Anyone know anything about coppicing?

Coriolanus

I was browsing a book on lost (or nearly lost) crafts in Chapters the other day and there was a chapter on coppicing. Seems pretty interesting and I got to wondering if the practise was ever used in Ireland and if anyone does it.
Depending on course on your needs, I guess it might be possible on a small scale for a woodworker to have at least as an ocassional source of wood?

slowburner

Nevore wrote: »

I was browsing a book on lost (or nearly lost) crafts in Chapters the other day and there was a chapter on coppicing. Seems pretty interesting and I got to wondering if the practise was ever used in Ireland and if anyone does it.
Depending on course on your needs, I guess it might be possible on a small scale for a woodworker to have at least as an ocassional source of wood?

Coppicing is more suited to the production of wood for burning or for charcoal making.
You would be hanging around for quite a while to get anything of a thickness suitable for woodworking. It even takes 3 years or so, to get anything of a size suitable for firewood from the turbo fast growing Willow.
The other thing is that the wood produced from coppicing ends up as a 'reaction wood' i.e. because it grows outward from the main stem and more parallel to the ground, one side of the branch is in compression. When it is milled, all sorts of nasty tensions are relieved causing the timber to warp, twist and split.
It is a great way of producing firewood in a sustainable way and much under utilised in Ireland. There has not really been a tradition of coppicing in Ireland (??) - although things are bound to change as fuel prices rise and our winters become more severe.
(Planting Ash for my own coppice is on the to-do list for the Autumn :rolleyes:)

Coriolanus

slowburner wrote: »

Coppicing is more suited to the production of wood for burning or for charcoal making.
You would be hanging around for quite a while to get anything of a thickness suitable for woodworking. It even takes 3 years or so, to get anything of a size suitable for firewood from the turbo fast growing Willow.
The other thing is that the wood produced from coppicing ends up as a 'reaction wood' i.e. because it grows outward from the main stem and more parallel to the ground, one side of the branch is in compression. When it is milled, all sorts of nasty tensions are relieved causing the timber to warp, twist and split.
It is a great way of producing firewood in a sustainable way and much under utilised in Ireland. There has not really been a tradition of coppicing in Ireland (??) - although things are bound to change as fuel prices rise and our winters become more severe.
(Planting Ash for my own coppice is on the to-do list for the Autumn :rolleyes:)

Interesting stuff! I only briefly read about it and didn't realise it's limitations.
If you don't mind my asking, how big a plot are you planning on planting? Are you going to replace coal or whatever completely eventually or just hope to cut down a bit on the costs?

slowburner

Not a huge area - maybe a 1/3 of an acre. I'm lucky to have a good supply of firewood already, so yes, the intention would be not to have to buy fuel.

Coriolanus

Interesting. There goes my plan to harvest poles for walking sticks and make my millions that way. :pac: Still might plant a mix on a half acre I have and see what happens, it'd be nice to never need to call the coalman again .

slowburner

Well why not have a go at farming walking sticks - bloody good idea :pac:
Hazel and Holly make good sticks. You might even grow blackthorn and be Ireland's The World's biggest producer of shillelaghs.
The waste product might be enough to keep you toasty in the Winter's evenings.
Now you've got me thinking

Coriolanus

Hehe. Glad to be of service.

When it comes to the "stock" are you going to grow from seedlings you raise or just buy 3-5 yr old trees to plant from a nursery or something?
I don't even remember seeing anything like hazel, ash, willow etc in gardening centres I've been in, though they usually have fruit trees.
Actually, I wonder if apple would be any good for coppicing now...

slowburner

Nevore wrote: »

Hehe. Glad to be of service.

When it comes to the "stock" are you going to grow from seedlings you raise or just buy 3-5 yr old trees to plant from a nursery or something?
I don't even remember seeing anything like hazel, ash, willow etc in gardening centres I've been in, though they usually have fruit trees.
Actually, I wonder if apple would be any good for coppicing now...

Willows are brilliant - you cut a stem off (any time of year, I think) stick it in the ground and you have a tree in a couple of years:)
Keep an eye out for Ash plants (don't know why they are called this) now. Wherever there is a mature Ash tree, invariably there will be Ash plants strewn about. Remember where they are (or mark them) and dig them up in the dormant season and replant.
That's what I'm doing with my Ash anyway.
If you wanted to buy any of the above, loads of commercial nurseries will sell them as whips (bare rooted one year old plants from the ground) for very little money.
Last time I bought some they were about 30 c per whip - but that was yonks ago.
Best time to buy and plant whips is from February to March, if the ground is not frozen solid :eek:

slowburner

Apple might be a bit slow growing for a coppice

Coriolanus

I found two interesting threads in a google search.

http://forum.downsizer.net/archive/coppice-creation__o_t__t_46150.html
http://www.thetreeofliberty.com/vb/showthread.php?t=125744

Some interesting tidbits. At least one person is trying apple and pear, I don't know though, like you say, they're slow growing in Ireland.

Pity we don't have anything like the woodland trust over in England. Apparently they offer free help in planting woodland.

William Powell

I have about 300 willows I coppice every couple of years, I "plant" 9inch year old wood through black woven geotextile and get 99% success. Each year I put in a few more rows. The plants are mainly for wind breaks in the garden. I bought named varietes to start me off from www.waterwillows.com as unrooted hardwood cuttings. I also have a couple of very vigorous unnamed varietes that I think are used in biomas farming projects.

Coriolanus

William Powell wrote: »

I have about 300 willows I coppice every couple of years, I "plant" 9inch year old wood through black woven geotextile and get 99% success. Each year I put in a few more rows. The plants are mainly for wind breaks in the garden. I bought named varietes to start me off from www.waterwillows.com as unrooted hardwood cuttings. I also have a couple of very vigorous unnamed varietes that I think are used in biomas farming projects.

Good to hear from someone who's actively doing it! If they're mainly for windbreaks do you find much use for the cuttings as fuel etc?

slowburner

William Powell wrote: »

I have about 300 willows I coppice every couple of years, I "plant" 9inch year old wood through black woven geotextile and get 99% success. Each year I put in a few more rows. The plants are mainly for wind breaks in the garden. I bought named varietes to start me off from www.waterwillows.com as unrooted hardwood cuttings. I also have a couple of very vigorous unnamed varietes that I think are used in biomas farming projects.

Goat Willow I'll bet.

slowburner

Nevore wrote: »

I found two interesting threads in a google search.

http://forum.downsizer.net/archive/coppice-creation__o_t__t_46150.html
http://www.thetreeofliberty.com/vb/showthread.php?t=125744

Some interesting tidbits. At least one person is trying apple and pear, I don't know though, like you say, they're slow growing in Ireland.

Pity we don't have anything like the woodland trust over in England. Apparently they offer free help in planting woodland.

Interesting forums. I wonder why everyone is so against Birch as a firewood, I find it very good and I love the scent of its smoke.

Alun

slowburner wrote: »

Interesting forums. I wonder why everyone is so against Birch as a firewood, I find it very good and I love the scent of its smoke.

Strange indeed, I spent a week in the north of Sweden in the depths of winter recently (down to -32!) and the wood burning stoves there burnt nothing else but silver birch, possibly because that's pretty much all that grows up there, but nevertheless. Got some great heat off it, it burnt cleanly and well with no spitting, and the curls of dried bark made the best kindling I've ever used too.

slowburner

Alun wrote: »

Strange indeed, I spent a week in the north of Sweden in the depths of winter recently (down to -32!) and the wood burning stoves there burnt nothing else but silver birch, possibly because that's pretty much all that grows up there, but nevertheless. Got some great heat off it, it burnt cleanly and well with no spitting, and the curls of dried bark made the best kindling I've ever used too.

I'll bet that Birch was close grained!
I read somewhere that Birch bark is durable too and full of oils - didn't (Canadian?) Indians used to make canoes out of it? Another fact to bore you to tears with is that the rising sap in spring is supposed to have anti-cancer properties; there are even Birch sap farmers in Germany (I think). I tried it myself once - it tasted of nothing

I pinched this from one of the links above.

Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year,
Chestnut's only good they say,
If for logs 'tis laid away.
Make a fire of Elder tree,
Death within your house will be;
But ash new or ash old,
Is fit for a queen with crown of gold.

Birch and fir logs burn too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last,
it is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood burns like churchyard mould,
E'en the very flames are cold
But Ash green or Ash brown
Is fit for a queen with golden crown.

Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke,
Apple wood will scent your room
Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom
Oaken logs, if dry and old
keep away the winter's cold
But Ash wet or Ash dry
a king shall warm his slippers by.

I wonder what are the properties in Ash that make it burn so well.

slowburner

Nevore wrote: »

Hehe. Glad to be of service.

When it comes to the "stock" are you going to grow from seedlings you raise or just buy 3-5 yr old trees to plant from a nursery or something?
I don't even remember seeing anything like hazel, ash, willow etc in gardening centres I've been in, though they usually have fruit trees.
Actually, I wonder if apple would be any good for coppicing now...

If ever you want Willow cuttings, drop me a pm - oodles of them here that you could take no problem

William Powell

slowburner wrote: »

Interesting forums. I wonder why everyone is so against Birch as a firewood, I find it very good and I love the scent of its smoke.

The old rhymes are for open harth burning, stick birch in a stove and its wonderful stuff and its just a great tree to work with for logs, just look at a woodland birch next time you see one, nearly all trunk and comparitively few branches so logs and splits easily.

Your rhyme also misses out the first tree I head for for logs if I want the very best and thats holly Its right though about Elder - you'd be dead by the time you get a good fire going

I'll post some pics of the Willow soon, the biomas ones do 8ft or more rods from stooling back each year, left 3 years I think they might make a viable wood source, most of the others are just ornimental or basket making willows. I'm also trying to start some off "Somerset Levels" style along the river bank polarded rather than coppiced, but this year I had a very bad take with the weeks of wind comming straight off the sea drying out the cuttings.

slowburner

William Powell wrote: »

Your rhyme also misses out the first tree I head for for logs if I want the very best and thats holly

Holly is my pet hate. I dread felling the stuff - never falls cleanly. And then there is the promise of that wonderful dense white wood for turning - except it splits, no matter what you do. I have never had a piece larger than about 2" square which didn't split. And if you season it for too long you lose the whiteness.
Bung it in the stove then

Alun

slowburner wrote: »

And then there is the promise of that wonderful dense white wood for turning - except it splits, no matter what you do. I have never had a piece larger than about 2" square which didn't split.

Yes, it's a dreadful shame, such a beautiful wood otherwise. I've seen work by turners who have, in a sense, capitalized on the bad characteristics of the wood by turning it green and very thin, almost paper thin, so that it then dries out very quickly, to minimize splitting. The downside, or upside if you like your turning more 'artistic' is that it then warps into some very weird and wonderful shapes. Each to their own I suppose.

Back to birch ... when I was in Sweden, I was on a 5 day dog sledding trip in the mountains, and our guide had a traditional Saami wooden drinking bowl made from a birch burl (see here). I meant to try and get hold of some for turning, but never got around to it. I gathered from him that they're reasonably rare too, so it might be difficult.

slowburner

No stopping me now - Pix.ie is great
You've seen this piece of Birch burr before but this is a slightly better angle. I think Birch burr is more common in Ireland than you might think.

Alun

slowburner wrote: »

I think Birch burr is more common in Ireland than you might think.

I've seen it here, certainly, but these were different somehow ... dark and very close grained, with lots of very small whorls, more like a really nice walnut burr really. Maybe a consequence of the climate there, I don't know.

Coriolanus

slowburner wrote: »

If ever you want Willow cuttings, drop me a pm - oodles of them here that you could take no problem

I might take you up on that!

slowburner

Nevore wrote: »

I might take you up on that!

Any time