How to tackle a tree

[Sheffield Tony]

Seeing this thread reminded me ...

In my garden, I have a tree. It looks for all the world like an Atlas cedar. Quite why someone thought it a good thing to plant in a fairly small garden, I don't know, but it has been kept heavily trimmed for years to keep it under control. Still it remains a tree that wants to be big in a small space; it has become too overbearing and reluctantly I think it needs to go.

Anyways, it has a trunk of around 14" (350mm) diameter, and a clear, straight section of trunk up about 1.4m long before any branches. Seems a terrible waste to let a tree surgeon turn it into firewood, when I will need to be making some drawer bottoms in a little while. Now, while I do some green woodwork, I am not a chainsaw user, and this is not the sort of wood that can easily be riven, I think. How to get it down, and into boards ? I am almost tempted to try tackling it by hand ... I'm sure I can get it down, but planking it might be a bit like hard work even for a hand tool luddite ?

There's no vehicular access to where it is. I do have a friend who has a chainsaw mill, but he is a fair way from me and it might be quite costly in beers to get him to come over.

 

[custard]

It's always a tricky one, you see a tree in your garden, or a neighbour is taking a tree out...and suddenly all your geese are swans and this is a really useful furniture wood tree!

Except it almost never is.

You can buy 1/2" thick boards of quarter sawn genuine Cedar of Lebanon from Tylers that are 30" or 40" wide, and they're just not that expensive. I mention Tylers because that's where I get my drawer bottoms from, but lots of timber yards carry a similar spec product.

For the effort you'd put in a piddly little cedar like that just isn't worth it.

 

[lurker]

Cut off where the branches start. You are going to need the 6 foot ish trunk as a lever to get the root out. Do not be tempted to cut it down at ground level.

 

[cedarwood]

Cut it off at 6 foot bang in some copper nails then mount a dovecote on the trunk or get a tree surgeon to cut it down to ground level and use a stump grinder to chew up the base you will never be able to pull it up using the trunk as a lever in a small garden.