Un-official Harkie harness review

The Harness arrived last week after the Arb show where i tried it out.

First impressions: simple harness, easy adjustment, did not have loads of extras that i did not need/ want. The bridge is replaceable, so that it will extend the life of my harness.

First use: It has taken me about half an hour to get the harness adjusted so that it is feels right. But it still feels like it is giving me a wedgy. Once up in the tree the wedgy feeling has now disappeared. The harness was used for about 3 hours to prune a row of 40' horse chestnuts, so nothing big, but one or two awkard branches over breakable things. In use the harness was comphey and did not pinch anywhere.

Niggles from first use: Whilst my ample belly is a 36", the harness is adjusted to the biggest settings, so if you are any bigger you will struggle to fit into it. The harness only comes in one size. I could do with a longer padded waist, and a longer belt so that the bridge is not so flat.

The two gear loopes have an loose (ish) outer covering which makes unclipping Krabs a little bit fiddly. And they are attached to the underside of the webbing which means that they lay flat and a bit fiddley to clip/ unclip

There is no tear away rings for your chainsaw. your handsaw/ chainsaw has to clipped to the gear loops which means they get abit tangled with other equipment.

Would i buy this harness again, Yes probably.

I will update this once i have used this harness over the next 6 months

Keep it coming mate, with pics if possible.

I have been loaned one of these by Bold Ed.

I will report back once I have given it a go, it looks pretty good to me.

Part Two

I have now been using the harness for a couple of months now, and i am now becomming used to it. It is a comfy harness, but a couple of the niggles that i highlighted in the first post are still niggling. The padded belt is definitley not big enough to sit around my 36" waist, and i have spent enough time fiddling with the two adjustment buckles trying different combination. I had to dismantle a small ash tree, and knock the stem over in small lumps. Spent about 20-30 minutes standing in spikes clipped onto the side D's. The D's are too far back because the belt is too small, and dug into my hips. Not looking forward to a large dismantle because of this.

The lack of small loops at the front to clip my silky too is realy annoying, so much so that i have sown one to the harness. I have now realised that probably there is a chainsaw attachment at the back of the harness, but as there is no mention of this in the literature i am not totally sure.

One thing that has become apparent since the weather has warmed up is the large triangular legs loops get very sweaty, what could be done to stop this i do not know as they are comfy.

Finally the leg loop buckles. Whilst scrabbling around a Cedar removing ivy, both buckles had come undone during the day. Whilst this does not worry me, i think that these buckles need to be changed for future versions.

Over all i am happy with the harness, dispite the niggles.

Finally the leg loop buckles. Whilst scrabbling around a Cedar removing ivy, both buckles had come undone during the day. Whilst this does not worry me, i think that these buckles need to be changed for future versions.

 

My team leader has a Harkie harness, all three of the buckles have been intermittently coming undone. Harkie are coming to collect as I am not happy with this. They have sent us a different harness to use in the meantime so cant fault the customer service.

My team leader has a Harkie harness, all three of the buckles have been intermittently coming undone. Harkie are coming to collect as I am not happy with this. They have sent us a different harness to use in the meantime so cant fault the customer service.

They have only come undone in one tree and i think it was the high levels of ivy. Picture below shows one small banch at the top of the tree before and after.

Just to put your mind at rest regarding the buckles, this has been addressed and any future harnesses are coming with new buckles which will overcome any niggles some may have had. We will also add that this harness of course has all the relevant certificates, CE etc but if there are any users who feel their Harkie harness is unsafe to use please get in contact and we will replace with the new version when it arrives. As a company who are always looking to improve and exceed expectations on products and service Harkie appreciate any feedback you have. Feel free to ping any feedback direct to [email protected] Harkie are also working on a range of sizes of the harness to make sure there is a harness to suit all requirements. The other points have been taken – thanks for the input.

Keep the comments coming on arbtalk also, we are very keen to hear what you think and where we can improve.

Cheers:questionmark::questionmark: