Dilz

Sweden eh?? Complete were recruiting for a now defunked (sort of) company tradfallarlaget, i know this as it was me who got Complete tree care in on it, they made a tonne of money and didnt even say thanks......... Tradfallarlaget went bust but now have other companies set up.... not sure if they are recruiting though. I think after a lot the problems they had they now only deal with swedes..... Tradvardarna was set up by one of the brothers from tradfallarlaget, did some subbying for them, not perfect but not bad.... they might be worth a try but as the seasons drawing to a close i doubt they will be looking to hire. Tradmastarna might give you a trial if you ring them, i havent worked for them so cant say. All the companies are worth a call...but again it will soon be the quite winter season, so you might find you self shoveling snow more than tree climbing.....(these are all based near Stockholm) Try Gothenburg... i hear there are some good companies that way...........and there is always the xmass tree harvest in denmark.............................................................................................................................................

i use to carry my saw down the street and on the train, for 4 months, only got stopped once by an over zealous train conductor, I rang network rail and they told me to stick it in a bag and catch the next train......i even got stopped by the cops coz prince Charles was visiting town that day. They looked at the saw, and me, in full work gear, hi vis etc, i showed them my nptc, the copper said it must be an interesting job.....though i got pulled from a car because the driver 'looked like a known criminal' and searched, and bollocked for having a leatherman in the bottom of my rucksack.... Alot depends on circumstances and attitudes, I always be polite to coppers as they have the ability to make your life difficult, though they should have arrested your brother and issued a receipt and contacted you to confirm the owner ship, i,e prove they aint nicked. If your bro was riding with a toerag then there is a chance said toerag has given coppers grief so perhaps it was a little payback....though again they should have been taken in, questioned and charged. But it is insane that we cant carry the tools of our trade....you can potentially club some one to death with a suitcase or even bare hands if one was so inclined.......at what point is the line drawn????? I guess its just one to chalk up to experience and ensure that we all carry out NPTC cards etc, and if the cop asks, 'yes mate, just on my way back home from the job, but thanks for your concern sorry for taking up your time as you must have some important work to get to, catching criminals etc...'

No. Please enlighten. Wouldn't it slow things down? hassles with then ascending again? Would you need to hold the rope under the 8? thus having to use both hands? Any pics? vids would be better.....

we have a slightly older, open cabbed version working alongside us on the rail in sweden, for those 'hard to extract from places' the driver loves it, but only coz he's on an hourly rate and not an tonnage extraction rate!

i found the OP doesnt have quite the life span i'd like, but cant fault it on much else. My first time i used it i depiberatley bombed around to see how much stick it could take, i was impressed not....i had in my mind that it was a lot tougher. As a rule now i change my cord every 3 weeks or so, and alwasy check after i have been abusing it, which is generaly noted when i have burnt my fingers climbing. I'm back on the Knut after switching back from knut to a vt...still havent made my mind up yet which i prefer....

cow hitch is a great knot, better to tie if the tale is long than a timber hitch. I use the tree runner, it's good but do have me concerns about it getting bashed when chogging down lumps, but alittle bit of pre planning should stop that. Used the 14mm polydyne rope for 3 months now, its rather good to say the least - and just for note my configuration does run along the lines of 14mm rope, 16mm pulley, 19mm dead eye, i also have a 16mm dead eye and smaller pulleys, slings and things.

i use 2 HC's, maybe a little more mucking about hailing up the tail end and tieing anouther vt, but its easier to retrive, if its not so big a redirect needed or i know im going back then the old sling and krab, flipthe tail end back through to pull myself back like an advatage system

my thoughts exactly, the work positioning would be an issue.

I use 100% organic skin, and the cost is such that every one can afford them.....(though in search of decent subzero climbing gloves...)

i find 10mm prusik cord to be the better on my poison ivy which is 11.7mm - the 8mm heats up too much so you cant bomb around as much. - One point if you decide on a mechanical grab for your flip line you should really buy a soft link so if the worse happens when your are on your flip line you can be more easily rescued. I use 11.7mm rope 10mm ocean polyester, a wire core flip line and some knot which im not sure about but works well with a single pulley. By pulley cambium thing are you refering to a pulley saver or ART thingytooexpensivetoremeberwhatitscallthingymijig..... i just use a cambium save with a micro pulley installed on the small ring..works fine, a slightly bigger pulley would be better though....

truth.

are there any top handled saws that can have a heated option??? i know it may sound sot but scandinavian winters are a bit nippy.....and 6 months long.......

Ah Utilities...the dark side..... though thats whats lined up giving me 48 hours a week over winter, its a good thing to get into as with Utilities tickets you still can do domestic, if you just have NPTC tickets and do domestic, you cant drop on to Utilities. Diversity is the key - i know a lad who does tree work, scaffolding, building, and works on a trawler and a bit of second hand car dealing, and it aint too bad at any of them. and especially at first, -and its a good philosophy in general- if there is a £1 profit to be made i'll be there, unless some one is offering me £2.

hard to say with out knowing exactly what the job is (i.e visiting my self) is it a nice drag, or have you some narrow alleys to go through, gates, statues, front rooms etc... its a one man gig for sure, but two would speed it up so would be a good add on for a day, but fro,m the info given i'd be tinking £150

i agree having switched from XTC to poision ivy the weight differences is very noticeable, i often cary my rope in a rucksack up the tree when i'm dismantling, the bag is now a lot lighter, i found the blaze a pain when throwing it up to advance, a gnat would fart and blow the rope out of the way, solved with a krab but then you run the risk of it getting stuck.... the XTC is great as the weight means bundles can be chucked high and not so easily deflected by a scraggy water shoot or the like.

indeed the kit and the skills and the right professional attitude

thats one option, and imop the next step up from loops and split tails, i recomend gettting a knot book, there was one just for tree climbers, probably called the the tree climbers knot book, or look on here to see the different ones you can tie, you may find some of the arent as slick as a blakes or even your prusik, but they are great for when you are working around the canopy, you can even use a pulley wheel to tend slack on a prussik loop, there are lots of options out there

also i think geography may have a part to play - if i was around london id want a hell of a lot more, i now dislike getting out of bed for less than £200 a day, but have worked for lower rates when needs must or if i have nothing better to do. Also i think its a sign of how more competative the industry is getting A) form the amount of competing companies and b) the amount of subby types available. driving down the prices for both. agood subby is the same as agood employee - the good ones may cost you more but will earn you more, in both production and quality thus good reputation, the bad ones may cost you less but in the long run..... i think one reason alot of people start subbying to soon is the lack of quality jobs on the books, i worked through complete tree care for a company in Newark, fair hourly rate of 12 odd, the company wanted to put me on their books and pay me..........£6.75 this was in 2007 i said what the hell and they replied thats what the guys at the other branches have agreed to work for....i left. I think some newbies have this image of earning their fortune being self employed and to be fair, it has worked very well for me, but then like i said, i have put in many hours on the tools and in the text books before doing so. As for newbies going at it too soon and bodging their way through stuff.....i think most of us can say we have been their, done that, and still make it up as we go along!

I agree a lot of people jump in to subbying too soon but sometimes it s the only option. i'm of the belief that if your a subby you need to be prepared to do any job that is thrown at you with no prior knowledge of it be 2km of confier hedge to top and trim to dealing with dangerous trees. However this reflects in the prise, i know some guys who charge a lot but only get the really tricky stuff because all the easy stuff goes to those who are cheaper and perhaps not as experienced..... When i first started i was told do 5 years on the tools and working for the best companies you can find, then you should be ready to deal with most things, I did nearly 6 years including two part time whilst i studied, now self employed subbying around scandinavia at the mo,

different systems work for different people,i know plenty for whom the purisk loop is all thye use and want to use, even after trying other things. I know a few climbers who dislike the the technique of climbing up and then having to pull the slack through when using advanced hitches. The best thing is to have a go but remeber low and slow, and if something makes your life a little bit easier then is going to be worth it in the long run if you climb every day and work many years doing so then the small amount of effot it saves you is going to add up - and also is good to add more tricks. e.g leanring about the VT many years ago, brilliant knot for climbing, also use it when setting up fail safes on advantages systems, use it for lifiting, speedlines, the hitch climber i use to think was a gimick, i now own two, so useful not only just for hitch tending, but setting up false anchors, speed lining, great for when you use both ends of your rope... .lck jacks on the other hand......

trimmed the queen of denmarks bush, and a mighty bush it was. also done a bit of work for the king of sweden,

nice one!