Big 'Ammer

When you fasten a bit of wagon sheet onto them, they make luverly stump grinder guards. But don't tell anyone, Pete!

You are of course, correct. However, in the horrible event of having to perform a pole rescue, when seconds count, I would grab a yellow 3 tonne roundsling of an appropriate length, with a carabiner, or the 3 tonne shackle that was probably already fastened onto it, because I have lots of them and I know they are up to the job. I would use anything that I felt was suitable, that was at my disposal, to get the casualty down asap, and face any music afterwards. In these situations common sense should prevail.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Agree with that. I would just girth hitch a poly roundsling and carabiner out of the rigging gear bag. There can't be anything else much quicker to set up?

I remember it. BBC2 after the news. Wasn't there a salamander in it?

Your crane is similar to Skyhuck's isn't it? Would you be doing dismantles and operating the crane yourself via the radio remote like him? If so, I think you're onto a winner Peter. Its a bold move to set up from scratch in a completely new area in the current climate, and leave your regulars behind. Fortune favours the brave. Best of luck mate.

Sounds like hard work and not good balancing on a ladder with a moving mass on your back. Easier and safer to get 5m of hose and fit it in the system between the trigger and the jet and tape it onto a pole or whatever and stand on the ground and do it. Or tell 'em its 'Health and Safety, mate' and do it out of a mewp, and charge plenty.

Havn't you heard their slogan? 'King Lift anything.

The nicotine will be out your system in 3 days. You'll feel crap and crabby, but if you can do 3 days you have cracked the hard part. After that its in your mind. You need to break the routine where you have a smoke in the morning, one when you get to the end of the road, one after dinner etc.. Out of every pack of 20 you probably only actually want and really enjoy 4 or 5, the rest you smoke as part of your daily routine at different points in the day. Break the routine up and you'll be fine. Don't waste your money on nicotine products cos your just prolonging the addiction. I used to chew wrigleys extra gum in the small box and put it in my shirt pocket where I used to keep my cigs so it didn't feel like anything was missing. Like MonkeyD says, first kid on the way is a great wake up call. Think of what you are going to spend the money on instead every time you want a fag. Very best of luck mate.

Barney, use a 2 foot bit of 4x2 under the fan / paddle for that job. Works well.

Some excellent advice from the experienced hands here. Use of the winch, or any other machinery on site, for restraint/crown rotation, work from the butt upwards, 'feel' how the tree reacts and see whats balancing on what, keep on the uphill side on a slope, etc... I am, however, surprised that if you are new to this kind of operation your boss or an experienced colleague wasn't with you to advise you and show you how to go on. Nevertheless, the only way you will learn how to judge these things is by having a go and soaking up the experience. Also, interesting how different work managers assess risk and plan a course of action. John Hancock said he would have been happier partially dismantling the tree in his pictures and felling a relatively striaght clear stem, to avoid men working under/adjacent to tensioned timber. I would be happier to fell in one go and breakdown the crown in a controlled manner to minimise working at height. Neither of us is right or wrong, just a different way of achieving a safe end result. One thing that no one else has mentioned yet is planning direction of fell. Not always possible, there may be no choice available, but sometimes you can get the crown to land in a better position for breakdown. Pictures never tell the full story, but I would have thought that with the space available in John's picture, it may have been possible to fell that edge tree slightly left handed of where it lays. This would have meant the crown would have landed right hand side first and the whole tree would have rotated a 1/4 turn anti clockwise as it came to rest. The end result being the tree is laid trunk down, pretty much on the floor and the crown is laid to the right hand side and is a far easier and safer prospect to cut up. Alternatively, space and equipment permitting, it could have been possible to fell the tree backwards with a pull and then the trunk would be on the floor with the crown uppermost. Again, an easier and safer breakdown, than the one shown.

On a tube of salt granules... Blah, blah, ...this salt has been formed in the mountains of ... blah, blah, blah, millions of years, blah blah,.... under tremedous pressures... blah, blah... Best Before: April 2009 Thank God! They mined in just in time!

Dirty yellow all the way! Battle scarred veteran of many a tree look. C'mon, you don't want to look like you just stepped out of a ppe catalogue, or college..... or the Village People!

Speedy recovery fella!

Interesting discussion, this. I don't like two in the basket, I like to work alone. However, something we have done on several occasions, and quite a bit on the last job, is climb the tree and do the cutting, mewp man holds the branch and chucks to the drop zone. We have just finished topping 677 yards of conifer hedge . We have cut a 257 yard stretch entirely off the mewp because it was quicker. The other 450 yard stetch was taller and we have cut about a 1/3 off the mewp and 2/3 climbed to cut. There was a ditch down one side of it for half the length, so tops all had to go one way. So where we were fighting the wind a bit, Dave climbed and cut and I held from above and chucked. Much safer and much quicker. Where the going was good, we leap frogged each other. I would put him up the trees full r/h stretch and he would set off cutting r/handed. I would cut back l/handed and then move the mewp and set up again r/handed of where he would finish, cut some more and then pick him up and swing him to the other end of the strech to start again. Worked very well indeed. Did all the awkward stuff with the mewp where it was too wide for the climber to safely reach and where it was a bit gappy with nothing strong enough to tie into. Also, in light of the other accident thread, we had about as good a set up as you could hope for in the event of the climber needing rescue. Cut the side and top with a hedge cutter from the basket, and also reached up and over and cut what we could of the other side. Trimming it any other way would have been a pain, as there was a small bank and a post and rail fence which went from close up to 10 feet away from the bottom. Steps or a small tower were out. Its been a good job and the client's delighted, but very boring ! we had to knock off for a couple of days felling and stump grinding to break it up a bit! The end result was worth it.

We pulled the starter cord the old fashioned way and went home?

The father of a guy that used to work for me degloved a finger like that in an industrial accident, not tree work, but had to have his index finger amputated. Long recuperation, retraining into another job, etc...

I like to combine both on larger jobs. Quick crown access for the climber, let them do the inside, use the mewp for the outside awkward bits. Climb, mewp, crane basket, fell it from the ground, whatever is the best way for the job in hand on the day. The best way being the safest and most profitable. However, I do agree that a good bit of challenging climbing keeps your skills sharp.

110 ft. ?

Main priority comfort. Then durability, then waterproof for winter use. If something is going to last, then price doesn't matter. Don't confuse price with value. Buy cheap - buy twice in my book.

The point I was making Andy was, that in this case, trees planted after the area order was put in place are not covered by the order.

The firewood man seemed to think so! There wasn't anything wrong with it apart from it had outgrown its situation next to his house. He is planting something else a bit further away. Apparantly it was planted by the last people along with a selection of other 'dwarf' conifers from the garden centre!

I recently cut down a cedar for a customer who had successfully appealled against the councils original decision not to allow felling. He argued that the tree was not present in 1971 when the area order was made and used testimony from the previous occupants and an aerial photo from about 1978 showing the tree as about 6 foot high as part of his case. The house was built in 1972/3 and the tree must have been planted in about 1974 when they did the garden, which tallied with the ring count.

Very slick indeed as usual Reg.

Did you hear about the bloke who got his sleeping pills mixed up with his Viagra? He went for a lie down and had forty w@nks!