Tree Stump Removal Using a Winch

Tree Stump Removal Using a Winch
by Jaroslav Bernkopf

What I want
I want to fell a lot of 25-year-old thuja trees that are growing over all limits, deforming the neighboring fence, and occupying too much garden space.

What you need to do it my way
• a pair of branch shears
• a winch
• a few pieces of strong rope
• a rope clamp
• one or two screw pin chain shackles
• a piece of steel cable or a steel bar with loops and hooks on both ends
• an electric hammer drill
• a chisel for the electric hammer drill

How to proceed
Cut off all thin branches.
Leave the rest of the trunk as tall as possible.
The taller the stump, the smaller the force needed to lever it out of the ground.
Attach the back end of the winch to a fix point: a tree or a column.
Attach the cable hook to the top of the stump.
Pull the top of the stump towards the winch.
Enjoy the sound of braking roots under the ground.
If necessary while continuously straining the cable cut the roots (see below).
If necessary try pulling the stump in the opposite direction (see below).

Levering forwards and backwards
If you succeed to tilt a stump to the ground and it still doesn’t give up, don’t persuade it any more. Just move the winch to the opposite direction and pull the stump backwards. Now you can lever it out easily – usually without any chiseling.
You can tilt more stumps in one direction, then move the winch and pull the stumps one by one backwards.

Cutting the roots
Usually you can lever the stump out of the ground without cutting the roots.
Sometimes it is necessary to cut the roots.
Sharpen a chisel for your electric hammer drill to a sharp angle like a wood chisel.
Make the chisel blade rather trapezoidal than rectangular. It will be easier to pull it out from among the roots.
Use the electric hammer drill with the chisel to cut the roots while levering the stump.
You needn’t expose the roots. You needn’t even see them.
Just drive the chisel into the ground under the stump.
As soon as you feel a “wooden” resistance, drive the chisel against it.
Don’t try to cut a root across the grain at one pass.
Cut it patiently bit by bit rather parallel to the grain.

Tree in a corner
In the corner of a fence it would be very difficult to remove the stump using classical techniques.
With our winch technique it is a piece of cake.
If the stump is already tilted in one direction and still refuses to give up, move the winch to another direction and finish the work.

Winch
You can’t use a cheap hand winch as it is. You should take a few measures.
Mount the winch on a heavy wood block to make it steady.
Fit a lead guide. Mount the guide as far as possible from the winch. The farther the guide, the smaller the fleet angle, and the easier it is to wind the cable in even layers on the winch drum.
Add the rear eye to enable fixing the assembly to a fix point, e.g. a tree.
The wheels enable you to transport the winch.
Add a mechanism that pushes the cable towards the drum. This forces the cable to wind evenly on the drum and prevents the cable from disentangling when released.
In my case the mechanism consists of the fixed arm, moving arm, bungee cord, and plastic plate. The plate pushes the cable strongly towards the drum.

Rope clamp
The clamp enables you to easily join thick ropes.
It is easy to engage and disengage.

Result
The huge heap of uprooted trees you can see in the video needed merely three-days work of one man. The work with the winch presented just smaller part of the whole work. The main part of work lay in cutting off the branches.