Marc

Precisely and a hell of a lot of prep went into it, making it a throughly well thought out and excecuted job done in the safest possible manner given the circumstance by a very experienced climber. Not some boss sending you blind to the job with a few notes along the lines of -Heavy rigging kit, couple of ratchet straps and a big saw cut into 6" rings and stack on site. And as for the honey video come on Stephen leave it out mate what relevance does that have with living in the UK and earning a living, hoping to earn a good pention and buy your own home to retire and spend the rest of your days in? Bollocks to heroics! It's not like I am fighting for queen and country or trying to save my comrades and possibly earn a medal. Scotspine that Beech dismantle, did you feel a hero doing it? Was it one of those jobs you consider only a Johnny big balls could do? Or was it just another day at the office? I have a feeling it was just another day at the office for you.

Interesting stud Mike and Kevin. dgcunnigham I was just making discussion and thought, 2 single lines through a reliable fork is effectively giving you two good attachement points, now I am just thinking out loud and again raising points to discuss in what situation will a life line fail making 2 independent life lines a safety gain? I can understand completely the 2'lines giving better positioning possibilities and there in making safer work positioning. It's just the safety gain in terms of single line failure (I even mean a single line doubled as in the use of just one rope) what scenarios are we talking about? When it come to using 2 line through same fork then base or top tied your rope will be following the same route so I do not see any gain here, what I imagine in this scenario is you will redirect one line statically by tie off instead of running through fork or biner, this is increasing saftey by increasing number of tie offs and creating triangulation, which for me is the advantage 2 lines give. In terms of safety I just feel a dorsal attachment with ASAP would be needed if you want to go down that route. As any failure to a line that could be caused by cutting implement could hit the bridge or both lines being in such close proximity. In my opinion a single line is a safe means of attachment with good disciplined work practice.

I am the opposite, generally using single for trims and doubled for removals. Not a hard and fast rule though as sometimes it's just as easy to use doubled on a trim and single on a removal. I'll just approach each tree as it comes and use the best tool for the job, no need to be single minded in approach.

Yep threw it back at the dealer and grabbed a new one do not give them an option, I admit my method was strong but it is the only way Husky will learn and make improvement if warranty returns increase. Now my new one is starting to be a little awkward, I am thinking of suing Husqvarna for repetitive strain injury from having to pull start it so much! Run on high qaulity oil and BP fuel.

Yep and so is treequip. There was research done by Leeds university years ago on washing waterproofs in brand re commended products v super market conditioner http://furtech.typepad.com/care_maintenance/files/trail20proofing20story1.pdf An interesting HSE report on en1891 ropes, seems to imply that dirty used ropes do not lose strength and can break at marginally higher loads than new rope. Also interesting is how damaging bird droppings can be to rope! More modern event fabrics can be washed in normal detergent at 40c to maintain it performance, re proofing the dwr will be needed, the detergent wash will just remove the oils and dirt clogging the pores. eVent Fabrics – How to care for your eVent garment Realistically I cannot see long term harm being done to rope using normal detergent, personally I use soap flakes where possible. I only wash my rope in exceptional circumstances, a good climb in a torrential down pour tends to sort it out and that's guaranteed many times through out the year.

Don't industrial work access operative use fall a arrest harness? We do not, our harness are not suited to taking a fall. Also if 2 ropes are pulled through same fork/anchor point you effectively still only have one anchor point if this fails 2 or 1 rope it will not matter. The benefit for me of 2 ropes would be improved positioning, after all in tree work positioning is everything.

Your positioning strop, usually attached to your side D's which you do not really want to fall on or be suspended mid air on! Instead your feet should be securely placed whilst making the change over with the temporary positioning strop. For me we only have one life line and that's our climbing line attached to the central point on our harnesses and allows us to reach the ground in an emergency and supports the full weight of the climber.

I use a 10mm line for my work positioning lanyard, I used to always climb with a 10m lanyard with the tail stuffed into a hip bag, but have cut it down to 3.5m which I find is enough. I think 11mm is consider good practice for a life line, I do not class a work positioning lanyard as a life line.

This, knee ascender is the way forward with a rope wrench and you do not need the decadently expensive haas! Have a haas myself and it is nice just pricey for what it is. I only use a footloop with a standard rope walker system and 2 ascenders (Petzl croll and basic for the footloop).

Don't rule out a hitchclimber, probably the most versatile tool, and chuck in a rope wrench and you can use it for single line work positioning or with a haas type system for efficient ascent. I've used and owned a Zig Zag couldn't wait to hand it back, also climbed with a SJ and Lockjack, and for me the hitchclimber is much more versatile with a host of positioning tricks that other devices cannot do. Check out the Hitch Climbers guide to the canopy on Youtube. It also doesn't really matter what you use, it's how you use it, making you the climber the most important part and not the device. I know climbers more efficient and with greater ability than me on a simple Prussik. If you have a dodgy back be wary of using a pantin with a ZZ SJ or HC to ascend on doubled rope to much using one leg as it's not very balanced technique unless you regularly switch between a left and right pantin.

I was just thinking about this yesterday and discussing it at work, again I am amazed as to why to hell you would want to do that, and why it would be actively taught. Is teaching still so archaic? It is something I would never do or actively encourage, climbing should not be difficult and be as efficient as possible if you want a long and productive career. I hope you do not think I am being harsh, you just need to be approaching everything looking for the easiest most efficient way to tackle canopy access and work positioning. We need to be training guys to look after their bodies so they can be productive arborist. At the end of day physical strength is not what you need to do this job it's technique which only come with time served and learning from other with good understanding of how to efficiently work the crown.

We used to maintain a Beech that had 2 steel band wrapped around the trunks connected with a steel chain, it was thought they were installed in the 60's the tree had completely enveloped them, it seemed to have no impact on the stems integrity if anything you could almost argue it was stronger due to the almost wound wood like wood that formed. So like tree seer I'd be inclined to spec a nice formal reduction to help alleviate some weight and sail then monitor.

Felt no need to mod mine cut fine as was, although I did have some throttle lag which was cured by richening up the low speed a bit.

I do not think there is any fungi associated with Wellies in the UK so would guess it's something in the mulch ground etc. And yes the weeping from the wounds is fairly common.

It is also my favourite rope and yeah works well with the zig zag and a good compromise between being lighter but still nice to grip. Mine is called Limelight although there are many different colour combo's other than blue tongue.

Having now used ours in anger we are overall impressed. Although a bit disappointed in the changes made from the demo model. It appears the Forst grip has been removed as it no longer grabs eagerly with minimal kick up, so a little concerned that the small diameter feed rollers will in time lose their grab as they wear. It also chokes on stems, which means we have to back the pieces out with the touch buttons this means it fully let's go of the piece which will the. Have to be presented again to the feed rollers, some sticks would choke the machine 2 or 3 times before they would chip. Again maybe this is down to the re design of the feed rollers? It's grabbing ability is what impressed me most with the demo model, ours is different, if the change means an overall reliability improvement then I guess we will just have to live with it. Overall it is an impressive machine that is well built and handled brash with ease with good support as shown here by Forst. It'll be a bit heavy behind your Mitsi though Mark One thing to consider is the new Timberwolfs coming out as you have good support for parts where you are, and the Greenmech 150 I hear is also a good machine though not familiar with it myself.

Cool, I've seen a high number of failures in termination of steel bracing on Horse Chesnut where the bolts pull out. We are looking into harnesses straps with steel cable as a static brace soloution at the moment over invasive for trees such as Horse Chesnut.

How is the steel bracing secured?

I like to be able to pull it and have at least one drive link come out, it should then snap back full in. And like spuds says run free and easy I usually put the combo spanner on the back of a drive link and push it forward to test free running as I do not wear gloves, I hate over tight'chains that noise it makes is like finger nails on a chalk board to me. The 3 link rule is not a good guide, as it will vary on bar length.

It's good your thinking about it, but at 23 you still a long way to go in Arb 20 years in the harness should not be a problem. I work for one guy who has climbed for 37 years, he now shares the load and does part time tree officer work.

For a pure ascent technique I'd say no, although the haas is just another type of rope walker system that has been around a very long time.

Yeah I know, I just get frustrated when I hear of another fellow arb having problems with his saw. If my saw ever develops a problem again I'll probably fix it myself, although I expect the first year at least to be trouble free.

The 540 edges the 201t in performance, build qaulity and reliability wise the 201 beats the 540, "obviously" not quite as robust as the evergreen 200t's but we got to look forward and get over our loss. I'd hold fire on a 201t although the newer models are a great improvement over the first runs I reckon we will see an auto tune 201 in the near future, which may bring it on par with the 540.

Why mess about on a new saw? Especially if you have sent it in for repair already? They are great saws when they work, and do not break. I am very happy with mine albeit 3rd 540

Yes I did, and insisted on a new saw as the lead time of over a month on simple warranty repairs was not acceptable. Been hammering my new one the last few months and so far it has been superb.