on smiling.
I think the problem began when someone planted a worthless aspen tree in the first place. I have a stihl chainsaw you can borrow but it takes about two days of constantly pulling the starter cord to get it to run.
Love how Sarah stands there when the tree falls & you run away😂😂 she’s definitely the brave one & big 👏👏👏 for her working as a nurse through the covid virus
Ice & Tylenol. When it feels right lay on the floor & stretch just before the point of discomfort. You likely just pulled a muscle... doubt you slipped a disc. I’ve worked (& continue to work) in the medical device world specific to spine surgery. I work with the neurosurgeons at Johns Hopkins & Washington DC area surgeons. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns.
@@WoodByWrightHowTo I got a cheap ($70) Chinese-made plug-in electric chainsaw for exactly that purpose. Another $25 gets the cheapest beam maker attachment for the saw. Free-hand with a chainsaw is less precise, but way easier.
Wood By Wright How 2 I also have a couple chainsaws and an Alaskan sawmill attachment if you’d rather do that too. Though that would take a little more time because I need to do a little work on all but my electric.
Please go to your chiropractor and get your back put back in place. I did not do that several years ago when my moved out of place and I have lived with back and neck pain every since. If I had just stopped and went to my chiropractor I would not have suffered all these years. It will definitely make a difference. A good Chiropractor is a blessing when suffering with pain from pinched nerves, things that are out of alignment, and many other problems. I would not be where I am with my back and neck if not for my chiropractor.
We had a nice tree fall recently during a strong storm and I wanted to turn some of it into lumber for woodworking when I get the equipment to do so. This was very helpful in showing me what saws I need so I can save some of it for my future woodworking projects. I hope to save some of the Hickory tree and some of the red oak. Both are still alive but mostly fallen and need to be cut down so I should be fine until I get a frame saw.
I just wanna say that u made me laugh today I love ur sense of humor. I can sense that your wife and kid have been blessed with having you and thanks for the video
I always found that the most important thing with using an axe is to relax. Let the axe do the work. Swing the axe but don't use muscle power when you hit. It will save you from some of the strains, protect your hands from the vibration coming back through the handles, and it will be much more effective. I could certainly tell that you weren't relaxed when you swung. As far as your technique, otherwise... I am not an expert. My knowledge of this sort of things actually comes from training in and conducting karate classes. Good video though.
I would also recommend you move the hand that is closer to the head of the axe up the handle when lifting the axe up then sliding it back down to the other hand on the swing. A lot less effort that way.
Hope your back heals up well and quickly! I'll be interested to hear your updates on the pieces of the tree you cut into boards. That tree was leaning at a decent angle, and one might guess there's a fair bit of tension contained in the wood as a result, and that the boards will resist becoming flat and well-behaved, but maybe there are some tricks you've learned?
yup I made sure to cut the boards in line with the bend so when they relax the boards will still be flat just slightly bent. I will have to keep that in mind during future milling.
James I hope you're feeling better soon. You will need to rest a couple of days for sure. Try these back exercises. Really simple, sit so that you are not twisted so knees and ankles together then hold your stomach muscles tense, as if you are trying to hide a beer belly! Hold the stomach in for ten seconds and slowly release. Do not hold your breath only the stomach muscles. Repeat a few times. You will feel the pain ease. Do the exercises as much as you need, especially when you get pain. Eventually the stomach muscles will get stronger and your spine will be kept straight by their strength. Think of it as making a corset of muscle. Good luck.
Sorry about your back. If you still are unable to do this by June, I’m moving to southern Wisconsin so maybe I could bring my 4ft roubo saw and you could help me figure out how to make it cut straight and I can do the labor to saw up your logs. Hopefully your back is better before then though.
Great video but I am very sorry to hear your back is injured. I have had back problems many years ago so I can understand the pain. Take care and heal up. Thanks for making this.
thank you James . its not wright for our backs to flake out on us . i had to sit down for work because of mine . oh 2 summers ago i harvested 3 small kind of pear trees logs from birch and oak and a plum tree. but i used my bandsaw made 3ft and 5 ft long boards out of what i got
Ahahah best video on RU-vid, the finale is totally unexpected, your transparency made my day! Thumbs up for your popped back, hope you get better to end the process!
once you do something like that then a person can have appreciation for the lumberjacks of old, those guys were tough as nails, they would tackle trees 10 times that size. glad i live in this modern age.
Ugh, my back has been terrible since I was 16, I feel for you, man, hope you get better quick. I love your old bucksaw, I made myself a new one last year out of buckthorn from my back yard. Thought it was appropriate.
Take care of your back. I threw my back out doing a bad move in swing dancing. Spent 2 days horizontal, unable to move and another 2 weeks slowly recovering. Practice some good form and you should hopefully avoid a repeat injury. I personally found that warm compress helped with the pain. Keep up the wood-working. I've been really enjoying your channel and I have some serious tool-envy going on right now!
I hope you were eventually able to get your boards cut. I recently tried to do something similar albeit freehand with a chainsaw. It wasn't perfect but I'm happy to say I have a few boards drying on a rack now.
You have some beautiful saws there.youve obviously sharpened them well..Have you seen the modern single "man" (women do it too) bucking competitions? They use new competition grade single man crosscut saws. They are pretty expensive, around two grand. I'd love to see you do a comparison between them and vintage saws, if you could somehow get your hands on one.
This is I wanted to see, well done man, well done. Sad to hear that your back hurts. take your time, it needs to rest. Greets Danny from the Netherlands
LOL that is a shovel and ax and a lot of sharpening. I have a nabghor with a grinder so in this case i am going to take the easy road. last time I did one this size I used a shovel and chain saw and it took me 3 days.
I love the video and how you go about it but not the results. Take care yourself and do not rush it. I have been 2 years recovering from a ladder that clasped on me when I was hanging a shudder on the 2nd story of the house and it dumped me. But you take it in easy steps and you can recover from most anything. Hope to see your videos soon.
Another thing in the fall they tell me that it stir up the aurthis that was hiding in my knees. Go so bad had to use a cane for every thing.then I'd heard about raw honey and it healing capability.4 weeks started taking 2 tbs in mornings and 2 at night. Haven't touch cane after about a week. Just saying feel free to delete this.
There's a lot of moisture in freshly cut wood. Would it be better to keep it as log with bark intact for a year outside, then some more in the shop before slicing it into planks? I remember that for some wood, lumberyards would even pain faces to slow down the drying process to reduce the chance of cracking. But that's school knowledge, I didn't have a chance to go through the process myself yet so I'm wondering about how did it go. Cheers and all the best for your back.
I would cut the log down the middle before trying to dry it. otherwise it will crack as it dries. even then painting the ends would be smart so that the ends do not dry faster then the core.
At the start of every axe swing, your dominant hand should be right up near the head. That was part of why you wrenched your back. Your back muscles were having to try and stabilize the axe head, which have the least leverage, rather than your dominant hand/arm, which would have far more. You use your dominant arm to basically throw the axe head and where you want to strike, then slide that hand down to your non-dominant hand by the time the head strikes. Let the weight of the axe head do the work, not your back.
Good luck with your back James. Hope it's better soon. Another way to get boards might be riving them out. I've never tried it but have seen it done on "The Woodwright Shop". Only thing is there's more waste and lots of planing involved
Really enjoyed this one coming together! Hope your back is on the mend. Had mine go a few times in the past and its soooo frustrating!!! That horrible moment when you just freeze, knowing something has just gone wrong!! 😖
This old fart uses his ancient bucksaw a lot!. Yeah I own a couple chainsaws but for some things and some types of growth the bucksaw is much better. Out west there's a specie of Manzanita that grows into a tree rather than a bush. However Manzanita takes whatever it's growing in on up with it into the trunk! Rocks, bolts, sand and gravel, whatever, can ruin a chain rather quickly. Rare to see one down, usually from a slide, when I'd spot one, instant stop and recover what I could. Extremely dense and needing special curing but incredibly colorful! Hell on tools, spent nearly as much time sharpening my lathe tools as turning bowls and plates. But damned beautiful and durable.
Cut higher up the stump - cos it leaves you more to help leverage out the stump, after you've dug around it. You're gonna want to do this at some point, s this is just making this easier when you coem to do this
Thanks for this video! I still have a few logs lying around in my basement which are too big for the band saw, and I didn't know until now what to do with them… Also hopefully your back recovers soon!
Fantastic work, James! Really well done! 😃 Well, for the sake of your back health, get some power tools! At least for those heavy works! 😬 Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
I just took down a large oak at work and kept a few 3ft logs, about 2ft in diameter and I wanted to make some boards out of it, I don't have a frame saw, is it possible to do with a froe? Also is it best for me to split the log into boards right away or let the log sit?
I think it was the axe work that hurt your back...your forward hand should slide from the head to your back set hand as your swinging down. Still it was a great video showing the process. Get to feeling better soon bud.
Is there a way to saw the boards without a Roubo saw? We had to have a maple tree in our front your removed because of white mold (I think), and I kept the 3-4 feet of the trunk that was straight. I really want to turn it into lumber, but am unsure the best approach, and I don't have much in the way of power tools or green wood tools.
Was there ever a follow up to this? I've searched your RU-vid page but I haven't been able to locate it. I imagine we can all sympathize with the beloved experience of the back going out - at least you were doing something of substance when it happened! For me, it's always something seemingly inconsequential, like ever so slightly leaning forward to reach a hand towel.
oh it has been over 15 years sense the injury that caused that. this was just a flair up. usually once a year or so it gets aggravated. this was just one of those. It usually clears up with in a day or two.
out of curiosity, how long did it take for you to get the trees down, and how long do you think it would have taken to get the logs cut into lumber? Hope your back is feeling better, too :-)
Thanks. The back is feeling fine. It's an old injury that flares up from time to time. That one log would probably take me about 4 hours to cut with that saw into 4/4 lumber. The whole tree took me around 3 hours to chop down and slice up into pieces that I could drag off to the wood pile.
The pleasure of getting older. My sympathies James. Been there done that. Please be careful. I don't know if this is a first for you but back injuries have a tendency to reoccur (experience talking). Sorry, but I don't think Sara should be cutting down trees after the schedule she's probably keeping. We do wish to keep her healthy. Enough of her coworkers are being sidelined as it is. Stay safe, stay healthy, keep your distance😊🐱🏍. p.s. I see your neighbors(?) aren't any smarter then mine - going a little fast wasn't he/she for a residential neighborhood.
Have you ever pit sawn before? Not something that is going to be easy on your back. And yes. I have a few years experience pit sawing doung reproduction work. But if you do, it can be rewarding, plus you can give up your gym membership.
At first, I thought this was going to be a found footage film of a man dying under a felled tree. Then, I thought that it was going to be a found footage film of a man dying of cardiac arrest. You got off easy with a back injury, but be careful, dude.
Well in some places you can’t cut out a tree 🌲 you will be fined huge amount of money 💵 for it. Please tell where actually you are allowed to cut a tree. Laws and regulations are very strict in some places.
They're almost no restrictions on cutting trees and private property in the US. And most of the world, there's only restrictions on a few specific trees. Though there are a few countries that are very picky about what you can cut on your own property.
