top friction

[Mick Dempsey]

8 hours ago, James Atkinson said:

For whatever reason we do a lot of big tree Rigging. Not because I’m some hot shot it just seems to be what we get asked to quote. In my personal opinion friction at the top via natural crotches is all well and good on smooth trees or small trees, but as soon as you go through a few folks the friction produced is a real pain in the ass for groundsmen. It doesn’t take a lot to become annoying pulling the line back up to the climber, even not being able to lower the branch. The other issue is without pulleys it’s near on impossible to be able to lift or pre-tension branches, which is kinda important when removing trees. We use a ArbPro Which bollard similar to a GRCS, hands down the best thing in big tree rigging I have ever used. Again this would be pretty useless with natural forks. We don’t have 200ft Eucalyptus trees that grow straight up in the uk allowing us to tie the branches close to the trunk and just cut them off, our trees are often as wide as they are tall, over a green house, shed, house, fence, baby’s, and roads. Basically I’m trying to say...,we need the shiny stuff

Yeah, of course, on a big technical dismantle you’d break out the stuff, nobody says otherwise.

 

[kcstevens]

For whatever reason we do a lot of big tree Rigging. Not because I’m some hot shot it just seems to be what we get asked to quote. In my personal opinion friction at the top via natural crotches is all well and good on smooth trees or small trees, but as soon as you go through a few folks the friction produced is a real pain in the ass for groundsmen. It doesn’t take a lot to become annoying pulling the line back up to the climber, even not being able to lower the branch. The other issue is without pulleys it’s near on impossible to be able to lift or pre-tension branches, which is kinda important when removing trees. We use a ArbPro Which bollard similar to a GRCS, hands down the best thing in big tree rigging I have ever used. Again this would be pretty useless with natural forks. We don’t have 200ft Eucalyptus trees that grow straight up in the uk allowing us to tie the branches close to the trunk and just cut them off, our trees are often as wide as they are tall, over a green house, shed, house, fence, baby’s, and roads. Basically I’m trying to say...,we need the shiny stuff

(Great if you're doing a lot of work on Euco's [emoji6] not monty pines)

[kcstevens]

Oh, just to level out this "debate". I think there is space for both methods. That's arb. Be versatile

[Mick Dempsey]

1 minute ago, kcstevens said:

Oh, just to level out this "debate". I think there is space for both methods. That's arb. Be versatile

Exactly.

[Stephen Blair]

Dilz you asked about top friction, I think that’s a misleading term. You have the friction where you can control it, as in where you are cutting.
You just wrap the rope around something! Be it the stem or a branch. Depending on what you are doing. It’s not smooth, forget that word when lowering without a pulley or bollard. It can be smooth ish sometimes but most of the time it’s juddery! It just means the tree is taking the strain instead of the climber or groundie.

[Mark Bolam]

1 hour ago, kcstevens said:

Oh, just to level out this "debate". I think there is space for both methods. That's arb. Be versatile

That’s all we need, someone piping up with a sensible comment.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

[Stephen Blair]

Once you have used both methods hundreds of times, you will know which is best just by looking at the job and who you have on the ground.

[Dilz]

On 1/12/2018 at 09:18, Stephen Blair said:

Dilz you asked about top friction, I think that’s a misleading term. You have the friction where you can control it, as in where you are cutting.
You just wrap the rope around something! Be it the stem or a branch. Depending on what you are doing. It’s not smooth, forget that word when lowering without a pulley or bollard. It can be smooth ish sometimes but most of the time it’s juddery! It just means the tree is taking the strain instead of the climber or groundie.

The friction where i'm cutting? and thats where i'm controlling it? so if im cutting and controlling?   wtf is my groundy doing apart from pinching the coffee from my flask? Also cant see how this works well when you need stuff to swing well away to the other side of the tree for example? As in my mind you are saying that i put the friction of the system at the point or near the point im cutting.

 

Jokes and that aside... when its the odd branch i'll sling a rope over a crotch rigging - I have an old climbing rope for this. i dont use my rigging line for crotch rigging. 

 

A full dismantle or anything with lots of rigging - i'll set up with a block at the top and a bollard at the base.  My original question was meant to be regarding using devices that apply the controlling friction at the top rigging point instead of the base -  and this is with doing lots of rigging / full take downs,, blocking down etc. in mind not the odd branch. 

[Stephen Blair]

I never mentioned the odd branch.
Just because you can’t imagine it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work if you know what to do.
Friction can be added anywhere from the ground to the attachment point, it’s up to the climber to decide which will work best.

[Mick Dempsey]

10 minutes ago, Dilz said:

The friction where i'm cutting? and thats where i'm controlling it? so if im cutting and controlling?   wtf is my groundy doing apart from pinching the coffee from my flask? 

Steering the branch with two hands towards the chipper.