Rupe

Its doing ok, holding together well, done about 44K now!

Crap picture!! But the best bit was I got another hazard light switch from the scrappy for a pound, so no there are two hazard switches, one fot the indicators and the one on the left (abover spiderman) is for the beacon. It lights up of course!

Finally got round to fitting a beacon on top! But I'm such a skin flint its two old broken ones gaffa taped together!!

Sorry, never saw this post, it was during my off arbtalk time. The steel work that got done for me (the folding of the panels and the strengtheners and the spot welding) was £700 including the steel. Then I fitted it all on the truck myself so may £40 in bits n bobs! The roof panels were 2 @ £20.00 from metal recycling, and the side white panels, I forget now, £40 ish each?? Somehting like that. Couple of hundred for the roof rack and the box I already had on my old subaru. So the whole truck and build cost £3500 ish but lots of hours. !!

I misunderstand most of my points too!

You've done fine, dont listen to me! But you are very brave putting those pics up, not really a good advert for you skills. Nice website BTW.

Yes, thats sort of what I meant, there is no further client, just the farm, so you are working directly either employed or as a contractor but not a sub contractor because there is no "further" client beyond the farm, if that makes sense.

There is no such thing as a "sub" hes working for you. If I take on a tree job and there is fencing to be done as well, and I know nothing about fencing then I could get a self employed fencer to give me a price for the job (he can use my cement mixer if it makes it cheaper) and once agreed he can then carry out that work in his own time for the fixed amount, and in that instance he could be called a sub contractor. i.e. I have sub contracted out the fencing part of the job. But hiring in a groundie to work with me or a climber hired in by me, even if they agree that the job in hand is doable in a day for their agreed rate, does not make them sub contractors. If I got a tree job and got another company to give me a price to do it (they could even borrow my chipper) and then I left them to it then that company would be sub contracting the job from me, but they would then need their own insurance.

Thats a about right. YOur just the fencing contractor in that case, if you have given them a price for the fencing. If you are on day rate then its a bit more muddled, you could be seen as an employee (yes, even if self employed) but if workign on a farm then its not quite the same as their is no client as such, so no main contract and therefore not really any sub contract.

Thats a really good point!!! While you are in the pub, whatever he does on site is YOUR responsiblity, thats the point I'm making, these people are employed by you, they are not sub contractors doing a seperate contract for you as part of a larger contract to the main client. So, you are in charge, if you want to go to the pub then fine but you are still in charge.

You have employed him for the day, you have not sub contracted anything. The contractor is the one with the contract to the customer, whoever you get in to help is working within your contract, as employees, even self employed people with their own businesses. The problem is that, in some cases, the original contractor thinks that the people he gets in are sub contractors and nothing to do with him in terms of resonsibility.

"was" a tree of heaven!! Not anymore, if it comes back it will be a mess, and if that much of it was dead then it might not come back at all, but beign TOH it probably will! Should have felled it.

NOT a sub contractor, hes working for you.

The guy you get in is not a sub contractor then is he, niether is the self employed groundsman without a chipper.

Not as thick as me though!! I was just holding the tube near the hole and squeezing and hoping for the best!! I would have thought a grease gun held tight against the hole would force it in enough for you to use up your old tubes? Or, if your clevererere than me, could you get a spare stihl plug and drill it out and thread it and insert a grease nipple? Now, theres an idea!!

Here we go!!! There is no such thing as a "sub contract" groundie!! If you are working with a tree gang or as part of a tree gang then you are very much included in their contract, and you are working under their health and safety policy and insurance etc.

You know the stupid grease tubes screw into the hole dont you? Took me a few years before someone pointed it out to me but then I'm a bit thick.

Thats a bit of a contradiciton! If he should answer the question then he must know best?? If someone is employed then they should do as they are told, unless that is contrary to the training given in which case they should still do as they are told or get another job. If I was a new surpervisor on a team that I didn't know then everyone would be two handing the saws all the time. As I got to know who was experienced and VERY good at work positioning then I would relax a bit and let them decide when one handed use is acceptable, but a culture of one handed use being ok is not good, and if that is the culture that is adapted then what else is going on??

I agree with the above points, its not Illegal, i.e. the police wont turn up and you all get told off a lot! It is against industry best practice and if you have a supervisor it is his duty to keep everyone working safely. You should have a secondary attachment (lanyard) so your second hand is not needed for stabilising. If you are way out on a limb and there is no where to lanyard into then you probably dont need a chainsaw, a hand saw will do instead. So, its not illegal! Go and work for yourself and do it all day long if you want, but if you are employed or working for someone else, or under someone elses supervision then do as you are told. If you worked for me and I told you three times that would end of employment, simple.

These guys pay nearer £10 a ton I believe. Boomeco — Boomeco develops and delivers innovative value added solutions for recovering post-consumer wood and natural resources

Overall are you taking more kit into the tree or less?

Climb the tree. Climb the tree. Climb the tree. I like that idea! I climb the tree whenever possible and take in slack as I go, but on bendy limb walks I dont want to add weight to the branch in order to take slack out, I want to maintain weight at the TIP and micro adjust. For big trees with large ascent between work stations I get it, but I am practicing on small stuff to be sensible and finding I dont have the adjustablity that I am used to.

Ok, a few points raised. SRT for access, brilliant, but i can do that with the kit I already have, and have been for a while. Then the other problems that have been raised all seem to have solutions which is GREAT. IN addition to the problems I have raised there was also the one of your hitch falling down low and casuing you to fall out of the tree!! This problem was solved by putting your lanyard over your shoulder and cliping it to the HC, GREAT! So, then the problem of micro adjust on bendy limb walks is to add an adjustable bridge! GREAT! (got rid of my adjustable bridge years ago) The Pantin might unclip causing major panic so add another krab there. GREAT. All of these problems have been addressed, GREAT, but none of these problems existed with Ddrt? I like the idea of SRT and simplifying my kit but so far this is not happening, every problem seems to need more kit thrown at it to resolve the issue. I think if we wanted to simplify our kit then a prussik loop and a rope would be the way forward, as was discovered 20+ years ago. Another thing I found the other day while ascending, I had the lanyard over my shoulder thing going on but wanted to stop to cut something, and of course you all know I always lanyard in!! WHeres my lanyard, oh yes, unclip from the HC use it as a LANYARD and then put it back. I like the video posted earlier showing how fast you can switch from ascent to descent, like, in only 5-10 second, well that is 10 seconds too long IMO. Dont get me wrong, I am still intrigued, but in the past I have found the answers by being sceptical and almost forcign others to prove the ideas to me, so I am still happy to be shown the way. RW not in the skip just yet, but e bay is only a few click away.

I'm struggling with it TBH!! Not sure what I am doing wrong but so far I am not convinced but I want to be. I have used it with the spiderjack and that has potential, but as I never really mastered the spiderjack yet I thought I shoud really be using the WR with a hitch for now so I can compare with what I know best. I set a hitch that grabs really well. I found going down the rope and out on limbs to be fantastic, totally get it! But if you need to tension in a fraction, i.e. the limb you are on is bending too much and you just want to tighten your rope, how do you ge the tension off the rope in order to draw slack through without putting more weight on the branch? I know folk have said that the advantage is that you only need to pull in a foot to travel a foot, but it seems to me that the good thing about Ddrt is the micro adjust possibilites where you can go up half an inch by pulling through an inch but maintaining your weight in the sytem as you do so. Also, I get the SRT ascent thing when in free space, thats good, but if your line is against the trunk and your feet are being used to ascend then I find it harder to stop your self swinging left or right. If using one foot with a pantin, how do you take the tension when moving that foot up the rope? i.e. do you sit in the friction hitch?? If so then you lose a few inches everytime you sit and raise your leg again? Is this right? Or are you supposed to hold your weight on your arms while you bring your pantin'd foot back up? My elbows were killing me so maybe thats what I was doing. I still have some way to go with this, but nearly launched it all in the skip last week!!

In the old days we just cable tied two petzl hand ascenders together, back to back, works at treat. If you wanted you could remove half the handle from each one with a stanley knife then tape the two together to make one nicer handle one the two ascenders.