scotspine1

The Royal Family are benefit scroungers its so true!

Why would anyone be interested in the royal wedding? why? for what reason? these people have no relevance on my life, they achieve their place in society through hereditary entitlement, the whole things a joke, a big joke and they've been laughing at us for centuries, the wealthy and privileged few have treated the rest of population like total scum, throwing us off our land and out of homes to make way for their greed and obscene lifestyles. Morrissey was so right when he said the royal family were 'benefit scroungers' Wills and Kate seem like nice folk though, hope they've had a good day......

Reg, from my experience to use cranes effectively and efficiently you have to be working with a very good crane operator frequently. my last crane removal was 9 years ago with a company that used them for any big tree removal where access and large work areas would allow. It was excellent to see the tree coming down in big pieces and being planted right behind the chipper or right next to the road for the log truck. However, I work for myself these days and the idea of bringing in a crane with an operator unfamiliar to treework does not fill me with confidence which is why I've avoided using a crane for the last 9 years opting instead for staightforward rigging.....which I know is slow, but better the devil you know and all that. The only way I could get seriously back into doing crane work again was if I started on small trees and worked my way back up to bigger trees, but this all depends of being able to use the same crane operator and company each time....which, although not impossible...is difficult to find - as some crane operators get placed on big construction projects for months on end, so you'd get one operator out for two or three removals then never see him again, so having to start from scratch with a new operator every time is gonna be difficult. Your crane removals in the Manchester area? how many different crane operators and companies have you dealt with over the years?

thank you Dear Leader (happy birthday Steve)

thats your opinion and thats fine

try reading Blood Meridian also by Cormac McCarthy, had to give up half-way through as it was so sickeningly violent. It'd be nigh on impossible to make it into a film. Child of God is a shorter book with easily the most darkly bleak and pessimistic ending of any book I've read. In fact dont bother reading any of these two books. The Road is far better.

just wondering? when climbing into the tree did you ascend on the branch (red) not knowing about the crack until you got above it? and then later set the rigging sling around the main stem (yellow)?

be interesting to see how the hazard beam failed.

Contractors know more about structural weaknesses in trees than consultants. Most arb consultants have never worked on trees day in day out, year after year. They have a cheek to call themselves consultants. A consultant in a hospital still carries out surgery, whereas the majority of tree consultants have never carried out the practical work in the first place, which means they are missing huge swathes of aquired experience and knowledge. In short they are acting fraudulently by implying they are more qualified to assess trees than contractors who are working with trees year in year out. Even to a layman this tree is inherently unsafe, it has a major structural defect and the roots are rotting, its not rocket science.

ha ha

can I get the Navara?

its an old lightening wound, check out wall 4 of CODIT making an appearance just under the bark, difficult to access the depth of the decay from sight alone - reduce to 15 ft monolith (monitor annually) and leave to re-sprout, that trees got at least another 200 years left in it. The discolouration of the wood at the base of the tree is a concern -

good point Hama, well spotted on that one, only people who've worked with trees for a long time would recognise the history.

surprised at you Hama,why not cut to just outside the hazard beam and finish it off with a coro? two habitat creation opportunities for the price of one. Monkey D and Neville Fay would be very disappointed in you

interesting right enough softbanks, but the same results can be achieved with well placed re-direct rigging pulleys. What you have basically done is moved a block and tackle or a Hobbs/GRCS into the tree, your MA is being created in the tree instead of by a groundie at the base of the tree, you've re-invented the wheel. Be careful you dont rig yourself into a quandry. I used this to great effect on wednesday while re-pollarding an ash. It had busy re-growth and some parts were quote substantial. My rigging point was on the right hand side of the diagram. The stem two in from the left was a little skinny and would have brought the sections down too close to the summer house. I attached a pulley just behind the balance point, the sections would slowly rotate tip down, and ran the linethrough said pulley and tied off on the skinnier lead, but lower down. Taking care to get my (dotted) line right meant that the pieces were brought high, would rotate on release of the hinge and the pulley would slide between in the loop. A double whip style loop. On larger pieces the groundies could easily pull in the slack beacause of the increased MA. Hope that makes sense.

same here, if its a big job with loads of climbing and I'm climbing as well nice post Mark

bet the local demolition companies were well pleased with a tree surgeon taking on the work they've trained and equipped themselves for and specialised in for years? you sound like a good businessman, being a businessman is not my primary aim in life, being a tree care professional is

I've recently seen gardening/landscape companies hiring in subbie climbers for big jobs, this cheapens our job and takes work away from legit arb companies. It means that the gardening companies dont have to do all the work, ie NPTC certs, training and equipment we've all worked for years to get, but then thats the free market right, so who cares, lets just do our own thing and let them get on with it.

softbanks could combine the visit with a Unicender demo?

link wont open, is it pics or a vid? interested in seeing this technique, have you posted it anywhere else? treebuzz?

great advice, thats the most poetic thing you've ever posted Stevie, very nice indeed. Will definitely remember that for the future

Softy, wtf are you going on about mate? double whip style tie off?! gotta see this.....pics please, or a badly drawn diagram will do

an hour?............60 minutes?........... ...........this job will take you 60 minutes? Get some pics Steve and helmet cam the whole thing, I wanna see this 60 minute awkward as hell 2ft dbh 75ft removal

upside down wheelie bins will sort that, or traffic cones on top of the posts this'll stop them splitting in the event of direct impact

What size is the tree? can the main stem be supported in any way? I'm not saying to try and support its full weight, just some added extra security. What about ground anchors or tractors combined with a couple of tirfors for this purpose? I take it it's grass underfoot? you could have two ground anchors/tractors set apart adding extra support to the leaning beech. Dont think of it as rigging, just rope controlled free fall, let the pieces run to the ground if possible. sounds as though you need to put extra time on it or the contractor your subbying to does.