Marc

Yes we do a hard job, of that there is no doubt, the point i was trying to make is with all the kit now availible to us, modern climbing techniques and smarter working it is becoming easier to extend your career as a climber/treeworker without causing yourself to much longterm physical damage. I find climbing a fairly easy even using big saws (66's and 88's are a little harrder) its groundwork thats a killer for me as I have not yet found an effcient and quicker way of dragging brush without actually dragging it. Unless you got one of these

Good advice,,, I had Tendonitis really bad huge discomfort even through the night, i'd wake up with pins and needles and a dead arm every morning. Enough was enough, i saw the doctor he told me to take 6 weeks off or change jobs, I am self employed and love my job so no chance. Instead i looked at the way i worked, i had been doing lots of hedge cutting (major cause of havs (hand arm vibration syndrome)) so i stopped that, using a prussik loop was putting huge pressure on my arm especially when body thrusting, so i stopped body thrusting to asscend, changed my knot to a tended hitch that allowed me to pull with both arms and hold my weight with the left keeping my arm locked straight in a more comfortable position. Stopped using the top handle saw one handed so much etc etc Basically anything you can do to balance the work load between both arms, even things like feeding the chipper with your left arm, using the silky with your left hand, alternating your grip on the groundsaw i can now use a groundsaw with either my left or right easily and accuratly, little things like when using a groundsaw low to the ground support its weight by resting your forearm on your leg (without pics this is probably hard to understand) All these little things over the course of your long career will cut down the stresses you put on your body. I also went for physio I choose a Chineese threapist near me who suggested massage, heat treament and accupuncture basically this helps to stimulate the blood flow to help the body heal naturally over 6 weeks twice a weeek at £15 per half hour treatment, seemed to work for me. Haven'thad a major problem with tendonitis for 2 years now, i still get a little pain as i've damaged the sheath my tendon/nerve runs through, this will never heal without surgery but the pain is bearable and i am not handicapped in any way so why bother with the surgery. I hope you find a solution to your problems.

2 in the basket is the way to go its speeds everything up so much, otherwiase it just to slow and climbing would be far quicker if a little more strenous. Although my knees ache and my back hurts standing around i got to get out there keep stay mobile or i'll seize up.

Well i've got an eddy and black diamond ascendor, now all i need is static line, its the future i tell ya! http://www.newtribe.com/documents/tip4.htm

A good point paul and lancs, i'm not a fan of pruning trees into nice shapes, trees do not need to be made symetrical and perfect, i appreciate that a lot of the cuts are not to best practice. This was a challenging tree to prune to the spec given, the time frame and price on the job. I was pleased with the result and do not think we could of done it better with the constraints we had, although i accept its not perfect the only way to get a better result in my opinion was with a big platform or more time. Having said that this tree is mature for a hybrid black pop, its already had 2 large limbs fail, its coming to the end of its sule a light tickle is never going to reduce the likelyhood of future failure considering the nature of popular to shed large limbs. We work to a high standard with a top reputation in our area, unfortunatly we are not immune to the commercial pressure to be productive and profitable as much as we would like to be.

A bit off topic i know but with a grcs you can snatch on the sailing bollard, with this you take advantage of the one way drum as the climber snatch's a piece you can immediatly remove all slack then let it run for some real smooth rigging. Not sure about the hobbs as i've only used a grcs.

The reality is its a poplar its hardly full of good pruning points to go to, it would of been great to have 100ft platform to make the more ideal pruning cuts, this was the best we could do with a difficult spec on a difficult tree. How would top'ing it do as a managment alternative, then treat it as a high pollard? Would not of looked as good long term imo.

Of course its operator error not knowing the device needed a krab to secure the rope and the slack throwing the rope, lesson learned. How many people here know that you should secure the line to the larger ISC capstan with a krab? It doesn't exactly come with instructions.

I'm talking about snatching only mate as the piece goes over, any other rigging situation its easy to keep tension in the rigging line.

When snatching as you push the piece over the line always goes slack, there are ways to minimise this, anyway i've seen groundies lose control of pieces as the capstan has thrown a wrap when going taught, it is rare but can happen especially with the larger ISC capstan.

I get your point but it is a little harsh, sometimes in treework you have to be adaptive and inventive its how progress is made. When i first read about using ratchets straps on this forum i thought it was a good idea, particularly the way it holds the capstan with minimal slack which can be a problem with snatching, i've seen wraps get thrown from a device as the rope goes taught with certain capstans. I don't think i'll be using a ratchet strap anytime soon, but like Andy I'll keep the idea in the old mental tool box as a get me out of trouble soloution albiet with keeping its weaknesses in mind

And me

Blakes is better than a tautline, a Shannon is just blakes tied wrong.

Tautline, Shannon, Prussik are other split tailed knots i know off probably more out there.

Talking about this with one of the guys i work with would be cool if you could shorten the bridge so that you could use a croll effectivly in an srt set-up. Any thouhgts on that side?

We need no guiding! Its a zen thing.

Hugo came out to site and said he wanted 6ft off all the limbs he's been smoking some seriously strong **** lately.

I've seen a couple done like that in near me and the regrowth isn't that quick surprisingly, no quicker than there normal fast growth rate. The job spec mentioned pruning by upto 25% with a view of continually maintaining the tree at that size on a 5-7 year rotation. I'm sure felling was brought up as really its the wrong tree for that situation, and they've just built a new home under it on the other side. The client obviously loves the tree, although it already shed a big limb hence the reduction!!

My first hybrid black reduction, i've dismantled a couple which was easy, this not so but enjoyed the challenge. The other climber is Quentin aka Qtip.

The webbing on the leg loops to the connecting D's was wearing fast on earlier models, its a free warrenty fix. Newer motions have better webbing and the D's are individually checked.

One to ten years, it all depends on how often you climb and how hard you are on your kit.

I've not done much rigging, i was a fan of whoopies or loopies because they are easy to set-up, now though i'm a dead eye sling convert, so much more versatile and with a good stratergy, a lot! quicker to set-up and move. I hope i explain this clearly, get the groundie to set the aerial rigging kit on the ground, by tying the bowline on the rope atatching biner and sling, set the dead eye sling and the rigging rope on the lowering pulley then tie the end of the sling to the climbers rope. Then all the climber has to do is pull it into the tree untie the end of the dead eye sling and put it in place then your all ready to rock. You can't do that with a whoppie Back the cow's hitch up with to half hitches before the pulley, that way you can start untying the cows whilst the ground crew faff about laying that big log down, again you can't start to untie a whoppie or timber hitch under any kind of load. Saves a few more minutes. When snatching you don't have to keep taking the block off a dead eye sling to move, with a whoppie you do. With a long dead eye sling you can set the pulley in a fork a little ways out from the stem then tie it to the main stem and not compromise the strength of your anchor point, kinda like the fishing line method.

I'd off done it just for the fun of it.

Its like throw lining you either get it straight away or end up in fits of rage which only makes things worse.