The following link (pick & paste) will help as a starting point: http://figs4fun.com/basics_Pruning.html

Raistlyn: One suggestion if you want to get your husband into gardening. Get him into super hot peppers such as Bhut Jolokia or Butch T Scorpions or habs. That's what got me interested, and I know many other guys find the super hots peppers very interesting even when you don't like to eat them. They are enough of a challenge, something to brag about and have fun with, and sometimes toys (which guys also like) such as heat mats and controllers, lighting systems, hydroponic etc also piques their interest as well as building things like raised beds and stairs for pots to sit on. It happened to me, and now I look after all the vegetables, indoor and out, fruit trees, berries etc. and I love it. My wife looks after the ornamentals. I keep adding more vegetable beds and containers, and we are self sufficient for fruit and vegetables for much of the year, including freezing many of them. I also got into cooking doing things like salsa and hot sauces as well as other things that can be made out of the fruits of our labor. Every guy has the farmer gene in him. Looking after a couple of tomato plants in a window or on deck is not quite what we need to turn that gene on.

Some nurseries(Dave Wilson) and other growers say to cut the trunk off at about knee high,when planting a bare root fruit tree.This gives the roots better early development and allows a person to choose the scaffold height and arrangement somewhat. I just planted 10 bare root stone fruit trees and the branches came shortened,at about eight inches or less,for shipping purposes and the trees themselves were about five feet tall.I could have cut them down,but decided to use the short branches as the scaffolds and left about three to five on,pointing at different directions from each other.The tops were cut off the main trunk when needed,so that the highest branch was about a half inch from the top of the tree. The trees are growing fine and with this method,I might gain a little time for fruiting.In fact a few of the trees have one or two pieces. Trees can really be grown the way a person wants them,as far as height and shape goes.Personally,I'd grow an Apricot tree with an open center. Brady

"Really it was very productive last year." The more cuts, the longer it will take to get back to the same production. Decide what your end goal is now. Max figs? Just cutting bad sections out? Opening it up more and making it easier to reach? I think I see tiny holes so it may be something boring into the trunk + maybe frost damage: http://www.caes.uga.edu/newswire/story.html?storyid=5161 Hard pruning (section 8): http://figs4fun.com/basics.html You should be have no worries about chain sawing away any of the branches. If you really want harder pruning, that main trunk's diameter looks very large. I've never seen anyone prune that hard i.e. mature fig tree -> open vase. Your zone may prohibit that; also the other cuts above may require some frost protection for a few years.