Rupe

Cool, I get ya! One thing I missed is that even though you a halving the load by putting it on two lines, you are also potentially lifting a bigger load in the first place! Therefore the same care is required to not exceed rope strenghts and of course anchor point strengths, as you would in any rigging situation.

Also you only double the force on the anchor pulley if the two ropes are vertical. In my diagram above the overall load is shared between 2 pulleys so the loads not doubled on either. But your right, and thought must be applied to all rigging systems. In my diagram the tail of the lowering rope is attached to the same stem as the blue pulley, so the half load that that par tof rope is holding IS adding to the forces on that stem. Sideways loadign on branches and stems is a major concern, far more then doubling the straight line pull on an anchor. I'm not great at expaining the maths side of things but I can visualise it all very well (maths nerd me). If you think its not quite right then don't do it. Can you not move the caravan?

Absloutly agree. You work out the best method for every job, and DWT off the smalles remaining stem might not work so you wouldn't use it.

Your right, and part of the cunnign method is in my last post. Another thing though is that the load is shared on the two ropes above it, so if the load is doubled over the pulley it is still only equal to full load and not double it as it would be in normal lowering.

Totally agree, loading is an issue, especially if the two anchors are far apart. This is where some maths would be helpful, but I'm not gonna overcomplicate stuff. Basic rules of thumb is how I work and the rule here would be that if the stuff you are liftifng is that big then you should (in theory) move all you pulleys lower down the tree. You might start a dismanlt with pulley as high as possible but when you switch to bigger ropes and lifiting big stuff then you should think about movign the pulleys. After all the big stuff is lower and closer in to the tree and so the pulleys can be too. The only limits I've found with the grcs are rope strenghts and rope slipping. 13mm can be wrapped more so doesn't slip but 16mm can only get three good wraps. Plus mine is a bit polished now.

Another great advantage of this is to create a "virtual" rigging point between two actual points. If you have two stems and the ideal drop zone is between the two then this sytem allows you to lower into that drop zone, even if you don't need the extra MA.

Not sure if this has been discussed here or not. I learned it from Tom D at Tree Buzz. Many people have probably used it, but I just thought we could confirm the terminolgy as DWT instead of the many possible names for it. Like with SRT, DdrT, Drt, RaDs etc etc. its best to all know what we are on about. DWT, is a method of doubling the lifting power of your riggin device. Either GRCS, Hobbs or Regs new one, of for fiddle block lifting sytems that some use in conjunction with capstans and other none lifting lowerign devices. By attaching a pulley on the object to be lowered, and passign the rope through and tieing off high in the tree you creat a 2:1 advantage at the load, this is thne in addition to the liftign advantage of your rigging device. So the GRCS has an mechanical advantage (MA) of 44:1 (mine does, the newer ones are higher I believe) so adding a DWT give you 88:1, so your doubling the power available or halvign the power required depending on which way you see it. A simple method is like this...

That sounded really patronising of me! Do I need to explain it!!!!!!! What I meant is should I put it somewhere sererate from here! I think I will, we can discuss the merrits of it without derailing my own thread!

No worries, its been a pleasure to do the work and the videos. Its been a learning curve for me makign the videos but I bought the camera specifically for this job so I'm makign an effort here but may not do much more in the future. Its ashame the job is takign so long, but if I had the choice I would not have started it in January! March would have been much nicer. It is in a very exposed place, and was painfully cold up there on monday as the wind was gettign up. Anyway, I ran out of batteries while doing the big lifts so missed the best bits! Once I realised I put some more in for the few I had left. My extra groundie did some filming from the ground too but I have just realised that he did it all with the camers sideways on so it all needs rotating! Then is will only fill the centre of the sreen! Never mind I will get on with it. The lift I did using the Double Whipped Tackle (DWT) method. Do I need to explain that seperatly??

Is it a requirement in sweden already or just an idea form husky?

It been used three times so far, all on sound enough beech trees so can't answer your question. All I know is that if the heartwood is very decayed, then you would cut through it easier so you might not be so knackered and that would make up for the BD not working? Does that make sense? i.e. on sound heavy wood you need all the help you can get and the BD helps. If the wood is not sound enough then you are already having an easier day so you don't need the BD as much. Every cloud and all that!

Even though it was true, there was also in influx of workers from eastern europe so the high paid jobs for brits diminished. Now its all fair game for everybody as long as you stick to the HSE (or german equivelant thereof) which of course the germans are good at.

Thats very old news mate. True in the 80's and 90's maybe but germans are now among the best climbers in the world.

We will fell if we can anchor a winch somewhere. Would only be space for the last 20-25 feet though, so more winching force required. Not sure yet, we'll see. Blockdriver at the ready!

Some more pics

Some pics

Spent the rest of the day driving chips/logs all round the county. Got some video today but had battery problem with the head cam! I forgot to get some more lithiums so had to use energiser standard ones, got 3 shots, about 15 minutes!! Anyway my digital camera has video mode so we used that a bit. Will edit something together, I'm sure. Its a shame cos we did a lot of lifting today getting the heavy branches off. I'll post some pics for now.

Then this is 2pm today ( we missed out friday, rained all day)!!!!

So this is where we were last thurday!

All good mate. Takes 2 ton of logs and a ton and a half on a trailer no worries!

Well. we are a bit overtime already. We lost 2 days last week to weather but I can't count those, they get counted on the days lost per year and every job has to make up for them not just this one, but we did work 3 days last week on it and today so that makes 4 so far. We made good progress today, I'll put some pics/video up soon. All chipping is done and just trunk left, and all wood thats down is gone. We are not back to it until thursday as I have other things that I need to get done, so overall this is dragging on a bit now, but six days total is what I estimated so we could be ok, and if not then the firewood I get will make up for it, but not till next year! I'm doing approx 4 hours climbing a day, the rest is transporting woodchip etc. It takes an hour to unload woodchips, then I get back and fill up with wood which takes 2hrs to unload (different location) we are also selling quite a bit locally as unseasoned wood which is good. Seeing as there is not much work on I can't afford to bring in extra people and vehicles so I'm just ticking along myself. Its surprising what you can do with one truck!

Well I wish that was on youtube Dean, it would be worth a laugh! One of my very early jobs is on youtube, 1994 it was. Very slow but ok. Its all good entertainment.

Me? I'm really not worried Mick, I was entertained so I shared it.

Yeah , I was thinking that, and thouhgt maybe we shouldn't be too harsh. But its still funny, the "saving" the tree bit is best. I guess 15 years on it probably is thriving and the best tree in the garden!

This is good fun. Read the description in full. In fact I'll paste it here......... "Due to the upper limbs of this tree keeping snapping , falling down , damaging lower crown plus public footpath below .This tree was going to be totally removed but we persuaded the customer to save tree if we done work for 25% cheaper than his best quote. The tree is now one of the best feature in there garden and is a thriving habitat for numerous wild life. " [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbIeX4vsgL4&feature=related]YouTube - Unstable 100ft Poplar[/ame] I know my videos aren't exaclty HSE perfect examples, but these guys are out there!