life expectancy of spiderjack clutch?

[Dilz]

as i put together this months order of kit and bits, ones mind dwells once again upon the spidejack, is it time to retire my hitch climber and beloved if some what slippy VT? not yet i feel though the question springs to mind on the longevity of this lustrous item, does it cope well with sap? as such a large proportion of my work at the moment is pines and spruce this is a most important quality, I'm almost of the mind to continue to use old and condemned items for this work as it makes a right mess, my old harness just has a fail on the leg loops (dont matter for spinking...) and dont really wish to wreck my new tree motion let alone what could be a very costly paper weight.....

 

so any feed back on to who well these costly gadgets perform under these conditions would be great, if no one knows, give me one and i'll test it for you, for a very reasonable fee of course.

[John Shutler]

Why is your hitch slipping if all the jobs you are doing at the moment are sappy? If your hitch is staying slippy then I would have thought a clutch would be fine

[combined tree services]

i personally use a Lock Jack and find it to cope well with sap BUT this is because it is only used with an Art friction saver .

 

im not meaning to sound funny but i would be mindfull that posting threads that may advocate using faulty or condemed for climbing is possibly not such a good idea on a public forum that is used by many people including novices and beginners . sorry im realy not trying to sound awkward in any way

[Dilz]

good point, well said, in no way should climbing kit that isn't up to standard be used, to do other wise would be adding needless risk to an already risky job,

and for the record nearly all my current kit is heading for the bin or to be butchered for spares,

as for the hitch question, i have two ropes, sappy trees and none sappy, the knut on my sappy rope is a real pain to use, the knot on my flip line jams with sap all the time... my VT that i use for pruning is fairly slick, and needs a bit of caressing from time to time

 

Dont listen to me kids...only use kit in good condition!

[Lancstree]

Going back to the original question for a min, how long does the spiderjack clutch last? Any users willing to comment?

[James Atkinson]

yea mine lasted about a year BUT it was starting to slip lol, most people on here seem to say 6months, but i recon you can get a little longer, for sap i would say it is better than a knot and def better in the wet weather, wet or dry it performs the same, but like has been said i started with a normal friction saver then got myself a ART friction saver with pulley and it is awsome (in my opinion) most would agree that spiderjack does take a whle to get used too, so give it chance, dont stop using it after a week lol, im converting a trainie lad with us, he hated it in the beginning and now he prefers it over vt that he has at collage!

[Danavan]

You say the sj performs well in wet & dry. I used an Lj for some time & found a poor response of use in the wet. So much so that I sacked it off after several clutches & a couple of back plates after 4 yrs or more of service for, a Hc & knut.

Can't talk from experience of clutch wear on the sj but I found that one would last 4 months or so on my Lj dependent on the type of work I had on. Different bit of hard wear altogether though from the little I know of it. But defo worth a play with from what I hear..

[Lancstree]

yea mine lasted about a year BUT it was starting to slip lol, most people on here seem to say 6months, but i recon you can get a little longer, for sap i would say it is better than a knot and def better in the wet weather, wet or dry it performs the same, but like has been said i started with a normal friction saver then got myself a ART friction saver with pulley and it is awsome (in my opinion) most would agree that spiderjack does take a whle to get used too, so give it chance, dont stop using it after a week lol, im converting a trainie lad with us, he hated it in the beginning and now he prefers it over vt that he has at collage!

 

Thanks. So about a year at about £10 per clutch. That's not bad