A Day in the Woods Felling the Coppice

I spent the day in the woods today felling the 30 year old Sweet Chestnut.

Coppicing - The Tools

The last few weeks I have been getting started on coppicing the Sweet Chestnut.

I say "coppicing" but as the majority of the trees are around 34 years old, its actually a case of "felling"!

The woodland hasn't been managed for many years so we are progressively felling the large stools of chestnut so that they can return to a correct coppicing cycle.  The first area was cut five years ago and is now growing well.  Two and three years ago we did some more but last year we were fully occupied in thinning the larch plantation.

I'll post some pictures of the work in the near future but in the meantime here are some details of the chainsaws that I use.  In another post, I will describe the hand tools that I use.

The Finished Larch Retaining Wall

At last its done but the ground was pretty wet. 

We felt like we were working in a quagmire!

Milling Larch for Garden Retaining Wall

My brother, Jim, wanted to replace a collapsed retaining wall along one of his garden flower beds.  It needs to be 32' long and about 1' high (that 10 metres x 25cm for modern people!).  He thought of buying old railway sleepers, but @ around £20 plus delivery each that was going to cost almost £200.

So, I offered to make some up from larch, cheaper and more attractive.

Wood Gasification

This has to be the way to go!

Charcoal Update

Just a note to say that the last time I did a burn, the results were:

 100% charcoal, 

0% unburnt wood!

It takes around 3 hours in the drum and 2 1/2 hours in the retort.

The Charcoal Retort

Here's the story of how I made this charcoal retort and the results.