Safety
Sounds dangerous?? I agree, so I take precautions and still got all my limbs to prove it. Took a course at my local agricultural college, got a certificate, and am now qualified to cut up logs. Wear all the safety gear, even the trousers in summer with their 25 layers of nylon which is like walking about in your own sauna. Got 5 million worth of public liability insurance with the Artists Newsletter AIR scheme. Protect the public with a barrier which also stops them from scaring me by tapping me on the shoulder whilst I am working. At 66 I find that the most I can do is two days a week. Any more and I am not mentally aware or physically fit enough to be safe. I am virtually TT but am advised that chain sawing with hangover is hell, besides being unsafe.Practicalities
My chainsaw is a standard Stihl 026 with 14 inch of cutting bar. I have had cheaper ones before but found that they soon became uneconomical to repair. My work is mainly on standing trees in public places and they vary in height from 5 to 15 foot, in width from 2 to 5 foot. For the higher ones I use pallets to get me to a safe working height. Pallets can be moved easily and allow the height to be adjusted in 6 inch stages. Getting the right working height means the difference between back ache and just being tired at the end of the day. My favourite subject is the human figure. I sketch and draw people a lot, so can carve a human figure without drawing it first. Besides there is always one close by to measure, i.e. me. The human figure fits into a tall thin block of wood or tree, very well, and branches can be utilised for arms . When I am asked to carve an animal, I have to do more research, on the internet and often at a local museum which has a good wild life section with stuffed animals I can measure and take ‘carvers’ photographs, especially that all important top view.Problems
The main problem with a chainsaw is not knowing what’s happening 14 inches away at the tip of the bar, in the middle of the wood. This is especially so if two saw cuts are supposed to meet there. It’s like making the tenon part of a mortise and tenon joint. You do not want to cut too far as it will spoil the look of the joint. At least with a tenon you are working with square timber and can see both sides. With a chainsaw the answer is to cut away wide of the mark and leave plenty of wide margins for the final cut. There is also a problem of the 14 inches long bar not being enough to make the cut you want, or the engine casing getting in the way. The solution is to nibble out in chunks of the wood. This sounds simple on the ground but on a 6 foot stack of palettes, you need to think about not only where you are going to make the cut, but you are going have you enough room to stand while you are doing it, and will the cut be safe. As the man who supplied my saw said when I bought it “You have to realise that you will be using this machine not in the way the manufacturer intended” The instruction on the chainsaw course give some idea about safe cuts, but I have had to work back from the safety rules, to the basic principles, and forward from there to my own safe practice.Designs
In many ways my chainsaw work is little different to my hand tool work. In both cases I am using found wood and taking my inspiration from the form of the branch, log, root, or tree. I have been working this way since I was 8 years old, so working without a front and side view on a flat bit of wood comes naturally. However whilst standing on a stack of pallets, or in front of the pallets, it is impossible to see what you are doing to the whole carving. It is possible, if the scaling up calculations go wrong, to get parts of the carving out of proportion or even to run out of wood. I always start from the top, work down and rough out the shape. By the time I have got to the bottom, the pallet induced problems have gone as they have been moved out of the way. If my calculations give me a figure that’s shorter than the tree, then the sculpture has got a plinth. If it looks as if the figure is going to be taller than the tree, I can make adjustments to the length of the leg, and it’s just a shorter person.
Chainsaw as a tool
You have to think the hand tool equivalent of a chainsaw as a rasp rather than a chisel. Using the narrow edge of a rasp you can get a rough cut that is not as neat or precise as a hand saw. Using the wide side of a rasp, you can work on flat or convex but not concave surfaces. A chainsaw will do the same, but also will allow you to cut a roughly square hole, or use the point of the bar almost like a pencil. You get a rough surface on the carving, but the shape will be accurate as I can shave off an eight of an inch easily. Detail is however beyond the chainsaw and I finish flesh and other important places with hand tools.Frequently asked questions
I work mainly on standing trees in public places and frequently am asked by passers by “Why are you cutting down a living tree?”. The answer is that it has usually been condemned as unsafe, and the alternative to carving it is a trip to landfill!! The public are don’t always believe me and can turn nasty. I get the usual ‘What wood is it?’ but also ‘Where did it come from?’ as if it had not been growing there for the last 100 years or so. I was once asked ‘Are you doing Community Service?’
Reproduced by permission from John Adamson. If you want to see more of his work, look on www.treesculptor.co.uk
