Will Hinchliffe

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Colins field guide to trees of Britan and Northern Europe. Alan Mitchell

Ring barking a tree does not stop water being transported to the crown. It stops sugars being transported to the roots. Water is still transported by the xylem formed during previous growing seasons. I dont believe there would be any noticable loss in weight after a month. Water uptake ceases once the roots have died after using up al the available stored sugar. I think the best solution to your problem is to employ a groundy.

Ive been told you can find glow worms up there. I never knew there was a tunnel through it. Pity they cant dig it out.

Would be a nice thing to do but mostly people want there tree down as soon as you can do it. I heard people ringbark standing trees in Italy for future felling for firewood. The wood is then mostly dried standing. I always thought this sounded like a great thing to do. You might not get the same results in a damp uk woodland that you would in other parts of the world but on some sites it may work very well. I think the moisture content would be very site and species specific. Other factors like timing of ring barking and age of tree would also affect how quickly the tree lost moisture.

Its a cheap throw bag made from the kind of material that they use on the side of lorries. It may be a type of vinyl rather than PVC Im not sure. I presume they are lead filled but Im not sure. They are quite unrefined but tough. Cresto is the manufacturer

12 - 16 0z bags for us 16 0z bags are great for big oaks where the rough bark adds a lot of friction to the line. Harison rockets, weaver copies and pvc cresto ones. We had a couple of 160z bags that would ooze lead powder when wet. This left a nasty residue around your lips when you untied the zingit with your teeth. I think the internal rubber bags had split afted being repeatidly slammed into branches with the bigshot. My most hated feature on a throw bag is when the ring has a round profile. A nice flat edge on the ring as on a harisson rocket allows you to girth hitch the line to the ring which is currently my prefered way of attatchment. If you try this with a ring that is round in profile the girth hitch doesnt bite on. We have always had 60m thin zingit throwlines which I like. We tried some liros stuff that we bought at the arb show which is very nice to handle and knots and undoes nicer than zingit. It is very stretchy which is great for getting it to run but not so great for tickling it back through frith after over shooting. The liros anoyingly came in a 50m length which has been to short on a number of occasions and has after 7 months become britle. It makes a hell of a bang when it snaps. We dispose of our throw bags by loosing them. I would consider trying a treepeado if it was about £25 but I am not convinced it would be better than a good throw bag. Much of the issues the treepeado is trying to address can be solved with good throwline tecnique. Girth hitching the line to the ring means if you get the bag stuck you can pull hard on the line until the girth hitch undoes.

I really like sirrius 8mm. I spliced some up into an eye 2 eye but havent whipped it yet. Teufelburger have there own splicing instructions on there website which are good. It was quite easy to splice and the only 8mm I have spliced. I like to think that a cheaper softer more replaceable cord will help reduce wear on rope. The sirrius is my favorite on blaze and xtc at the moment. It also makes an excellent footlock prussik.

Could you shackle the swivel to the becket of the pulley or just put the mailon directly on the becket ? Have you tried it yet ?

Il have to give it a go. I like the idea of feeling like you are part of the rope.

Its a neat idea. There is a variation I have seen on tinternet where it is tied with a french prussik. It is then possible to retrieve it from the SRT line because it is just spiraled around the rope. It can also be set up on the line before ascending and advanced with the ascender. Its clearly a good way of switching from SRT to a floating anchor on the line. Easier than unweighting the line and tying an alpine butterfly. I have accesed a few trees with SRT recently. I like isolating the limb and tying a running bowline. Mostly because we only have 45 m ropes and its nice and easy to tie a nice big bowline around the throwline when you are pulling up the acces line. I like the idea of working drt of an srt line but I think when working on the extremities of branches the tail of the srt line would add to the feel of the weight of the climbing system pulling you back towards the tree.

Whats the impact test ?

Interesting. Does it load both friction hitches equally or is one a back up hitch ? I would imagine you wouldnt be able to descend very well on just this without something else to add friction.

Thanks everyone. Very helpful

Wow that seems huge for a northofagus. I wonder if any will ever get that big in the UK. The epephytes make the tree seem really enchanted:thumbup1:

Nice whipping Craig. That needle is proper bent! I want to try some of that braided whipping twine. I have only used the liros twisted waxed stuff. I find the whip lock to be the hardest bit to. High scale reccomended putting the whipping further from the eye to make it easier. I have a blaze line that I bought with a factory splice and they have put the whipping a good 3 inches from the eye. I have some 19mm double esterlon to splice and want some more robust whipping twine. Yale recomends Size B whipping Twine but I cant find any info on what size B is. Can anybody reccomend a suitible twine and suplier for this. I would like it to be braided twine like on the split tales yale make up themselves.

:thumbup1:Cool I want a pinto.

Cool. Nice work. When i get time Im going to make one to.

I thought about putting as many big zip tie off cuts as I could fit in the eye but haven't tried it yet. Thanks High scale, I will try putting the whipping further down.

Here are some of my splices from over christmas. The big loops are for a rope guide type friction saver but the pulley still doesnt pull through. Im using an ISC eiger and a mailon on an eye 2 eye which is not ideal. Im going to put some hose on the next one I do. I have also made myself new eye 2 eye lanyard out of some Marlow boa/wasp? but its on my harness. The splice on the left is the tail of the big loop. I pulled out all the core and just used the cover tapering it down to 5 strands then making a crossover in the middle. I messed up the small eye because I started pulling one of the cover strands from the wrong end and its distorted it all a bit. I would like to make my eye to eye friction cords a little shorter than the recommended 5 fid lengths. Is this acceptable ? Also Im crap at doing the whipping and have snapped the eyes on my 2 small needles. Any good tips for whipping would be really appreciated. Thanks Will

Thats the most informative splicing video I have seen. Really good find. I have never tried stitching the crossover, Im going to give that a go on my next one.

Nice splicing High Scale. I have just about nailed double braid now after covering all the carpets in discarded strands over christmas. Il have to get some photos up. I havnt quite perfected my whipping yet. Do you follow the yale whip lock instructions or lock stitch it then whip it ?

Would be good but its unlikely. Im really interested to see it.

Did you see at one point they had a micro pulley at each end of there bridge for redirecting the lines. I like the idea and they make it all look very effective. I am going to give it a try at some point, but I dont think I will adopt it as my main system. Not really versatile enough. Does anyone climb on an adjustable bridge or are they a bit of a waste of time ?

I have a set of brand new short gaffs with bolts £25 including postage Or I would swap them for something of similar value. Will