daltontrees

It's a BS that tells us how to do 5837 surveys. Of fuzzy status, and I would say not very helpful at all. Only discoverable by accident, but once discovered surely cannot be ignored?

There's never going to be a 'Show us your arb mandolins' thread, so I'm posting a pic of mine here as it's sort of almost a bit like a guitar.

I love the Lester! Which model is it? I can't see what it says on the truss rod cover.

Mint! Still got the bridge shield! I don't think Fender even put one on the re-issues now.

I'd be interested to hear what anyone has to think about the following. Recently I got involved in the consultation on the new British Standard BS8596 on surveying for bats in trees, because the draft . I posted a few things here but I got the impression that in keeping with the usual attitudes to BSs on Arbtalk no-one was really very interested in what the Standard had to say. But in recent discussion offline with another Arbtalker, I have been able to establish the outcome. It is that according to 8596, "Arboriculturists undertaking tree surveys of potential development sites in accordance with BS 5837 should take into account the likely value of trees for bats and PRFs within their assessment of the conservation value of trees". At least BSI changed the draft in response to recommendations from me and others. But it's still not satisfactory. From what I can see, 5837 doesn't mention bats. There is nothing to suggest that the presence of bats or potential for bats makes a tree have 'conservation' value. Indeed, conservation value seems to have the sense of historic or cultural significance, rather than nature conservancy value. Then 5837 suggests that ancient and veteran trees should be cataputed straight to A3, hinting that their habitat value gives them conservation value. So what do folks think, is anyone (apart from me) attempting to follow this change to 5837 that has been snuck in to 8596? Or heard of any LPA knocking back a report that doesn't follow it? Has anyone made any sense of what it's all about and how to reflect batty trees from now on in their 5837 categories? Anyone care?

Yes but that's a static load and the rings are designed with an extra large diameter.

2 ways to look at this. Firstly I downloaded the first five instructions for carabiners that I could find. Every one of them said don't use carabiner on carabiner. So if you do you are not following manufacturer's instructions and you're possibly not covered if it goes wrong. Secondly, whilst a rope round a carabiner spreads its load on the metal over quite a wide area (conservative estimate for a 13mm rope would be about 160mm2), metal on metal is almost point loading, again conservative estimate 4mm2. That's increasing the load on the metal by 4000%. I can't prove it, but that seems a big risk to take. Maybe there's a third point although it may be part of the first point. If you clip two crabs together, pressed against a length of timber, you are putting them both in torsion. They're not designed for anything other than very directional tension. Failure is not only possible but likely.

Or wooden pallets with the slats vertical.

2102 Regulations "Exceptions 14.—(1) Nothing in regulation 13 shall prevent— (a) the cutting down, topping, lopping or uprooting of a tree— (vii) so far as such work is necessary to implement a planning permission (other than an outline planning permission..." Therefore outline consent expressly does not trump TPO. No consent trumps TPO until the consent can be implemented, because until then the exemption does not apply. So it's down to the conditions of consent. Any condition that says no work is to be started until blah blah means no work including no tree work. So if the Council has to approve samples of bricks or slates before a start is made, that also literally means no tree work. So the rule is there is no rule, it depends on the conditions on a case by case basis.

I was going to say, veteranisation does have its place. I am involved in a local community woodland, and unfortunately every time the schools organise a bug hunt they find just about nothing as there's hrdly any deadwood. The trees are mostly about 40 years old plantation. There are bats in the area but they are commuting there from a nearby older park. I spent about 2 days looking at about 2,000 trees in the woodland, and I don't think I saw a single potential roost feature. The plan is to deliberately trash a few of the trees, and the Bengtsson et al paper is the sort of planned damage I had in mind plus the creation of a few poles. And some thinning for small clearings to encourage a range of tree ages to develop. I've already built some bat boxes and put them up. Just trying to speed up the process and get this artificial woodland behaving as it will in 100 years' time if left to its own devices.

You've guessed it, making a loop is the answer, I was looking to see how neatly I coud achieve this, and very importantly using a knot that will not bind on loading. Wouldn't want to be stuck on a crag with a bound knot in the middle of my climbing rope.

Maybe Xylaria hypoxolon?

Links worked for me, thanks for these.

That's the Bastard I was talking about.

A lot of limbs removed around 3 to 6m, then big dense crown exposed to wind loads above building ridges causing lots of stem flexing around occluding wounds, so lots of adaptive growth. Seems consistent.

Hi I thought you were long gone, so I didn't reply to your post a week or so ago. I tturns out thatthe situation you describe for what you might need a friction hotch on hte bight is not what I or I think others imagined. Tree work is frequently done frm whaty is commonly called a doubled rope system, but there is anothe popular sysem called single rope. What I suggested using the farrimond was for a doubled rope scenario. Instead you anticipate a single rope scenario. The farrimond would be inappropriate for a single rope system. In effect you want to make a controllable locking device for a single rope systm using a bight of rope. That simplifies the question a lot. You can pretty much ignore all the previous suggestions. The camel hitch is really just a prussik knot, but not using an 'endless' loop of rope. The ability to tie it using a free length of rope was (when I passed my climbing assessment) a mandatory requirement. As such, it's not a lot different from the old-school Blake's Hitch system. But when you load a Blake's or any friction hitch that is tied on a bight the problem becomes clear, only one part of the bight 'bites' and the other does not, and this defeats the purpose of the knot. I see a solution, and I will try it tomorrow and if it works I will photograph it.

Fantastic, thanks!

...which sort of prods a question I have had in my mind for a while. Most of the Ganoderma I see is in private grounds or the tree gets chopped down, so I have never got to see what happens to a 'conk' a long while after you take a slice out of it. Is the last picture showing that the slice removed in the second picture has been replaced by new material or did you replace the slice and it has 'taken'. And/or do you think the removal of the slice 'killed' the conk? I know 'killed' is not the right term, but hopefully you get what I mean.

Spotted yesterday on a fallen tree (not sure of species, either Horse Chestnut or Sycamore). I'm not quite sure what the fungus is (and amn't going to make a fool of myself guessing here), but it has cracking guttation, varying from wet light brown, to sticky dark brown, to firm grey. Any guesses, and is guttation common for this species?

Ahh fair enough, that does look Sorbus. Although by some perversion of nature (as I noted this summer on a 200 tree survey involving a lot of Sorbus) Whitebeam bears suckering leaves like yours that if you found them in the crown you would safely take to be Swedish Whitebeam or Bastard Service.

I worked all last winter on a site straddling the welsh english border, and the planning regime changed from field to field. Head-hurting. I just about manage to keep on top of it all. The scottish set-up used to be better than England until the 2012 Regs, you guys have pretty much caught up now.

Unfortunately it's not that simple. There is much more in primary legislation than in Regulations up here compared with England, and the legislation.gov website still doesn't have the changes to the 1997 planning Act made by the 2006 Act, so a full manual merger is required. I have done this if anyone wants a copy. The out of date Act probably still refers to the now repealed 1975, 1981 and 1984 Regulations.

As I already said, it depends on what country you're in.

Metal on metal is generally bad, but this arrangement puts both krabs under shock torsional loads or which they are neither designed nor rated. Just tell groundies to hurry up. How hard can it be to unclip a sling frm a krab?

It wasn't you I didn't follow, it was the confusing picture appearng to show Amelanchier leaves on a supposed Sorbus stock. We posted almost simultaneously.