biffvernon wrote:What's the hurry? If you use a bow saw by hand you can still hear the birds sing.
Plus the fact that if you take fallen wood from footpaths/verges, doing that with a chainsaw is going to get you noticed
Personally, I hate chainsaws -- I've been taught to use them, but I find the process is far too easy and unrewarding. When splitting by hand you get to know the idiosyncrasies of the tree, its knots and twists, that you miss when using a chainsaw. Also, as my Granddad said, wood should warm you three times -- once when you cut it, once when you split it, and once when you burn it.
I've had my own bow saw and axe since I was about 12 -- one of the great formative experiences of my youth was Dutch elm disease, and the many hours of pocket-money-supplementing cutting and splitting that it gave me. Having people around me who, having a long experience of old fashioned hand tools, knew what they were doing was also immensely educational.
Having a bow saw is good, but if you can learn to keep the blade sharp it's even better. Modern blades are really hard (I've found the cheap Chinese ones so hard that they snap!); even so, after 20 or 30 hours of use a little TLC with a file makes them far easier to use. Heat treated blades (they usually have a sort of black staining of the metal near the tip of the tooth) also respond to a little touch up every now and again -- but you have to use a stone/polishing block rather than a file (a file cracks/shatters the tensile metal, making the teeth more likely to break).
Likewise axe maintenance makes a great difference. Some people prefer a
splitting mauls, the extra weight making it easier to bust the wood. Personally I prefer a long-shaft blunt felling axe for splitting -- lighter weight, so you can use it four hours without beating yourself up, but if you've got a good action the speed will cleanly cleave the round. For splitting it doesn't need to be sharp, but keeping the blade free of rust and filing the dinks out of the cutting edge makes a big difference.
If you want to actually fell a tree, you need to sharpen the blade like a knife so it can cut the grain of the wood. Those pictures you see of felling contests in North America, where each blow takes out a huge bite, they're using hardened blades that are razor sharp. Of course whilst they're excellent for cutting, sharp axes are not good for splitting.
) you can't do alone. We invited them to our wedding. Guess what happened (clue: no chainsaws allowed) 
