Mr Ed

Any spares or info is available here - http://www.dodge50.co.uk/

I can give you a difinative answer .... The RB44 is an Awsome tool. Think oversized overbuilt landrover. I have had 2 now, the ex military RB44 and the Ex utility S75. We prefered the lighter military version, I bought mine with 900 miles on the clock for £5500... It was the best small truck we ever bought. We converted the original aluminium deck to a tipping chip box, would hold about 9 m3 of chip comfortably. The upside is all the components are readily available from any truckspares, the are narrow enough to go where a landrover will, the will go anywhere a 130 will offroad (and further!) and will carry 2.5t without complaint. We had the brakes go on ours, our local truck mechanic replaced the whole lot for under £300. Downside is the poor(ish) steering lock, the ex military tyres can be slightly crap, and the DPM paint is a nightmare to strip and repaint. For you Dean, I would say it would be perfect. The only problem is getting one, as people have cottened on how good they are and there are very few left. Oh, and try and get a manual, as the 3 speed auto can be a bit sluggish.

I have the all terrains, very good offroad, but noisy on road. Last longer than any tire I know of. I used to run grabbers, but I think that the BFG is a much higher quality tyre.

Good vid. Nice soundtrack too.

Did you have a pertinent point to make about the issue rasied...?

what did I miss? Whats the Broonites dun now?

My Irish Setter got Aspergillosis in his nose as a puppy from playing on rotting woodchip. I had to pay £3500 for specialist Vet to repeatedly wash his nasal cavity's out with a special fungicide. They had to drill into his forehead, and pour the fungicide into his sinus cavaty's. saved his life though.

I Think Greame served in Vietnam, so he must be at least in his fifties.

The Electric Guitar can scream, wail, whisper, bark and growl its way around your soul like no other instrument. Soulmusic... This is an awsome piece of guitar work, slap bass rythym with a searing melody thats hard to describe. All set to a rather natty TRON vid... [ame]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ6Ywx8oTFg[/ame]

Indeed. Jobs for the boys and all that.

I love Harriet Wheeler. You like the Cocteau's Carl?

The FMOC system is quite good, where a 'provisional' licence is issued, enabaling on the job training to be undertaken. Maybe bring in something similar for chainsaws?

Actually I'm being silly (unusually for me). I DO have the pics, but I've just been through my laptop and my office PC and cant find them. Essentially, we had a client with a FUGE copper beech, over 110' high and a spread of nearly the same. It was completely riddled with a ganoderma (pfiferi if I remember rightly), with virtually no sound wood left. The fungi had delignified all the centre of the stem, but the tree was still in full leaf and looked fantastic. Their Insurance company however, insisted the tree be felled, as it towered over their million £ house. We opted to remove 80% of the crown area, so that the tree's fall zone was outside the house. We fully expected the tree to die, but we left all the lower limbs to create a new low crown like an umberellalala. We also decompacted and heavily mulched the root zone. Surprisingly, the tree responded by throwing out millions of epicormic shoots and creating a new crown. I have monitered it now for the past 7 years and it is still going strong. The client is happy as they retained the essential visuall impact of the large tree. The only unusuall thing was it started as a copper beech, but reverted to a green leafed tree, with hints of copper. I imagine that clorophyll b is not as efficient at photosynthesizing as ordinary chlorophyl... I will atempt to locate the pics tomorrow. Otherwise, I'll stop by and take soem new snaps:001_cool:

No. I was telling lies.

Hey, if you want to earn some Dollar from it, go ahead. I'm sure a nice thin would do your wallet... ahem, the tree a world of good:D

Ive carried out an 80% (in one go) reduction on exactly the same species in worse condition. It survived quite happily. I have pics on the office PC of it 4 years after, it formed a new crown nicely.

Are we talking about the TREES health? in that case nothing. Leave it be. Apart from that, for safety's sake, 50% reduction of upper crown to reduce loading on weakened trunk.

If you were going to fall from a tree, what would be high on the list of things you would rather not land on? Most people will have iron railings well up on that list, but for one climber last year that was precisely what he plummeted 52 feet on to, picking up two puncture wounds in his back, one inch away from his spine. He was more than a little lucky, discounting the falling in the first place, as his harness absorbed the worst of his fall and stopped the spikes from ripping deeper. Remarkably, he is back at work and climbing again. Now that I am sure I have your attention, you probably have a few questions to ask: “How did he fall?” “What, if anything, did he do wrong?” “What broke?” Before I tell you, remember the sick feeling in your stomach looking at the photo of the harness on the fence and learn from someone else’s lucky escape. He was foot locking into the tree using the double rope technique (DRT) with mechanical ascenders. When he reached the top, about three feet under his anchor point, with the ropes pulled together with an alpine butterfly, he reached out to his side about an arm’s length to take hold of a branch to pull himself in to stem and lanyard in. One of the ropes in his ascenders popped out and he fell. Turning, trying in vain to grab the ropes in front of him, he saw the ground and railings come towards him. He could not quite believe what was happening; he thought for sure he was going die, then bang! A sudden stop. He hit the railings, feeling them punch in to his body, he was winded, conscious but alive. How could this happen? Good question. Well it happened and the companies that make such devices are aware of the potential for it to happen because clearly marked on all devices is the maximum and (more importantly) the minimum diameter of the rope that they can be used with. Also stated in the instructions are the directions and limitation of use, they are for one directional use, to be loaded only from below the device, they are not designed for lateral movement. It has been known for a while that this could happen and climbers have had moments where it nearly did. The findings of the HSE investigation held no one at fault. All actions had been following the current best practice, so what should we do to stop this until someone builds us a new device for tree access alone? What now? A better question. First, the “Guide to Good Climbing Practice” is currently under review prior to a second edition and DRT is one of the areas being worked on. In the meantime, if you are using such devices, what you must do is put in a fail to safety, a back up or safeguard of some sort that will hold you if one of the cams should fail or, as in the case above, the rope should work free of the device altogether. There are many and various ways of backing up the DRT system utilising ascenders, but what needs to be made clear is that just adding a prussic loop on both lines (as you would if you were foot locking with a prussic) will not be backed up. This is because if one side of the ascenders fails, the ropes will move in opposite directions and the prussic will not grip. What you must do is treat double ascenders as two separate ascenders that just happen to be joined together. Each side must be backed up. To that end, a friction hitch, prussic lets say for simplicity, is installed one above each cam, one on each line and then connected to the karabiner attaching the ascenders to your strop (Fig I) or linked into the system on your harness. You will need to take care when choosing your karabiner, so as not to overcrowd or load it incorrectly. Another method would be to use a second cam on each line; doing this will isolate each line. Walk a second set of ascenders up the ropes to the top (Fig II), set the correct distance away from your anchored limb to allow for the spread ratio, or up to a butterfly knot and bring the ropes together under the anchor point. There are many other ways to back up DRT utilising ascenders but I have insufficient space to mention them all here. If you want to find more ways to back up your system, check out arbtalk.co.uk or treebuzz.com, come and have a chat at one of the many events this year at the tree climbers’ forum or just chat to some of the climbers competing or judging at a TCC event. Above all climb safe and keep your system simple, so you and your groundy can fully understand what is going on. If you are not sure, go back to a simple prussic loop for foot locking. Think about reaching out a little and get online, or book some update training. Alexander Laver Tree Logic ISA UK&I TCC Chairman

Good advert for the integrity of the TreeMotion. Also a good reminder like you say, Back up your ascenders...

I have work for the German Comune's. Basicaly a better version of our local authority's.

Camarades! venir la révolution, notre ordre social se répandront la perfection à travers le monde!

On the point of Nuclear power, I think mankinds safety record makes it a very dubious option (for me). I'm not 'anti nuclear', and have always been fascinated by the technology, particulary fast breeder reactors. BUT... You also have to take into account the vast amount of oil and gas it takes to build a nuclear plant. It takes 10 years of generating just to payback the concrete bill. and think of the carbon footprint of all that concrete. Plus, unless it is a fast breeder, it requires lots of Uranium digging out of the ground. and if you do a bit of research, you realize that we reached a 'peak uranium' about 10 years ago. So I dont think that nuclear power is ideal.

I think it was based on the idea of 'the serf works for all, the priest prays for all, the Knight fights for all.' It was a deeply unfair system, as the the serfs did all the work, but could never aspire to owning their own land. Plus, the ancient woodlands that had provided food shelter and building materials for hunderds of years were now purely the domain of the king and his barons. History sucked.

No fingers on a duradisk. The teeth are formed from a forged steel bolt.