cobra bracing advice

[born2trot]

If you dont pre-tension it there will definetely be slack in the system . It hanging like an old washing line is equally wrong and aesthetically looks terrible .

[humpo48]

If you dont pre-tension it there will definetely be slack in the system . It hanging like an old washing line is equally wrong and aesthetically looks terrible .

 

Agree with that statement.

[MattyF]

Why is slack bad ?

[Jackinthegreen]

Used it a few times and a good ol ratchet strap to load the bracing with tention seems to do the trick !.

[mike83]

Have done a couple and got another in a co-dom pine tomo. its not simple stuff. the splicing is. read the instructions and watch the online video. theres a few variables i.e slack or tight or with shock absorber or not. sounds to me like the bracing did its job?? any signs at the union? cheers

[kev7937]

There is supposed to be slack in bracing!! The limb is supposed to move! The bracing just stops it moving to the extreme or acts as a storm

Anchor in case of failure.

 

This is exactly as I was taught, the tree is supposed to have natural movement and the brace just stops it going too far, if the brace is already tight the tree relies on that rather than strengthening itself.

[MattyF]

Thanks ... Tensioning bracing especially when off leaf is wrong.

[benedmonds]

I am not convinced bracing is useful for anything other then stopping a branch that has failed hitting the deck. Pretensioning and therefore altering the load on the tree is only going to mess up the trees natural ability to adjust over time. I have seen a number of braced trees that have failed in my opinion due to poor cable bracing.

[MattyF]

Agree Ben ... People have the wrong idea of tree dynamics and what bracing is about .., let alone installing it is what I have read so far on this thread

[monkeybusiness]

I have installed quite a lot of Cobra/Boa and had one constantly undo itself. I think the problem stemmed from too sharp an angle of the rope entering the splice. I moved the splice further away from the branch (ie made the entire branch loop bigger) and it never came undone again.