MattyF

I would be interested to see if any one has tried the SAKA knee ascender ??

Does any one want to buy a haas ?? It's only a year or so old !

You have to get the velox now RMac !!! Hadn't seen that joe but it looks good ! [ame] [/ame]

The haas is pricey but worth it , the thing that makes it work well is the elastic runs down nearly the entire device so you get much more return with the up step of the ascender ..... Another way to get a good return is double up the elastic it's nearly as good maybe better.... I will try out some thing at weekend it maybe a knee ascender you can Russle up for about 20 but have to see if it works first !

It performs great in the wet, not as warm or bulky as the Harkie either. In comparison to the pfanner Ventura though it's a tough call , my Ventura now lets water through in heavy rain after a years use so I'm just wearing it for showers and saving the cut and climb for constant wet deluge work. The only thing against it is the smock design over the ease of using a front zip and it has no hood .... The Ventura hood fits nicely over the top and the run off does not go down your neck when paired with the cut and climb jacket .

Oh and don't descend with the ascenders still attached !

It's not really a case of sitting back and repeating more of walking up and sitting back for a rest and admiring the view when you have done 30-40 ft in under a minute with out breaking a sweat! You could go the route your talking about personally I would just buy a haas off honey brothers or one of the knee ascenders off tree kit , I've made my own and it does work well but tbh for the hassle of testing it until you find something that does work efficiently your better off getting a bit of kit out the box for the job.

They are both attached to the main line, the Haas or knee ascender elastic is clipped to the hitch climber as the neck or chest harness on the top hole which will advance your hitch via the stiff tether on the rope wrench, this is why I like a hitch climber over a traditional pulley as its 3 holes all can be utilised to get the best out of the system. You can use a hand ascender with tape instead of a knee ascender it is quite a bit more effort though and I did find a double hand ascender more ergonomic on very long hauls. You should be able to just climb as you normally would with a hitch as the wrench is designed to do this but yes ideally you want to unclip the neck or chest harness for descents. Adam Bourne posted some good working vids of SRT showing the use of alpine butterfly and pulley for retrievable redirects. I found SRT some thing that took me a while to get used to and I definitely dismissed it for any thing other than long ascents at the beginning of using it but I would not use any thing else for work climbing now. This is my basic every day system , I've tried a lot but this I found the best for me. Wrench and hitch climber HAAS CT foot ascender Neck tether Pinto and krab for anchor points On the spikes I have a modded kiwi climbers ascender and loop for ascender attachment on opposite spike neither are really an essential though. I do have a load of slings and revolver krabs for redirects but for nearly all my climbing I've found natural redirects work just fine.

As far as I'm aware if you want to stay on a hitch with ce Approval the only option is a rope wrench and I would go mk 2.... Then all you need is a foot ascender and if you want to make life easy a secondary ascender, the easiest and most efficient would be a haas from my experience.... Then some kind of sling harness or neck tether to advance your hitch and wrench whilst ascending you can make or buy these easily but tree kit have some good stuff on there site and even introduction to SRT vids on there that are definitely worth a view to give you ideas.

Sharpening a saw in the elements bent over and real close with a sharp new file and got a lump of filling in the eye whipped up by the wind which imbedded it self in my pupil then a few days later started going rusty and was no longer on the surface as it was getting scabbed over and vision in that eye started getting worse so a trip to the eye hospital in Welyn to get it out... I have spent most of my working life daily sharpening saws and it's only happened twice but it's not some thing I would like to repeat.

Good pics Steve , I do exactly the same as pic 2 .....any other way seems awkward , I don't like vices you end up too close and metal filings stuck in your eyes ain't much fun!

Clamp the bar and starter covers between knee and heel and lean over the saw ,I've worked with a few rugby playing lads who can't get in this position and have to use a vice in branches and stumps though.

I had high hopes for it! Tbh I'm not sure I would buy another for any saw they look great but hamper performance by being over weight and unwieldy, had to take one off my 560 as you could really notice it production felling , the weight difference snedding over a Oregon pro lite flicking it around it had to come off, great for Arb work though would of probably lasted the saws life time.

I've had over 12 months use out of one ... I've had 4 bars on that saw from new, one of them being a Sugi that was the most expensive and lasted the least... Found it quite easy to get life out of the original bar just don't use it as a felling leaver or get it caught in falling branches I think they are a really nicely balanced bar as well, unlike the Sugi.

Last Sugi bar Light bar on a 540 lasted about 3 months before the sprocket imploded so back to the techlites for me, if I can get 8 month out a bar I'm happy.

I got a piston from little red barn off eBay and Steve cleaned up the cylinder head but fitted an oem ring and clips just incase !

Came a across a large Feild maple today that had came down in the winds last night....

It's spruce ! Within a doubt It smells of toilet cleaner really soft and very easy to turn... I dismissed it at first but it actually came up nice I thought despite the very large pocket of soft rot on it.

What tube outlets length and nozzle seem to make the difference , I guess because they are quite lacking in comparison in power to the back packs it seems to makes all the difference. The earlier 85's were invincible, the last one I owned was two years old and dropped its crank bearings it's predecessor another 85 was about 10 years old an still going strong but got lost off the back of a truck but too me was testament to the fact that Stihl used to make good machines with quality bearings ... Only problem with the 85 was bad anti vibes and the 86 to be fair fitted with the right nozzle is a not bad machine it just its build lets it down , stop wires breaking are notorious and a pita to fix but the anti vibes are a lot better can't say I ever noticed difference in power but some machines seem stronger than others from the beginning I guess like saws.

Thanks for clarifying Paul.

Despite doing nptc refreshers last year I've been told they should of been by a FISA approved trainer to get on a timber harvesting sites but the Arb ones I did are fine so can carry on with Arb work for contractor....but basically told yesterday we can't get on the timber harvesting site we planned for with the above contractor any body clarify ? That makes no sense at all !

Is the two stroke in aspen synthetic ?

Norway spruce burr lovey and soft .... Maybe too soft with rot in it ,left it being chased down to something resembling a dish ! But glad it got put too one side.

Birds as well, I've seen in particular wood creepers and woodpeckers make good use of monoliths and coronets, but basically all the wild life and fauna that have adapted over millions of years to live off around and in dead and decaying trees other than a sterile environment that as tree workers most of the time we help create.

They look like they would be really handy for dealer support as well 😳