Marc

Pics would be intresting, take a camera if you can when you go back. I only ever do major dead wood and generally only when targets are under the tree. Sounds like you did the right thing taking out the obviously dead stuff, tell the client you think other limbs may be dying back and to monitor it, or get you back in a year just to check.

With that cord I like a knute.

Also Axeman I know a lot of climbers who use that exact hitch set-up like in the your picture, but I persoanally don't like it. A blakes works better with cord the same diameter as your climbing line, a Blakes also puts a lot of wear on one point of the cord (the part that tucks up behind the 2 bottom coils) and smaller cords wear quicker, I've seen climbers burn through half of the cord in a single climb. So be carefull, try a basket hitch like a knute or VT. I'm not saying its unsafe just monitor is carefully, there are better option out there.

I would'nt bother marking friction cord unless a cord lasts you over a month, I go through one cord a week on average. Or your climbing line unless you have more than one of the same type. The only items I mark are multiples, like say I have 3 Petzl AM'D's so I individually mark them to tell which one is which to help record any faults. As for my climbing lines I only have one 50m Edelrid 12mm and one 45m Tachyon, so its obvious in my loler checks what I am refering to, I also have only one Hitchclimber pulley so do not mark that as again its obvious what i'm refering to. If your an employed climber working in a company then it may be prudent to mark everything. Otherwise keep it simple. My loler inspector logged my climbing spikes (did'nt mark then as again its the only pair I have) so i guess it does come under loler. So does a portawrap. That swivel biner is not load bearing, and neither are acssesory biners so don't need lolering. Chainsaw lanyards do need to be logged. I've been recording my my kit using my intial followed by what it is and a number, i'e MWCR01 which is Marc W climbing rope 1 or MWMP01-Micro pulley one

My 45m Tachyon has milked about 1ft but now seems to have stopped. So far I like it, its a fairly hard rope but still supple which makes it nice to handle.

I find footlocking on a VT in general not that effcient, only doing it when I redirect through a crotch and need to get back upto it (which is rare) or slightly more often when my anchor point leaves me hanging away from the main trunk or branches. Basically my point is I personally only footlock short distances on a VT. I do have a pantin which I prefer to use if I can see myself needing it during a climb.

I say keep it, you never know when a back up harness will be of use.

Just curious about insurance policies, i'm thinking about getting a mortgage, and want to look into covering myself against time of work due to accidents or ill health. I can get mortgage cover easy and cheaply enough, but this only covers my mortgage after the first 2 months of work and only upto 2 years. It also only covers mortgage repayments and not loss of earnings. Being self employed I need more than that, i'm thinking with personal insurance which covers my earnings, or pays a lump sum for certain injuries may be better and would cover the cost of my mortgage. Is it possible to say get PLI which also includes personal cover and would help with mortgage repayments. Or am I better off getting seperate cover?

climate control in boots, is a little bit of a gimmick in my opinion. Also another tip, the oils from your sweat will block the pores of the goretex membrane, so every now and then fill your boots with slightly soapy water (using soap flakes) and leave them over night, pour out the water and leave to dry naturally, this can take all weekend. Also don't use wax on gor-tex boots this will block the leathers natural pores and isn't really nescesary with gortex, instead use proper gor-tex leather proofer, this usually has to be applied to wet leather.

I hear what your saying, and i'd like to try out some different srt techniques. Still having only just got into footlocking i already see its huge benefits, its very quick and simple only requiring a simple knot or just a double ascendor. And it seems to me it is a huge time and energy saver once your good at it. This week I managed to get 50ft footlock down to less than a minute, still a long way off comp standard, and whilst yes my heart rate is up my recovery time is quick and i'm ready for work. As for ergonomics, this is something that concerned me as I have a bad back, working with Qtip though showed me that footlocking does'nt have to be ergonomically ineffcient, its all about technique.

When i was employed, I used my own kit, boss paid for it to be loler'd. There was also an understanding that if any of my kit needed replacing he'd replace it like for like and it would still belong to me for the first replacement, any replacements there after would belong to him.

Good reply, personally I think the regs are o.k, anymore protection and boots will be to heavy and hot. I do think though that we should be more aware of our protections potential weaknesses, and not take anything for granted. I do beleive there are some boots with superior protection, SIP for one seem to have the protection sititched to the sole and overlapping the steel toe cap.

My rigging isn't great, a climber I worker with who is super fluid and only use's a cow hitch, one reason is he can start to untie it whilst the groundies are still getting the chunk on the floor and sorting it out, so the second the groundie has the chunk untied he's already moving down to set-up for snatching the next bit. With a timber hitch you have to wait untill the weight is off the pulley. Me I like loopies.

Whose fault is that in a situation like you explain? Is it the employers fault for putting to much pressure on a team to complete a task to make a profit? Or the team member who has an accident trying to do the job quickly?

See I had a Dragonfly and thought it was great. Then went to a treemagic and loved it, by far one of the most comfortable harnesses i'd climbed in, very light weight and good freedom of movement. Tried the dragonfly again and hated it like moving around with a plank of wood attached to my ass.

Andy he was finishing his cut so was backing of the throttle when the wood shifted and steered the saw nose into the side of his foot. A full throttle saw and poor positioning would of been a totally different story. You raise a good point though he'd been on about getting a new pair of boots for weeks, although i'm sure even new eltens will offer minimal side protection, and probably few other boots as well. Although i'm not going to prove my point by making videos of me plunging the saw into the side of different boots. Which only goes to show that you can't relie on ppe protecting you fully. Stay safe, I only posted this to show what can happen in the blink of an eye. Remember good positioning and planning your cuts. My friend may of avoided this accident if he finished his cut with a pulling chain rather than a pushing chain which lead to the kickback, but we all do it i'm sure, i know i do.

O.k this happened to one of my friends last week, he was halving some large stems to go through the big chipper. The cutter is not the most experienced, but is usually very carefull and gives a lot of thought to his position and how to make his cuts. Unfortunatly somehow his saw got twisted then moved round and kicked back into his foot. His Elten boots offered no protection at all, the protection had bunched up leaving and exposed area on the side of his foot (something i've noticed on most eltens after they've been worn for a few months) What he found so frustrating is that his boots were next to useless, we've all seen Eltens video of the boots stopping a saw in perfect circumstances i'e coming down onto the tongue area where the protection is thickest, in reality accidents are never in perfect circumstances. His injury was not serious, and only need a few stitches.

One employer I once worked for said to me that he could'nt bare to send someone out on a job if he did'nt think they were upto it, and if they had an accident he would feel personally responsable. As such if he in any way felt someone was a danger to themselves or others then they would'nt be part of the team. He was very good at judge'ing his workers strengths and weaknesses, in over 25years of commercial arb work his company accident record was the lowest i've come across.

Agreed. I do a mixture of work, most of it involves big machines and big trees, we work hard and fast to be productive and competitive. I've seen less accidents due to experience and good team work. In my experience i've worked with other outfits, that try to be highly productive pushing inexperienced teams to produce a high volume of work, this has caused accidents, but its all down to lack of experience and poor team work. In summary I don't think pressure to be commercially productive plays a huge role in accidents, not having the experience to know your pushing yourself to hard and are fatigued is. So I think the blame can in part be laid on the employer, for underpricing then expecting to much, or for pushing inexperienced teams to do jobs which expose them to accidents.

I just don't see the point, of having an extended set-up, its handy to know, but other than using it to body thrust and self tend it seems pointless to me. Your hitch it to far ahead making adjusment and descent harder. Am I missing something? If I am climbing a big tree i'll footlock into the crown, then all I have to do is ascend and decend within the crown. I find planning my root well saves me energy, if for any reason I have to drop far down one side and ascend again, rather than set up an extending bridge, i'll use a revolver karabiner with a small prussik attached above my hitch then clip the tail of my line into that then decend. That way I have a 2 way pulley system to haul myself back up and it tends my hitch for me. You just have to be carefull that you don't send the revolver to high or it will meet your friction saver before you get to where you want, so not perfect but handy to know.

nice light reduction as usuall Matt,

Maybe i'm wrong about a klemhiest gripping a tapering spar, i know its similar to an icicle. And by tapering as in in what its gripping gets progressivly thinner. Top tip about not resting, but I find sometimes on ascent I may want to stop and work or check something out.

I find with dead leaning trees, you can only pretty much fell with the lean, or against it with a winch or other. Any other direction and the hinge is likly to fail and not go the way you want it. Even some living trees like sycamore at certain times of the year will not hold the hinge very well if your trying to steer it away from a lean.

Ahh o.k, though you can buy 3m steelcore fliplines with snap hooks. I just think sometimes these best practice guidlines can be confusing and misleading, personally I pay them little attention, I just use my common sense and my natural self preservation.

Just a little pic of me finishing of a height reduction on a Horse Chesnut, the limb i'd already reduced had a nasty split along the grain, will try to show pics of that once I learn how to resize the pics. It always amazes me how strong trees are even with defects. First climb on my new tachyon wish i'd bought more than 45m as it was only just enough.