scotspine1

johnty, When the tides in, it pushes the water table upwards forcing more sap out of the pruning wounds, the nearer you are to the sea the more dramatic the effect. In ancient times all the villagers would run to the trees to hack branches off to collect sap before the tide went out - they were making Birch wine from the sap.

Was the tide in on the Devon coast? cause trees bleed more when the tides in.

Acer pseudoplatanus and Aesculus hippocastanum

Anyone ever thought of advertising on Youtube? or making a short DVD of your treework to give to potential clients? There's hundreds of these types of vids from American treecare companies on YT. You could post a link to the vid from your website. Seem like a good idea? would the great British public go for it? I wonder.... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdA8StMr2pI&feature=related]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdA8StMr2pI&feature=related[/ame]

Get used to it, to the general public, thats what we are and nothing will ever change that. You can try as hard as you want to call yourself an arborist/treeclimber or whatever, even get the Arb Association/ISA involved but 99.9% of the UK public will still recognise someone working in a tree from a rope and harness as a tree surgeon. The industry is just too small to try and change the term tree surgeon to something else. Ask a random bloke or woman in the street in any town in the UK what an arborist is and they wont have clue and if you tell them they will care even less. Its just the way it is. Deal with it.

Alistair, When branch walking you have to stay low, lower your centre of gravity, crouch if you need to on the way out, keep the rope under tension, bend your knees, use displacement for your feet(dont cross them over each other), grab any lateral branch or branch above the one your walking on with your free hand for stability. If you have a high anchor point one rope should be fine for walking out(this is the secret to branch walking well). If its wet two ropes with the anchor points spread apart is a very good idea, particulary when you get way up in the canopy say 60ft. Its also a good idea to learn how to re-direct your main line so that your anchor point is almost directly above the branch your walking on if possible(depends on strength of branch/stem above). Wear good boots and try and learn to use a harness which has a sliding D, this way your not fighting against the rope trying to twist your round as you walk out when using a regular fixed front D. When walking back in stay low again, keep shortening your line, learn to use a slack tender. If you climb off two ends of the rope (not good) keep the other end of the line attached to the tip end of the branch if your worried of taking a swing. It may be a good idea to use a longer secondary rope for this purpose, just make sure you put a stopper knot in the tail end. Practice is the only way to get good at branch walking.

Are you saying a LOLER inspector should be able to splice in order to understand and identify what a faulty eye-splice looks like?

Can you take a picture of it and post it in this thread? it may be that the branch needs removed as the rope might have created a structurally weak point in the branch, as the branch grows bigger and puts on more end weight it may fail. Are there any targets under the branch? kids play area etc?

Anyone know of any recent prosecutions against landowners for failing to obtain a Felling Licence? Fines?

I've never put side cuts above the hinge and never will as I dont like losing good hinge wood.

Jomoco, I'm all for invasive cabling as it makes the tree stronger if done properly. The alignment tool is an excellent idea, can't believe anyone hasn't thought of it before. Have you had a lot of success with it?

It was Hybrid Black Pop when I used the Silky at 1.25. Hadnt worked in one for about 8 years and I was wanting to see how the hinge acted, so held the camera with the free hand. Notice how it rips down the stem on the 1st and 2nd shot, will do side cuts under the hinge next time.

Jon, the fence was removed after the notch went in, the client decided at the last minute they wanted to keep it afterall. Thanks for all the positive comments.

There's about 4 or 5 and we're putting them out of their misery next week, then we're moving to the Borders to compete with you, after we've felled the last tree there, we're moving on to Slasherscot's hood (South Lanarkshire), finally I'm retiring to Islay to live out my days catching fresh fish and lobster from my 12 ft wooden boat bought with the profits of all the trees I felled on the mainland Where I am - Where I'm going -

3 fells from this week, great to get the chance to fell from groundlevel as nearly all our jobs around here need climbing. There's some other footage from the last couple weeks in the second half of the vid, hope you enjoy. Cheers TC [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNzi4MH5gWQ&feature=channel_page]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNzi4MH5gWQ&feature=channel_page[/ame]

Nice post Reg, some good points. Quick quiz- Only one of these trees is over 100 ft which one do you think it is?

100' tall combined yes, 50 ft each by the looks of it mate, there's no way on God's good earth that those trees were 100ft buzz. great vid though. Gotta say mate, that looked like a brilliant job, gimme that kind of thing all day, all week all year, easy climb lawson's easy on the saws and dragging branches hundreds of miles is good for the soul and keeps you fit as hell. Cheers for posting. TC

That Lime takedown would be worth posting on here, it was right at front of a house. Remember you saying it was the biggest Lime for miles around.

Rupe, I remember that thread from the Buzz, its ancient, just curious why your posting it here, now. If your trawling the depths of your back catalogue how about that Lime removal you did, where you reckoned it was the biggest Lime in your neighbourhood? you know the one, there's a shot of groundies rolling logs onto a mini plant trailer? What about the double barrelled Timberwolfs/row of Leylandii job as well? and the shot of the groundies on the bench outside Pizza Express, let see it all, start a Rupe's Treework thread. Are they on Flickr?

Thanks Garth, trying to avoid the tyres sticking out from the arches otherwise need to get something like this done - which would cost a few pennies and look a bit stupid.

Anyone put BF Goodrich All Terrain tyre size 31-10.50-15 on the new shape Hilux? Anyone know how this would effect road handling or wheel arch issues etc(would the tyres stick out from the wheel arches)? Cheers TC

This ones about 15 miles north of Glasgow - [ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2exVYCjM2O8]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2exVYCjM2O8[/ame]

Looks like Merip

Reason I asked, was that I recently removed a large lateral branch from a mature Hybrid Black Poplar, and the growth rings were very wide on the underside and only just visible on the topside they were so close together. This is what I'd expect to see on a Lawson's Cypress or Leylandii etc. Its makes me think very little research has been done on this issue.

My wife works at a school in Motherwell where there are 40 children from the Congo, at lunch time all the kids in the school were throwing snowballs, the kids from the Congo had never seen snow before. They loved it. Suppose there's some comfort in that. But I know what your saying.