How in the world do you use a brush axe?

[TKehl]

How about burning them to a nub then pulling out stump with a chain?

There's too many of them.  Granted, they only get REAL big when they are in the understory and a giant dies and opens a hole...  Will have to get some pictures...

Maybe you just need to give your goats a little more time and cut back on the other feed and make them work harder.

They can't reach high enough.  Some of these bushes are 10' tall and nearly as wide.  They eat all the way around it 5' high though!  They haven't been hungry enough to eat rose bush bark though with all the acorns and Oak leaves available.    They only finished the first bale of hay a few weeks ago.  :D

Maybe waiting would be a good idea though.  Dad has been looking real hard at a brush cutter for the skid steer.  He's already been looking 2-3 years now.  Bet he will buy one in another one or two.  ;D  

Next question, what do you actually do with a goat after its cleared your lot?

Our goats are more profitable than our cattle.  Trying to get to 200 does to make an impact on our place.  Once we have enough to clean up our farm, we will probably look for more overgrown brushy land to rent cheap on a long lease.  Clean with goats, then transition into more cattle.  ;)

They are also good eating.  Similar to deer in a lot of ways.   8)  The biggest difference is a lot less time waiting in a tree stand.   ;)  

[shinnlinger]

My reason for my OP is not how to remove brush, but rather if anyone has actually used a brush axe with success, and if so, how?  I am quickly concluding that the answer is probably not. I have chainsaws, tractors, brush saws, winches, diesel fuel, old tires, a flame thrower, brush hog, an InShinnerator  and even access to goats if I wanted, but I really am just curious about these old axes at the moment, but it seems there is a reason they aren't very popular.

Thanks for the interesting responses so far.

Dave

[Raider Bill]

Good info.  

Next question, what do you actually do with a goat after its cleared your lot?

Buy it a sawmill and let it's hair grow.

[mike_belben]

LoL

TKehl.  Can you hingcut these things with a pile saw and push them over with a 10ft chunk of conduit?  Let the goats finish em up? 

[TKehl]

Can't really hinge it as it's multi stemmed like a shrub.  I have found as long as I get them topped around 3' high, the goats will take care of the rest.  Within a year after it's cut, the top snaps and breaks easy and the goats attack the young sprouts in the middle.  It's just getting in there to make the topping cuts that's difficult and painful.   ;)

Shinnlinger,  my apologies for the hijack.  Betting these were the bee's knees before power tools.  But now they can't hold a candle to a brush saw.  Maybe for vines, but like Kbeitz said about the machete, I'd rather have a kukri (keep one on the 4 wheeler at all times for checking fence).  

On the flip side, I may eventually make a longer handle for mine and try it as long as I'm still able to actually swing it.   ;)

[Southside]

The goats kept new growth down until they died.

I thought you were saying your goats died....

[Don P]

Our place was overrun with multiflora too. Counting rings on that and poison ivy we figured it had been let go for about 15 years. Some of the roses were over 20' around and up in the 10' range. I tilted the bishhog up as close to vertical as the pto would let it and backed into them high and then came down. They would still reach clear around the tractor and hug me every now and then but we finally got the majority of them mowed out... they are always waiting though.

[moresnow]

Survey crew nightmare's with this tool. Miles of cutting line. Overhead/downward swing to limb standing tree's etc. I shudder thinking of the sweat dripping in my eye's as we fought through the super humid, skeeter/tick infested timber.
  That tool only had one positive effect. After work brew never tasted as good!

Needless to say when I started my own company I selected a tool that you pull a rope and squeeze the trigger. Much more effective :D
Brush axe was no longer part of my rig. Haaaaa!

[Woodcutter_Mo]

 I tried one of them on a multiflora rose bush (we have a different name for them but I better not say it here  ;D) one time just borrowing it to try it out. I went right back to my little Stihl fs90 with the brush blade  ;)

[JJ]

I prefer a good pair of bypass loppers in with saplings and brush.
Doesn't wear you out.

[mike_belben]

I do it all with a tophandle. 

[petefrom bearswamp]

I spray with 5 percent roundup and push out with my tractor after a couple of yrs.

[dgdrls]

Had one in the field truck when I was surveying day to day.  Dandy tool but it will wear you out.

Machete or a Woodsman pal, loppers and rose shears were the ticket for traversing lightly
and brushing sight lines. 

D

[enigmaT120]

I have a Swedish brush ax, much lighter than the OP's version.  It works well for stuff like vine maple but as others have pointed out, you have to slash diagonally and leave little pongee sticks. My Stihl brush saw is better for that stuff.  For the roses, that sounds like my problem with big brier patches, and I like to use my scythe with a brush blade on it.  I cut the vines, put the scythe down, reach in and grab the base of the briers and drag them out to some where I can pile them.  

[moodnacreek]

How to use a brush axe? Very carefully.

[SwampDonkey]

Those Swedish Sandvic brush axes are $100 locally and Amazon, $52 from Lee Valley Tools. Free shipping until April 19 I think. ;D

[JB Griffin]

I must be the only one here actually still uses one, but then again I am an Axe Junkie. 8)

[TKehl]

We'll, I picked up this gem my younger daughter is holding at an auction Saturday.  She helped carry it to the van and looked so cute and vicious.  Had to take the picture to show my wife.   :D



Had to laugh as I bid $3 for choice between this one and one like the OP shows in his picture.  After that, the other one sold for $6.    

So far, with just a few swings, I like this style a lot more than the other brush axe I have.  It may get a spot in the fence rig...  Now I just need to find or make a Bill Hook.   ;)

I was going to take a picture of the rosebushes I mentioned, but when I walked fence, I saw they didn't leaf out this spring.  A few stems still had green when doing a scratch test, but most were d-e-a-d DEAD.  Guess WV Sawmiller was right and I just need more patience.  ;D  I really DO need to take some fenceline pictures though.  It's amazing how much impact the goats have had on one side of the fence compared to where they haven't been!  

[pineywoods]

Tkehl, that is what we call a kaizer blade. I have a couple, sharpen both sides. They come in very handy for dispatching creepy crawly critters that bite..

[51cub]

very handy for dispatching creepy crawly critters that bite..

You sure? That handle doesn't look nearly long enough to me!