Jamie

david, i'll be doing some double braids in a wee while, i could hook up and give you a run down if you like

who'd you work for in town David?

Jamie

Roni, here's a bit of pointless info, i spent a lot of last winter on the Loch Awe to Taynuilt line doing a lotta tree felling and general geo-tech work. many a night shift climbing in the snow.

thanks for the help gents, i still do a bit of tree surgery, my muscle tone aint what it used to be, the skin on my hands is soft for the first time in 9 years. my plan is to do rope work and tree work now i'm coming to the end of a monster contract. 8 months and it's almost over.....almost.

i need to replace some of my tree stuff as its a bit old, but it has admitedly been hanging around.

Anyone looking for a freelance climber with tons of boring bridge stories drop me a line.

PTS, CSCS, IRATA, NPTC 30/31/38/39, First aid, doing a confined spaces ticket and lots of big tree experience

Jamie

anyone able to tell me the name of the arb supplier in fife?

saw a post here a while ago but i've forgotten who it was.

Jamie

just realised i've not posted any bridge pictures lately,

here is one of two of our guys on the west of queensferry cantilever

and one of andy on the underside of an bottom boom on inchgarvie cantilever

we were climbing through loops ( rope is anchored at both ends and you decend from one anchor then climb back up the other end of the rope) and hauling ourselves around using a gri gri and a 6m lanyard

oh and in the background you can see hound point, the BP gas terminal, one of the ends of the forties pipeline system

jamie

It was for that proverbial situation. only as a hold me in place job, think it was 4mm polyprop, bought especially from that famous arb supplier, B+Q

Jamie

Will this do you mate?

 

Might fall within your price range, and you won't have to get your employee one of those expensive harnesses as this clips straight onto belt loops.

 

I can Fed-Ex up to you if you want?

I have used one of them before.

admitedly i did drop into the tree from an adjacent tree and it was only a hold me in place job on a horibbly skanky split, tensioned stem.

did the job, 2 thumbs up from me

Jamie

get a small flat screwdriver and file it too a point. i use it everytime to extract cores. a cheap b+q one gets you a nice rubbery handle

Jamie

buy it its a good bit of kit, nice and robust and a decent size

Jamie

i think petzl would prefer us to use ASAPs but, ropes can blow through them easily on big drops. The first pic i posted above was about 7meters into a 110m abseil. Its hard enough to keep a shunt tight on big drops in the wind.

I think as long as shunts are high and the fall factors low they should be ok.

I dont think i heard you toot. i was on the middle cantilever and surrounded by herring gulls

Jamie

not posted a picture in a while.

heres another two

from the top of the bridge,

on the bottom booms, but still 30m up

jamie

Rope access nuts should comply with IRATA. Not sure how a Rope Wrench would be viewed?

 

Back up systems etc.

if they are in a tree though its a whole different system (as we all know).

Jamie

find someone who can splice it. i can and there are a few others

Jamie

there was a good article in national geographic, one type of daisy has around 40 'comon' names the world over but only one latin name

jamie

i tried on work spikes a few years back and made 18 seconds so i know how tough it is going fast.

good effort

Jamie

i'm not in the trees just now. i'm painting the forth rail bridge. fancied a change with more prospects. miss the trees though. still dabble from time to time but the skin on my hands is soft now .

Jamie

the rig is smaller, the id is bigger, bulkier has additional safety features that most folk i've spoken to, agree that just get in the way. you cant go too fast as it lock on.

the rig just works well. very simialr to but better than a gri gri.

jamie

you can lock a gri gri off like that. a rig is easier to install on the rope as the front plate swivels. check out petzls website and compare them both

Jamie

SRT good for getting back up after lunch but i wouldn't want to work off it in a tree (and i now spend most of my days doing it).

as for a change over.

ascend the line (croll jammer pantin and footloop).

attach descender to the rope (a stop or grigri or even better a rig (all petzl gear)) belowthe croll.

drop the ascender to head height or there abouts,Stand up on your footloop or pantin and open the cam of the croll then sit onto the descender, remove hand ascender and descend.

on descenders.

stops are basic and hard to use the 'yoyp' method described a few pages, but they do work.

Grigris are good but dont lock off.

Rigs are top notch, as smooth as a gri gri and they can be locked off. I use a rig every day and love it. easy to ascend on, can drop 50+ meters in seconds, easy to instal ropes on and lockable easily

Jamie

You lost me on the 36 for a bit, combined weight!

aye, he was a big guy, but got around pretty well with cracking technique

Jamie

they're more complex when you have a back up rope as well and you have to have 2 points of contact, or climbing through a rebelay.

if they are too heavy to counterbalance the way i said above, sticking a pully on the jammer a pully on your bridge and a second pully on the jammer and threading the footloop through all three should give a 3:1 mechanical advantage. i had to use a 4:1 while rescuing a guy on my IRATA level 2 as he weighed 24stone:ohmy:, therefore overloading the anchors instantly. ( swl rope 250kgs - strength loss of a fig 9 (30%)= 190kg, 36 roughly equates to a load of 240kgs)

rescuing someone froma croll is similar to how you described.

how about this.

get to casualty,

attach jammer / prussic abovecasualty on rope.

attach carabiner to bottom of jammer (ascender), thread footloop / rope / tat through carabiner and attach to casualty,

step on the footloop / loop tied in the rope

this should balance you and casualty then haul them over with a minor amount of brute strength.

or acsend on ascenders, clip casualty to harness then keep climbing, then change over into your decending gear (stop / rig/ fig. 8) and go down (it does work, just drink your can of 'man the **** up' first)

those are IRATA style rescues.

Moot point Peter.

Still worrying on a 24KN rated crab.

 

Drew, you need to eat less pies bro....

hows it a moot point? the carabiner is being loaded incorrectly. its a way we all use but that doesnt mean its the best loading method. day to day the loading isnt an issue until you reach the breaking load.

Jamie

As far as i'm aware LOLER says 2.5x rope diameter, IRATA recommends 4" or roughly a hands width. but IRATA guidelines dont apply to the tree world

Jamie