Bolt

Hmmmmm. sure I spotted a "when did chainsaws change?" post just then.

Thought up by councils? Really? when did they do that? thats unusually "blue sky" for them. In that case I have it TOTALY wrong. sorry - Please ignore my prevous post. (except for the loooove bit - I really ment that) councils: well, well, well

Keep up Paddy. PUWER 98 (Provision and use of work equipment regulations 1998) covers the use of almost ALL tools and equipment in almost ALL industries in the UK. Its not just tree work. It covers the "MacFlurry" machine in Macdonalds, the swivel chair behind the desk in your local library and the tools used in our industry. PUWER 98 states (and her I paraphrase highly) that the tool for a job must be suitable, it must be used how the manufacturer intends it to be used, and it states that the user must have sufficient initial training, retraining if the tool or task is modified as necessary, and adequate retraining (which is given in the regs as being either 3 (occasional user) or 5 (regular user) years. How many times does PUWER 98 mention NPTC (or city and guilds as they now are)? Never. Not once. Zero. Diddly squat. Stop banging on about them. The government doesn't give a flying rats fart about NPTC, or chainsaws or arb. Our industry is nothing whatsoever to them. We are all an irrelevance. below the radar. less important than a floating duck house. sorry to hurt your feelings as most people on here is under the impression the world if revolving around and dependant on the arb industry. so the long and short of it is: as long as your refresher training is adiquate (and good luck defining that) any old monkey can give it. Sod NPTC (no offence intended to NPTC). Just hope you never need to prove what adequate is. If you don’t like it (and you don’t have to – it’s a free world) Move. There is loads of countries that don’t care two hoots for regulations or "elfin safety", try one of them instead. [typed with a frendly smile on my face and an all encompassing love for you all - I am not intending to come across as nasty ]

Judge is totally correct on this. Its a requirement under PUWER 1998 Minotaur and Matkeen, Do you remember what PUWER 1998 is? If not, may I suggest a little bit of refresher training to bring you up to speed? Kidding...... I'm just kidding! OK? I said it tongue in cheek, Honest

consider it signed.... ......and bumped

I think most people associate arbor with where you would tie your boat up. (Except the ones with plenty of cash. They associate it with where they tie their yacht up)

David, it may be better if you take the trouble to read a post before replying to it. For instance, I would have thought the clue was in the name ecolojim, wouldn't you.

Have a look into it then :-) Arbtalk to the rescue..... start here for general debate. http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/general-chat/22967-pollarding.html and this has some good (and not so good) examples http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/picture-forum/5149-way-they-pollard-limes-glasgow.html enjoy

Simple, and adaptable. Love the first photo- you sure there were no ruts in the lawn - maybe a dual wheel option a consideration. also like the ramps into the back of the tipper - a case of "I'll operate the winch safely from back here, you stand between the ramps and guide it in" eh?

Good man! Who to frown on the most, hmmmmmmmm The insurance fraudster? The grasser? The criminal damager? The Estate agent? Its a no brainer - Estate agent eveytime. (if only the prospective tennant was a banker)

Exactly. Long live discussion and alterative points of view on arbtalk

It is a cracking barbers I have to admit. But there is something not quite right. The tree looks like a softwood. it looks dead. it looks fairly upright. Not exactly the perfect recipe for a barbers chair is it? As ScottyTPT said, maybe there was a sneaky pulling line . It is a good find though - definately one to show to those who insist on standing in the rear danger zone as the tree goes over:thumbup:.

Short answer - Yes (and hundreds do every day without the HSE shafting them) :-)

The European Council Directive 2001/45/EC led to the UK "work at height regulations 2005". This requires work at height to be planned, and it requires this planning to include the most suitable equipment. As long as you can demonstrate that roped access is most suitable, the HSE are happy. The HSE spent a lot of time consulting with the industry, and I was part of this consultation process for my sins. They accept that to crown thin, deadwood or heduce the height of a crown, a MEWP is not ideal. Thay also (as part of the same same regulation) accept that accessing a tree with two seperate ropes, and two seperate and independant anchor points is totally impractable. I have never heard of a prosecution / improvement notice / prohibition notice because someond didn't use a MEWP, but used roped access instead. They do require that two attachment points are used when working (ie sawing) (which is reasonable) and they require that there is an effective method of rescue on site (which is a no brainer really). I have heard of improvement notices and prohibition notices issued following these. All in all, I personally think the HSE has a fairly good approach to the EU temporary work at height directive.

You say that you are not a reader or writer, yet you have been a member of arbtalk since january, and a guess you visited arbtalk prior to this. Arbtalk is exclusively a reading / writing community, so don't put youself, or your industry down Anyway, the original poster bought up the 'wrist rule', and I don't think a single post on the thread has supported it. You either have the "I was anchored into a branch bigger than that and it failed" camp (which, unfortunately, I happen to be in) or you have the "often tie into smaller if I assess using my experiance that it is OK" camp (which I am also in), or you have the "as small as my wrist - no way ever) camp (which I am not in). Not a single poster has said that they stand up for the "wrist rule". why? 'cause it ain't no good, thats why (yet it still persists - strange, don't you think?).

if its a fine old Dartmoor legend (like the hairy hands for instance), probably word-of-mouth is better.

what? a bit of industry best practice? well yes, its generally written down somewhere. in our industry, you can generally rely on lantra, nptc, the aa or the hse to do the decent thing.

If you are a tree climbing instructor (or a CS38 assessor come to that) you would be unwise to state that you should simply choose an anchor bigger than your wrist. A gross simplification like that would have you heading towards either A + E or the local courts (or both). The proof is in many of the previous posts, where this rule has led in some cases directly to a fall. More important considerations are - the tree species - how close to the trunk the rope goes over the anchour branch - the health of the tree - whether the branch is epicormic - squirrel damage - where the climbers destination in the crown is. Yet despite never actually giving this 'advice' you can pretty much guarantee this little gem is given as a golden-rule-to-serve-you-well-for-all-time by at least one candidate in every course. Upon telling them that they are quite wrong (for the many reasons that many have given) they look at you as if you are a heretic. Why would any right thinking instructor even dare to dispute such a wonderful rule, they think. Ask them where they picked up this fine myth, and the answer is generally along the lines of "the bloke who does our climbing at work told me when he let me have a little go the other day". So, WHERE DOES IT SAY IT? Where in print (other than word-of-mouth chatrooms or forums) does it actually say it. any ideas? In the LANTRA guidance? - don't think so. Maybe the NPTC assessment schedule? - wrong. Afag guide? don't tell me that they missed it? - hmmmmm, well you won't find it there. AA guide to good climbing practice? nope, not at home. Now, the sharper and more questioning young minds on your climbing course will tend to ask that if its such a flawed and over simplified rule, - and it dosen't actually say it in print anywhere, - why is it so widely 'known'? That’s a tricky one to answer, and I have given it more than a little thought. This best answer I have come up with as to the origin of this rule is the one I gave the other day, and that is that its more to do with the 4:1 ratio of pulley to rope diameter (this is, after all, a figure widely in print from rope and pulley manufactures than anything to do with wood strength. If you are not bothered about maintaining a 100% of a climbing ropes strength (which I am not, because as had been stated, they have a MBS of several tons) then you can ignore this (which I often do by having my rope over little branches, through cambium savers, mailons and the like). Anyway, it’s not a Gungho or manly post, so I won’t over-labour the point any longer.

Without seeing how you sharpen, it is impossible to say if you are doing something wrong. Maybe you could pose for a photo mid file stroke? Some customer I was once working for complained that he had sharpened his chain time and time again and it was still blunt. Turned out it was on the saw backwards. Some blokes I was training for from the highways complained their saws wouldnt hold an edge. Turned out that all the chrome from the cutter surfaces had long since be work off following them striking tarmac. The you get wrong sized file, filing in the wrong direction, not removing burrs, wrong brand or type of file holder, chains that have gone bitching hard because they have been heated up when bench grinding, etc, etc. If you are happy you have the theory nailed, but you just need the practice, this IMHO is the best way to practice... Get a new full chisel chain that has witness marks. It is easy to see if this type of chain is sharpened right or wrong. Put it on your bar, clamp the saw firmly (you aint practicing the banjo, boy) and give it a very light sharpen before you even use it. Do this simply because it will start to get you familier with how to hold the file and move your arms in a coordinated way. Use the saw for a while, but not so long as it starts to get even slightly blunt (about an hour should be OK if you are carefull) clamp it again and sharpen it lightly again. Compare the angles to the witness marks. Continue to use the saw, and tickle the chain sharp before it gets bluntened. Soon you will be doing it second nature. If the chain gets damaged, or all the cutters are different angles, you will have the devils own job to get it right, so sharpen it very little and very often if you want to get some really valuable practice in. Remember, happiness is a really sharp full chisel chain.

Another mill stone? What are all these HSE mill stones you talk of? Can you do us a list (just for grins )

Well, its a reply, and its a good point. As anyone who has done CS41 knows, you should follow the 4:1 ratio of pulley diameter to rope diameter if you wish to maintain rope strength. For a 13mm rope, you need 52mm diameter pulley (which is a cracking size for a cambium saver). Anyway - its only an point of interest I thought I would raise for you to bring up at posh dinner parties when you run out of small talk. Hmmmmmm - arbmyths, now there is a thread idea.

The wrist thing is a very loose rule of, er, thumb. As you said, it depends on the species, but it also depends on the crown architecture. If the branch in question is at the trunk, you are probably OK. If the branch in question is on a long side limb or a side fork, it may bust out. Oak is especially bad at this, because the novice may think that oak is 'strong'. In my opinion, the wrist thing is more to do with the minimum radius that the rope should pass through rather than the strength of wood. Therefore a 13mm rope ideally wouldnt pass through a pully smaller than you wrist (I do have very small wrists though).

Never heard it called that before, but been there loads of times, great location. Be sure to take your trunks if you like swimming in rivers :-) Are you also taking in the Wistmans Wood bit? Now there is a strange little bit of woodland...

hurt trees OR hug trees keep carbon locked up / imprisoned against its will, OR covert into free CO2 (using big noisy V8 engines).

Fair pay Blazer, going for CS30/31 at 61! Glad to see that you were having kids at forty, a route that i am currently taking . What your lad needs is to be as useful 'on paper' as possable. I would try to get him qualified so that he can be the 2nd man in a two man team. CS30, and he can use a saw to dice up what someone else has felled (or dismantled). CS38, he can do aerial rescue. Emergency 1st aid, and he can patch his workmate up as required. CS31, 39, chipper tickets, trailer licence, etc, etc, can wait (after all, he's only 19).