Many of us have only seen a tree chopped down with an axe in the
movies, or on TV and fail to recognize the danger or finesse involved in felling even a
small tree: A tree can be hacked down in a haphazard, laborious
fashion or it can be dropped easily and quickly -exactly where you want
it to go.
Fayette R. Plumb Inc. engaged 'America's Champion Chopper' Peter McLaren to write a manual for their product- the redoubtable Plumb Axe. Though it was published in in the 1930's the advice us as relevant today as it was then. Photo illustrations make the concise text descriptions easy to understand.
The sections available to view here are How to Sharpen and Care for Your Axe, How to Use an Axe, Felling a Tree and Playing it Safe.
A pdf of is available to download.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/fspubs/99232823/toc.htm
This was on the MAKE blog a little bit ago; it's a guide to axes, published by the US gov't (Forestry service, if I'm not mistaken) way back when.
Mathias
Posted by: Mathias | March 01, 2006 at 07:23 PM