Rupe

Recently the rear lights on the truck were about to fall off. The whole rear frame that hold the lights was rusty so I cut them off and re mounted the lights under the tipping body, should have done that years ago, would have saved on light lenses and gaffa tape!

Just found this.....

Anyway I'm just building up to the subaru story!

There was also a sliding panel so you could see out over your left shoulder for difficult junctions but no one ever used it and it warped and leaked woodchip so its now screwed shut.

The pulley set up is to pull up/lower the flap behind the cab so you can see out the back. When chipping you pull on the bit of fly and the flap comes up. Its held in place by an old petzl basic ascender. The pulleys were part of my first homemade rigging kit before ISC existed. Using a T-bar lowering device made out of scaffold poles! Of course they got a hammering and the plates closed up. Good on the truck though, its still going strong.

With side tool box instead of spare wheel! this box holds three 20l jerry cans plus oils, poison etc

Just digging through some pics today. They are not that old, still digital,older than this forum though. One day I might scan some older ones in. Heres some of my truck when I first got it. Its the same truck that was used in the arb challenge at the trade fair. Notice the back end of my old subaru! I'll tell a good story about that later!!

Sorry I'm going off topic, rigging swl pulleys etc that was it..........

Well I have a car that doesn't pull 3.5 ton but it does work for its keep and there is space for dogs, kit etc

I felt sorry for steve so I joined!!

Strictly for girls or men with problems....

I might be in need of someone from late september onwards. Full time basis Cheltenham based. Age might be a problem as driving is the main requirement to start with and I know many youngsters have weird licenses when it come to trailers etc. Chainsaw tickets and/or experience would be good but I think the main thing would be someone who's keen to do tree work! I've had many hard workers who will do whatever you ask but aren't really interested in the actual job that is going on around them, this gets frustrating for me in the end. In the meantime any self employed types are always welcome, climbers or chainsaw operators. I could do with having some extra contacts for short term/last minute type work!

Oh, I see. Yeah me too I think!

I thought so. She was our first female climber in European comps!

DISCLAIMER: I would never buy a porsche!!

There are many factors that become a problem when natural crotch rigging! I'm not surprised your loler inspector failed the rope if its been used it that way. The whole point of these ropes is that they can carry these large amounts of weight if that weight is distributed evenly along the lenth of the rope you are using. so if your are natural crotching the amount of friction at the crotch is holding a lot of the weight, which means that the weight of the log/branch is held by the bit of rope between the log/branch and the first crotch it passess through. So the rope is being used unevenly, your loler inspector would pick up on that straight away and bin the rope. If he's a supplyer he should be trying to sell you pulleys. We used to get away with natural crothing all the time as there was no alternative but that was using 24mm and even 32mm three strand ropes. We are so lucky to have these superior 14mm and 16mm ropes now with far more strength than our old twist ropes, but spending that much money on a lowering line and then natural crotching it is like buying a porsche and not putting any oil in it!

for what?

Yeah I'm sure. I know some stuff but when it come to en ce type b swl 3/8 I get bored. You need a laz for that kind of thing, he has his own en number

Was other Abbie climbing or just holding baby Morris? (I know thats the wrong spelling, there is a welsh way of spelling morris but I can't remember it) Thats got to be some of the best tuition a female climber could get in this country/europe/the world!!

Well yes, your friction hitch is holding approx half your weight onto half of the rope. If that fails you'll only be attached to the end of the rope with nothing holding the rest of you. Friction hitch cord must also meet en requirements, I'm not a boffin on these things so I'm not going to quote numbers but there will be a minimum breaking stregth for this also, I think its around 1.7kn?? I know that some friction hitches that are tied using one leg attached to the climber only i.e. blakes hitch or helical, should be tied using a stronger hitch cord. That why slpit tails for blakes hitches are usually made from the same rope as climbing rope. I used to climb using a helical made from lyros which is strong enough but I was well aware of the fact that I was only held on by one leg of 8mm cord!!

Actually its quite an important point raised here. We do all think about the strength of our ropes, our non tree climbing friends say "you must have good faith in your ropes?". Cutting your rope aside, how many accidents occur from rope failure? I don't know but not many I would think. More accidents occur due to karabiner failure, mostly due to locking krabs not locking, which in turn is due to lack of inspection. Buying a rope based on the fact that it is holding your most valuable assett, your arse, is short sighted! Its the Krabs,cambium savers, friction hitches et all that are holding you in place, ignore them at your arses cost.

So does the rear section have its own engine? Surely its not run off the front engine? I'm guessing the front engine is for road use only or maybe it assists while off road? The trailer is ingenious!!

Ed, I see a project coming on. By the next APF I want to see one those on a nissan cabstar??

All climbing ropes available specifically for tree work conform to en 1891. I don't know the minimum strength requirement to meet that standard but it would be around 2.2kn and 2.4kn. Some rope may be stronger than that but none weaker. If an 11mm is on the weaker side and it rates at 2.2kn using a safety factor of 10:1 (highest saftey factor) that give you a safe workign load of 220 kgs. For simplicity we use 100kgs per person, so your rope could hold two people in the event of a rescue and still be within the SWL which is only a tenth of the overall strength. If you only weigh 85kgs ( those days are like a distant memory for me) then 2 and a half of you could climb on the rope all day long and be fine and it would take 25 of you to break it! If your that worried about the rope bein gstrong enough I suggest having a seperate belay line or additional safety equipment such as a chair and a desk.

If you want 13mm and length is not important (37m minimum) then it won't make a lot of difference what you go for! NE Hi vee, is probably the longest lasting Arbormaster is very good IMO. XTC is also good, bit stretchy compared to arbormaster but good. The narrower 11 and 11.5 ropes give better performance because they are lighter and so they follow you round the tree better but you only really get an advantage with longer rope lengths.