scotspine1

how do 3 people get that gear to a site?

cheers again folks, josh, I agree, not often you see the sawdust swarm like that seventhdevil, unfortunately all logged into manageable sizes for firewood, client's request le sanglier, working daily with saws the last thing I want to hear at home is a chainsaw, might make the next vid with no music just for you and ben. The only saw I've ever liked the sound of was an idling 288xp. spruce pirate, well spotted on the location

calculated risk, looks like he left a 10" thick hinge so all good. It's not as dangerous as it looks, question is, why not just do that right at the start when you guys arrived at the job?

Steve did the easy bit, who was the legend doing the notch and backcut at the end?

if your gnome dodging you're really working in the wrong areas mate As for commercial being more grown up, if you see running around after middle management jobsworths who are obsessed with paperwork as 'grown up' then I really don't share your definition of 'grown up'.

peatff, loads of light, it's left a massive gap in that strip of woodland that the nearby trees will fill in from the edges plus new plantings. agrimog, west side of the city. Stevie, cheers, was a grand old tree

cheers folks, time in tree was about 4/5 hours, lots of waiting for clear spells in traffic and allowing the ground crew to keep their feet clear. Stopped for lunch halfway as well. There's a lot of footage I didn't include in the vid.

recent job, no rigging, walkie talkies used to let me know when road was clear to drop branches, been admiring this tree for years, sorry to see it go (extensive decay in main stem, dropped a large limb out last week) - [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPVRH0tZViM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPVRH0tZViM[/ame]

arbogrunt, you never told us the tree have been previously butchered. From the client's point of view, if it was them who specified the previous butcher job and they were happy with it, then they'll at least expect a job where the re-growth is cut back to the previous pruning cuts that the cowboy made. If you'd really thought about the previous work done on the tree you'd have realised they're probably not the type of customer whose going to be receptive to talk of 'restorative pruning' or 'light crown reduction and thin' When we go to do a quote, we should try and see the whole picture, 'has the tree been pruned/hacked before?', if the answer is 'hacked' then.....the next question is, 'was it the current tree owner who had the tree butchered in the past?' 'are these people going to be receptive to me talking about restorative pruning or do they just want the branches cut back to previous growth points?' while it's great to have the knowledge, skill and experienced to carry out really nice crown reductions it's not always the case the client will want that or appreciate the effort that goes into it. It's sometimes about finding a balance between what the tree owner wants, what you're aiming at as a qualified arborist and what the tree owner is prepared to pay. I personally don't like the finished 'rounded over' look of the job, but I can see what treesurgeonessex had to work with and why he tried to leave the tree looking half decent. I can also see why your frustrated but lets face it there'll be plenty of other trees you can do quality reductions on. .

Maybe 'death trap' was a bit extreme, what about..... using the zigzag was/is like playing Russian roulette

Chinese?

the new zigzag is a tool I'll never use, not because the first one was a deathtrap, but because mechanical devices will never get close to the instinctive and intuitive feel of climbing rope on rope. They can try all they want but the Spiderjack, Lockjack, ZigZag, Unicender etc are all pale imitations of rope on rope.

good luck with it, take a few pics so we can see how you got it down

get help from a more experienced person

Be interesting to see if it comes over with the winch alone, looks like there still a lot of good wood holding that tree up, trouble is if you put a lot of tension on the tree to try and break the stem and it doesn't work you'll probably need to release some tension on the winch and go in and use the saw, but you may have weakened it with the tensioning of the winch and made the situation more dangerous. I certainly wouldn't crank the winch up to the max then go in and start cutting, that'd be suicidal. Depends what you've got for pulling it over, something big would be a good idea, be careful of overloading the rigging. As some have said with the right approach and choice of cuts this tree may not need a winch at all. Very difficult to give any real advice without seeing the tree. Whatever you decide to do, be sure and get a video of it, good luck.

cheers

I'll give you a shift Martyn, got a 80ft Beech to dismantle next week, need a few extra experienced guys on the ground, could you and your groundie spare a day?

I've recently just dealt with a 3rd site near Loch Lomond where I suspected P. lateralis was the culprit, the Lawsons were either killed outright stone dead or infected by the pathogen, it seems to be spreading fast. Forestry Commission visited the site twice and took samples, definitely P. lateralis. If it does take hold in a big way it will see the loss of probably to most important garden conifer in the UK.

jmac, if your down in Glasgow anytime give me a call and you can meet me at one of our jobs and I'll show you some basic essential climbing skills you can learn with the minimum of equipment. I learned to climb with an old piece of 1/2 inch 3 strand nylon rope that I found in my dad's garage (was used for towing cars), no harness or carabiners either. (posting this vid before Stevie Blair sees my last sentence and posts the vid first ) - [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo]Monty Python - Four Yorkshiremen - YouTube[/ame]

Looks like the UK sold Syria chemicals that could be used in nerve gas - Government let British company export nerve gas chemicals to Syria - UK Politics - UK - The Independent

I knew that Steve, didn't want to correct Pat as it would've looked like I was overly concerned with minute details instead of the bigger picture

He's right, usually is on middle eastern affairs. Spends most of his time there - [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9vMCSh6BMQ]George Galloway owns an anti-Syrian propagandist - YouTube[/ame]

ex sas to career politician, he's come along way since his days in the military, just a pity nearly all of it has been downhill.

What's he getting out his lobbying for bombing though? bet there's a lot going on behind the scenes that we'll never know about, Paddy - 'I'll help you guys make the case for bombing and you do this for me, right?' Why would Britain want to get involved in a vicious sectarian civil war anyway? can't they see the pattern? Iraq, Afghanistan now Syria, the trouble just keeps moving around and we keep getting sucked into the violence. By the way - didn't the USA/UK do such a great job in Iraq? this was from Wednesday Baghdad bomb attacks kill 71, wound 201 as cars explode across city - NY Daily News and today Car bombs kill 11 in northern Iraq | Reuters

Glad to see the British parliament reject the case for bombing Syria. Hey Tony, why do liberals like Clegg, Ashdown, Campbell and Williams want war so bad? you'd think they'd be last people wanting to launch cruise missiles at conscripted soldiers and civilians who operate the various military installations which will be targeted. By the way Paddy Ashdown is a total joke, a morally pious, sanctimonious, self serving career politician.....I despise people like him.