The Tools Make the Man

I’m thinking of buying a set of hookaroons.

A hookaroon, also known as a pickaroon, is a logging tool. It’s an axe handle with a pointy steel head at the end. The point is perpendicular to the handle. You swing it at logs, and the point goes in. Then you use the axe handle to move the logs around.

It sounds a little stupid. After all, you can bend over and pick a log up, using gloves. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? It’s the easiest thing in the world, until you do it a hundred times in one day. Maybe you’re in great shape, and bending over to lift things doesn’t bother you, but most people would feel pretty sore after a day of picking logs up off the ground.

A lot of people use a single hookaroon, but some say you’re supposed to hold one in each hand. They work well in pairs. That makes them expensive.

I ordered another item: log tongs. These come in different sizes. Big ones hook up to tractors. You hold little ones in your hand. They’re like big scissors with points on the tips. When you slip one over a log and pull, the points go into the bark and hang on. The theory is pretty much like hookaroon theory. You don’t have to bend as far to pick things up, and you don’t have to rely on your hands to give you a grip.

If you have big log tongs on a tractor, you don’t have to deal with looping chains or straps around logs. You attach the tongs and take off. I would be a little nervous about tongs flying off and killing me if I applied a lot of tension. I suppose you have to use common sense.

Most people don’t use proper logging tools. They don’t even know what they are. Sometimes that makes sense. If you do very little work with trees, you shouldn’t waste a lot of money on tools. I have a lot of trees, though. I need to do things right.

A cousin of mine lived with his mother on a farm my grandfather owned. His dad’s business failed, and then there was a divorce. My grandfather allowed my aunt and her son to live on the farm rent-free. They relied on a wood stove, so my cousin had to use a chainsaw and a maul. He never learned how to do things right. There was no one to teach him.

I can tell you two lessons he needed to learn. First, he needed to learn that whenever a striking tool or a wedge or chisel gets mushroomed, you’re supposed to grind the mushroomed bit off ASAP before pieces fly off and hit you. He also needed to learn to wear safety glasses.

I don’t have any metal wedges. I have plastic ones. They’re light, they work great, and they don’t mushroom. Also, if the saw hits them, the plastic loses. Won’t hurt the saw. I just paid $11 for two new wedges.

I’m not sure, but I think metal wedges are used for splitting, and plastic ones are used for felling. I don’t know if a plastic wedge could take the pounding a splitting wedge takes, but it will definitely stand up to being hammered into a saw kerf so you can cut up a tree.

One day I was with my cousin while he used a maul and wedge to split logs in his driveway. This is a stupid thing to do, in my opinion. You should use better tools if you can. We didn’t know that, and my aunt didn’t have a lot of money anyway.

I have probably written about this before. My cousin took a swing at the wedge, and then he fell down holding his leg. He looked fine, and the maul hadn’t hit him. He was in real pain. After the chaos subsided, he pulled his pant leg up, and we saw a little lump on his shin. It was a piece of steel. There was a matching cavity on the maul. A chunk of steel the size of a .22 round had gone through his jeans, penetrated his skin, collided with his shin bone, and slid about two inches up his leg.

You’re wondering why I mentioned glasses. What if the steel had flown toward his eye?

We took him to the emergency room in Lexington, and my aunt worked on the insurance forms. She asked me what I would say he was doing when he got hurt. I said, “busting wood.” Days later, she got documents from the insurer, and it listed her city of residence as Busting Wood, Kentucky.

Guess she filled in the wrong box.

My cousin didn’t know which tools to use or what kind of safety equipment to buy, and he didn’t know how to take care of tools, so he got shot in the leg. That’s what it adds up to.

I have no plans to split logs, because I dread using my fireplace. It makes a mess. If I did decide to split logs, I’d use an electric motor with a conical screw on it. They use them in Europe. You bolt a motor to a table, and you attach a screw to the shaft. The screw is pointed at one end and maybe 2-1/2″ wide at the other. When you shove a piece of wood into it, the screw bores into it and splits it. It’s incredible. Looks much better than slow hydraulic splitters.

You can buy a splitting screw that fits a tractor PTO shaft.

I don’t know a whole lot about splitting logs, but the screw looks better than hydraulic splitters. They’re very slow, and they cost a lot.

I’ve also ordered a set of mesh glasses. These are safety glasses with stainless steel mesh instead of polycarbonate. When you work outdoors with plastic glasses, they fog up and fill with sweat. That can’t happen with mesh.

People say mesh doesn’t do a good job of deflecting fine wood dust. My take on that is that anyone who eats a lot of dust needs to learn how to sharpen a saw. Sharp saws make chunks, not dust. I may be wrong; maybe a sharp saw makes enough dust to cause problems. I’ll find out when I try the glasses.

You’re not supposed to use a chainsaw to make cuts above your shoulders unless it’s a pole saw. My guess is that people who shoot a lot of crap into their faces are violating this rule. Held at a safe level, a chainsaw will naturally shoot debris at your right leg or maybe your right side.

They make hardhats with mesh visors and built-in earmuffs. I may get one. I already have a hardhat, but I only use it when I cut things that can fall on me. I’m hoping I can use the mesh glasses with the hardhat and avoid a cumbersome apparatus with everything attached.

In October, the weather will become bearable, so my tree-cutting efforts should accelerate. I look forward to getting more of this crap moved out. Last year, it often seemed very difficult, but then I didn’t have the right tools until I was pretty far into it.

Try cutting up a big live oak without a pole saw. It’s a nightmare. You can’t get close enough to the branches, and a lot of things you want to cut will be above your shoulders. A pole saw really tames a big fallen tree.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to burn everything I cut, but at least it will be on the ground where it will rot quickly.

Studying and springing for the things you need pays off. I’ve been working on the farm for a year without killing myself or even injuring myself seriously. I did burn the hair off my ankles once, but that was an improvement.

I don’t know what else I should get. I’m sure things will come to my attention. Here’s to another year with 10 complete fingers and no disks that don’t work.