How can I get rid of rubber trees in Redpower?

I'm playing with the Redpower mod and spawned near a village. After helping it grow, I've run into a problem where some rubber trees are blocking building space (in addition to looking ugly).

^{There are about 4 other trees nearby not included in this image.}

First, I tried to burn them down, but found out that neither their leaves nor their wood is flammable. Then I tried to cut down one of the trees, but I gave up after about half an hour.

How can I get rid of those trees and the leaves of those trees that got partially removed by the Millénaire mod faster without using TNT and blowing up the village completely?

Solution 1:

Depending on how far along you are, there are a couple of options.

If you're just starting out, you could probably try (carefully) blowing them up with TNT. Just go one at a time, and remember to stay clear of your actual buildings. Wood and leaves have low blast resistance, so it shouldn't be too hard to blow it all up.

If you're a little further along, you could use a couple of mining wells to get rid of the trunk. Alternatively, you could use a quarry, but that's a pretty expensive piece of kit.

On my own world, I recently got rid of one of these by using a mining laser. While I was doing that, I actually did set them on fire, though that might be something specific to the laser.

I've also tried to remove one of these with a Logger, but that didn't seem to work.

Finally, if you want to go the Alchemy direction instead of the technical direction, I'm sure a Destruction Catalyst would do the trick. It's a bit expensive though, and assumes you already have a Philosopher's Stone.