Tree Speakers

Step 3 To plunge cut or drill...that is the question

Since I wanted to build the tree speakers entirely from one solid piece of elm, opening the round up only at the back, and then leaving the front facing 95% of the speaker as one continuous piece, I had to bore out the center of the round from the back using one of two methods: plunge cutting with the nose of a chainsaw (depicted below by Elm Tree Project visiting artist Marcus Tatton below) or using a powerful drill with an auger bit to remove the .75 cubic feet of material from the tree round (secondary image below).  

Either method would prove to be challenging and labor intensive since I was basically creating a 16" deep and 11" wide bowl out of a solid chunk of wood.  Plunge cutting with the nose of a chainsaw is absolutely doable, but can be dangerous because if the top quarter of the bar nose should engage the wood, there's a high likelihood that the chainsaw will kick back.  If you've operated a chainsaw before, you know that nose cuts are not something that you do every day and that they can be a bit challenging.

Fearing for my own personal safety, and not being an expert chainsaw operator, I decided to go with the more time consuming, but ultimately safer method of a powerful drill paired with an extremely large carbide tipped auger bit.