Inexpensive upgrade from prusik?

[Clinton_Baptiste]

Hi all, I'm a complete beginner trying to get into arborism and have recently done the climbing and aerial rescue course, for which I used borrowed climbing kit. I'm now in the process of buying my own climbing kit so that I can get as much practice in as possible before doing the aerial chainsaw course.

 

With the borrowed kit, in terms of friction devices I had a Zigzag Plus on one system and just a prusik knot on the other. I really liked the Zigzag and ideally would buy two so I could have one on each rope, but I can't afford that at the mo so I'm wondering what I could use on my 2nd rope as an alternative to that or just a prusik. I actually got on ok with the prusik but is there anything else I could use instead that's relatively inexpensive (i.e. £100 or less) but would be nicer to climb on/save energy etc?

[Steve Bullman]

Valdotain. Few quid for hitch cord, 2 karabiners and a hitch climber, can be had for under £100

 

 

[Steve Bullman]

That will act about as close to a zigzag as you’ll get 

[Joe Newton]

As per Steve's advice. Get a hitchclimber setup.

 

Learning knotcraft in your early years will be invaluable.

 

Hitchclimber with a 70-75cm eye to eye with a catalyst hitch is my go to. 

[Steve Bullman]

Also don’t waste your money on friction cord with a spliced eye each end  

[Dan Maynard]

I'll have to have a go with that catalyst, looks like less sitback.

 

Also looks short enough to work in rope wrench, I never spent much time working on it but didn't really find a good knot and then just went RRP.

[Joe Newton]

1 hour ago, Steve Bullman said:

Also don’t waste your money on friction cord with a spliced eye each end  

That's personal preference mate, Sewn e2e orient a lot nicer with a lot of configurations. If you're using a rope wrench with a double leg tether you'll struggle to fit 2 fisherman's onto a carabiner. 

1 hour ago, Dan Maynard said:

I'll have to have a go with that catalyst, looks like less sitback.

 

Also looks short enough to work in rope wrench, I never spent much time working on it but didn't really find a good knot and then just went RRP.

Tied correctly, there's next to no sitback. You need to properly dress and set the hitch to get it to perform.

 

I'm running it with a Freexion device (same concept as the wrench) and I'll choose that most times over the rope runner. 

[Bocca]

Never known a clairvoyant & physic to ask a forum for advice. Saying that getting advice from the ghosts of dead arborists doesn’t make much sense as they clearly fell to their death on dodgy friction cord. As you were Clinton.