Mark Bolam

There’s an extra wrap in the Fitch hitch there, 5 instead of 4.

I totally agree with Rich about splices affecting the function of the hitch, but have just experimented with a factory spliced OP on non-CE cougar blue with a short Fitch hitch and it’s running beautifully. Glides up the rope and locks instantly. This is in the workshop, mind. I will probably plummet to my death tomorrow. @TommyB is definitely the man for splicing advice. 8EADAB2C-21B5-4FBF-BD7B-30309FB80E65.MOV

Aye, I wondered that. Do you mean vertically Jake?

You’re comparing apples to oranges. A solid isn’t as good as a pneumatic, goes without saying, but it’s a thousand times better than a pneumatic with a puncture. Zero downtime.

No, they aren’t.

This one. From memory came with different spacers.

I went puncture proof from Fixings Warehouse years ago and never looked back. Seemed a bit pricey at the time, but a big money saver in real terms. Still has a nice bit of ‘give’ in it for low kerbs etc. when you’re heavily loaded.

Pleasant change to have a decent arb discussion fellas! I think the points we have gathered so far is that different trees in different conditions sometimes call for different approaches.

I totally agree with you on the inertia thing, the top definitely helps to tone down the twanging, but I often get the top out as soon as possible for a few reasons depending on the situation. One is wind, as you mentioned. Another is mental, when the tops out I feel I’ve already won. On a busy conny I’ll often cut a channel on the way up. I can then lay the tops on to the lower limbs if I’m cutting and chucking, which eases the shock on my broken old shoulders. I can then manoeuvre the tops and throw them down the channel. The last one is purely due to my dislike of exposure. I’ve always hated rigging long but skinny tops when I’m spiked to a 4” diameter stem with ‘nothing’ below me rigging a 30’ leader on itself. Lombardies are particularly bad for this!

Nightmare drag on the first job.

Check out the HAAS mate, used with a foot ascender. You don’t need a full chest harness, just something similar to a 4SRT chester.

That won’t help Eggs Tommy. There probably isn’t a ‘Working in even more confined spaces’ ticket.

Chipper is behind a Hilux on bigger jobs Mick. We overload the 2 Transits with chip and logs....

I agree Johnsond. Having nukes is bloody expensive (but if we’re savvy we can keep the expense within our own economy), but surely they are the reason no one has kicked off majorly since the end of WW2?

It is Gary, never again.

I would rather boil my own nuts in acid than own a truck with no tool storage.

To be honest Josh, if I lived at my yard a bigger truck would make sense, but with the amount of dids in Kent now I want it parked within shotgun range.

Your stomach was overloaded then. I have telt the Swedish fat polis.

Bollocks! There is so much mid-ground between 3.5t and 7.5t. I don’t want to keep my truck at a yard overnight, or get arse-raped financially for the privilege.

7m3-3600kg. That’s 514kg/m3. My tranny has a legal payload of 650 with crew, dog and tools. I know Josh is talking about piss-wet beech chip, which is about as heavy as it gets, but the stats are still pretty worrying for anyone even to try staying legal on 3.5 tonners. Level load for Tranny is 2.4m3. 1.2t for a level load. I always reckoned level was legal, and beyond that I was chancing (every job basically), but this has really bought home to me what I’ve always known. It’s bollocks. It’s all total and utter bollocks. The nicest arb truck I’ve ever seen was an Isuzu or Canter at one of the shows back in the day. Tool lockers, ladder racks, blah blah. Beautiful. Real world working payload? 550kg. Do your maths fellas. Im a big fan of a restricted licence system up to 4.5k without the O licence regs just to keep us all at least semi-legal. I’ve been drinking tonight, obviously. On behalf of everyone who knows we do the job with trucks that are adequate for the job but are overloaded every day, what is the solution?

Stu, you are basically a human machine.

Species, angle of dangle, deadness - experience counts. No way you’d see me side loading a wrist-sized anchor on a dead crack willow.

The last year has been a bit of a test, so I thought I’d start a thread to highlight any positives that have come out of the Covid situation. I have got a few. I’ve got three young girls, 9 and 6 year old twins, and it’s occurred to me I will never see them this much again. Not working 6 day weeks has helped me get to know them more (they are bloody hard work!). Homeschooling has forced me to revisit some long-forgotten basic maths and English skills. Money in has been less, but by Christ! so has money out! Made us realise how much we were frittering on takeaways and needless crap. Cooking skills improved, usually with more locally produced stuff, and the girls really getting to grips with cooking. Niggly injuries improved, not beasting yourself day in-day out has really helped. Dogs (and cat) have had a pretty good year. Catching up with old Uni mates on Zoom etc., probably seen some ugly faces more in the last year than I have in the last two decades. Mainly it’s taught me to appreciate the little things a bit more, and that how much I miss human interaction, especially physical, handshakes, back-slaps and hugs. Haven't seen Mam for a year now, looking forward to that day like you wouldn’t believe. Obviously the negatives list is too long to fit on the internet, but I wondered if others had found any light in all this bloody darkness? Positive vibes only please!

Local cases peaked at about 1500 per 100k down here a few weeks back, now down to 100 odd. Yes, lockdowns are a PITA, but they obviously work eventually. An already stretched NHS (pre-pandemic), and a nation of fatties has bitten us properly in the arse. What other countries are doing, are not doing, isn’t of any importance from what I can see. Vaccination rollout is cracking on though, for those that want it, which I can only see as a good thing.