Angus

From memory I think the 460 came down once, and the 660 once...

Thanks guys This probably isn't discussed enough - Paul M from Donaghy's Australia really helped us out with the rope. All the ropes performed extremely well, and exactly as described.

Sure did! It'd be presumptuous for me to say he is doing well, but I guess I'll say he is doing well. I spoke to him last night, I'll have to tell him to get on the forums

Internet Explorer: To download it, right-click the file and "Save As". Firefox: right-click the file and "Save Link As". lol you can put it on whatever you want. iPod. I'll release and iPod version if you want... I've always wanted to, and this is a good excuse.

thankyou

The ratchet straps were to stop the tree from busting open, splitting down, or changing into any other undesirable shapes. The tree had what I can only describe as dead oscillation. It doesn't sway or flex like a normal tree, sort of vibrates around in circles. You knock it with your fist, and you can hear it kind of reverberating 50' below. As you drive the spurs in, the outside shell would shattered and separate with the spur. It was has a large defect about 20' above the Airwalk, with shattered wood and splits running another 30' toward the top. And so is the purpose of the ratchet strap.

I've got no idea how the tree was before it lost its head - It had been dead and headless a long time before we got to it. We took it down to just below the Airwalk. To be honest I don't know how high it was before we got to it. From the video, if I said there was about 80-85' above the Airwalk, would that be reasonable guess?

As groundie, its important to keep the climber busy pulling ropes, so I like to get... haha no seriously, MB summed it up precisely. It would be more work to set the pully, or deal with having the rope being pulled over your flipline, than to just haul it off the Airwalk... I think.

I sure can

It was a post-mature Eucalyptus obliqua Your observation is correct, at least in the Tasmanian Eucalyptus obliqua quite often there will be no branches for at least 100', similar to the Eucalyptus regnans of Victoria.

haha no stress, I'm wrapped it got here because by the time I get the video finished I want to show anyone that'll look. I flick up the forums spasmodically and read through whats going on, but when it comes to posting these videos there seems to be no way of me posting the links on all the forums without being completely conceited, so thats why I haven't done the borderline cross-site spam I've been doing in the past...

I haven't spent enough time on Huskys to have an opinion, but the new stihl 88s have overheating problems. I haven't got just one example of this, but about 4 seperate events involving different saws, so its not just a one off. The old ones you could bog down and really keep them pulling wood, the new ones need to have their revs kept up above 5000rpm, or they seize. Stihl wanted to put a tacho on our current 88, but ah... doesn't really address the problem. 84s dont seem to do this at all.

If I've understood the question properly, the answer is there isn't enough time. The process of lowering, returning rope, processing and cycling (each meaning a road closure) would take far too long given the volume of material that needed to be processed. Each time a limb was cut, the road needed to be closed. The mere task of lowering the branches let alone handling it once it got to ground would've been a nightmare. The crane lowered them because it can lay them in the right direction to be fed into the chipper. Also, if the branches did tangle themselves it becomes extremely difficult to free them, given the weight. There is a lot of people and equipment doing nothing if no branches are coming down. The crane simply lifts them in the direction they want to leave the tree. Hope that answers what you meant. Thanks Angus

Hello friends, I've cut together a very short edit of 1 of 3 trees we did last year, on a job in grants picnic ground. (it was actually four if you include the pre-job tree). Due to being a very busy tourist area, the job had to be done as quickly as possible, remain open and also have minimal interference with traffic. The solution was to get to the job well before peak hour traffic, and pre-rig and cut all the major branches from a tower (180'). This meant that when the crane and chipper arrived, the crane only had to setup once, and there was no lost time in cutting branches. The chipper backed straight up into the lowering section, and branches could be lowered with the crane straight to the chipper. Since the heads were already cut and statically hanging, there was no need to stop traffic again. As the larger wood starts to come down, chipper is moved and log truck is loaded with right next to crane. Everybody was off the job by 3pm, thus missing the end of school peak and the next wave of tourist buses. The dark start of the video is at about 5am, Graeme had another tree about 100m away that also needed to be done, and since the travel tower was all he needed to do it, he did that before he went and pre-rigged the other three trees. the link directly to the video is this. there is a page with different size, quality and format versions of the same video here. Regards Angus

moderation queue was just too much for him lol. He's gone. He'll be back I presume

G'day, It's been great to share the video's and get so much encouraging feedback, thanks . Finally having a reliable distribution source means we can share the video's so much easier! Quintin Garlic did the filming that you see in the edit that is currently circulating. I only did the editing... {confounded uni exams}. {hours later} I've just got off night-shift, been writing this reply for a bit over an hour. Around 4:30am Graeme comes in the door from who knows... Turns out he was picking up wood from the saw mill, so he could go to the holiday house and do some more building. HA. sif. In short, I'm getting Graeme to post. Great success. Thanks Angus