Horse Chestnut trees - other options to felling

[hardr004]

You know you can make soap out it. is it the conker or the leaf? and how do you do it? also could you get the conker and grind it into a flour and add water to make it like a bar of soap?

 

[treelore]

big foot get in contact with the tree officer at the local coucil and ask for a copy of the tree health report for the tree, scan it and send it to me and i'll take a look at it for you....


Ben
tree.lore@hotmail.com
Arboriculture,Forestry & Woodland Management

 

[Peter_t]

Under and ontop, or side step cuts? some trees dont like step cuts like Ash especialy if you leave the weight on the branch.

under and ontop, not sure side step cuts would work while dropping big bits? i tend to use side to side cuts on small hand held stuff. really i should have taken the branches off in several bits but my old boss never seemed to have time for that.

Yep the term "carroty" could have been invented for horse chestnut, where ash is the celery of the tree world.

i like that, really good way of putting it


pete

 

[robin wood]

Even though it has a propensity to 'shake' Chestnut makes lovely furniture. I have a spinning wheel and a matching carved chair made from Chestnut, and they are beautiful
Toddy

Are you sure they are not sweet chestnut Mary? Horse chestnut is a very dull creamy coloured timber and rather weak. Few people use it and it doesn't even burn well. Sweet chestnut does get ring shake when old on some soils but is quality timber. very like oak without the medulary rays.

 

[Toddy]

No, it's horse chestnut they're made from, not much sweet chestnut up here really. They were varnished with a dark oak stain and are a rich dark 'Victorian' looking set.
The man who made them said that he had real problems turning the timber (usually just used for Chespale fencing I believe), but the resultant pieces are rock solid
Last time we had Chestnut in the workshops it was used to make an arched topped kist, small stools and bits for one of the inkle looms.

cheers,
M

 

[robin wood]

Now chestnut paling fencing is definitely only made from sweet chestnut.

 

[treelore]

yep second that...making it and putting it up on thursday.....you can use oak as well

 

[robin wood]

yep second that...making it and putting it up on thursday.....you can use oak as well

Are we talking about the same stuff to me this is paling

I thought it was only made in workshops in Kent and Sussex.

 

[Toddy]

Well we made on from the conker tree, ordinary horse chestnut, thirty years ago at the bottom of my Dad's garden and it's standing yet. It's just called chespale fencing around here. Made with six lengths of malleable fencing wire and metre long rounds of timber split lengthwise. It only just needs a wee helping hand and it splits nicely.
It's aged out to a soft greyish looking timber. I don't think it's even ever been given a lick of proofing in it's life either.

Sweet chestnut, the edible one? is rare here. I know of three trees in the village out of literally thousands around us.
Conker trees though we grow by the hundred.....s'easy, you put the kids conkers into the compost heaps when they go foosty and the blasted things sprout like weeds come Spring. I hated killing them so year in year out I phoned the local countryside rangers and asked if they wanted their now sprouted conkers brought back to the park for planting.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[treelore]

sorry i was answering another blog....but yes i have seen people and i make paling out of oak, normaly one off commissions as its a pain to do. i have also tryed ash which work pritty well too. but you are right most is made from chestnut.