Best rope size for pulling outsiders in?

[woody paul]

Big leaners need big kit and take time and effort to put in the right place. 

30t Jack is not light. 

[Mark Bolam]

18mm double esterlon might do the trick.

9t breaking strain, but pricey at over £5/m.

 

How are you setting it on the trees?

[AHPP]

Bolam asks a pertinent question. If you're setting the rope at 20 feet on an 80 foot tree by standing on top of the machine cab, you're going to need way more power and gear strength than if you can get it set at 60 feet. I'm always amazed by how little pull you need when you have a long lever. Do you have time to be shooting a throwline into the top and hoping that you hit a good branch? I assume climbing is out of the question on account of hairiness? My very limited experience with forestry is that the brute strength option is usually the one that gets used, ie get a strong rope in low and pull with machine. For that, I'd use cheap and thick polysteel or similar and make sure you have a nice, smooth place to tie onto the machine so it doesn't break there. Also consider that pulleys multiply your line pull and can allow the machine to pull from a safer/more convenient place.

[Pete Mctree]

Agreed - strong, cheap disposable rope like polysteel is the way forward 

[openspaceman]

4 hours ago, lux said:

Eder powerwinch 1800. Amazing kit. Most powerful portable petrol winch on the market. Mine has done some incredible work.

Same but not so much done because of recent circumstances, it is lighter to carry with 100m of rope, slings and shackles in backpack than a 3.5 tonne tirfor and 100ft of wire. On its low speed it has1800 kg force pull. If you can spike up 6m I would reckon it would deal with most and doubling the height makes more sense than using a pulley and block to double the pull.

 

As with a Tirfor the pull is relatively slow so you have little chance of a dynamic pull with the lean off to one side of the pull without a second static line.

 

What are the rules on using spike and strop with no safety line nowadays?

[jmac]

I had 1 big hairy edge spruce the other day, had to put both 20 ton and 12 ton jacks in to get the bugger over, and only just got it over at that. Jack's were pushing and bending the 10mm  steel plates into the butt! Would have been safer with a pull rope. 

[Mark Bolam]

5 hours ago, openspaceman said:

What are the rules on using spike and strop with no safety line nowadays?

Absolutely fine as long as you don’t put it on the internet.

[drinksloe]

54 minutes ago, jmac said:

I had 1 big hairy edge spruce the other day, had to put both 20 ton and 12 ton jacks in to get the bugger over, and only just got it over at that. Jack's were pushing and bending the 10mm  steel plates into the butt! Would have been safer with a pull rope. 

 

Aye I've walked away from a corner 1 today, not massive but a hell of lean on it with big branches too, wind was fairly good for it.

Was confident my 20t jack would of sat it upright but then I'd most likely run out of jack hieght and have to re position it.

Didnae fancy that, a lot of travel for the hinge to hold the whole time.

 

Going to practise my zeplin knots now for joining my busted rope together, will jack it as far as I can with rope as back up and then do the final pull to save me buggering about repositioning jack.

 

 

See these capstan winches, I've seen them but only clips of them working.

Do they not go slack if u take the tension of the tail?

So if u were felling a tree and put a bit of tension on the rope and went back to cut a bit more would the rope go slack and lose the tension/pull on the tree?

 

Aye ur dead right about leverage getting it rope high up a tree.

With softwoods a throw line is a non starter, most folk strap a ladder on to the skidder tractor.

If I get ur rope up 15ft ur usually not to bad for a soft wood as most of wieght is in the butt not like it has a big crown like a hard wood.

 

To be fair with a softwood if u thought far enough ahead and never brashed them u could climb up the bottom branches like a ladder.

Be easier than spiking althou not sure wot the foresters/ H&S would say

 

 

[Stubby]

Would it be economic to employ  a climber  to put the rope in at the right height to gain max mechanical advantage ?  The principle of moments and all that . 

[Mark Bolam]

You can choke a line in softwoods easily enough if you’re handy with a throwline, you need to throw one side of the butt, send the line up, throw the other side, send the working end up and down again, then choke.

 

Hope this makes sense?

 

It’s a fanny-on though, and with some big hairy edgers it just wouldn’t work, same as spiking them with just a strop.