Saturday and Sunday saw competitors from throughout the State compete in underhand, standing block, treefelling, double-handed sawing and medley relay events.

Winklel, who competed in the Australian 275mm Underhand Championship, which he won, the NSW 300mm Underhand Championship where he placed second, and the 300mm Underhand Handicap also finishing second, said he had been chopping for the past 23 years.

"I initially started at the age of 16 or 17 but stopped doing it for quite a while, and then picked up the sport again when I was 34."

Winkel said he didn't have much of a say about whether he wanted to become an axeman as his father, Charlie Winkel had been the world champion in the 1930s, and so Harold followed suit.

He said in Saturday's Australian championship he came up against nine competitors in the final.

"It was a tough competition, especially between me and Justin Beckett who was very close behind me the whole way through, I just happened to be lucky and finish first," he said.

However, Winkel said it was just another Australian title to his many existing titles.

"I have more than 300 titles, ordinary ones, Australian, overseas and a couple of world titles."

But Winkel was not so lucky in the NSW championship, where Beckett from Paxton defeated him.

"Beckett was a real danger, he was at my throat the whole time, and in the end he made it through first."

Winkel came up against six others in the NSW final.

"It took me about 20 seconds to get through the piece of wood, which is about my average."

While Winkel said he was good at the 300mm and 275mm blocks, he actually preferred larger pieces.

"The bigger the block the easier it is to balance on because with the smaller ones there is less room to stand on, but of course a lot of speed and good co-ordination is needed with these, you can't make mistakes when you only have such a short time."