AHPP

I’m tight. I, until recently, had three hoovers: a Henry I got from a skip, a Kärcher a friend gave me and an upright my mum gave me. None have ever worked well but I couldn’t bear to throw away anything that had even peripheral use. I one day decided I should suck the ash from the nooks and crannies of the wood burner so the air channels didn’t get blocked. The Henry was so anaemic that I changed over to the Kärcher, that was more effective but so loud I put on a saw helmet. It collected the ash very well and I was well pleased until I turned round to see it forcefully evacuating the collected ash over the entire room. A billowing cloud and thick coating shortly preceded my white hot rage. The hoovers met the bin and I’ve been happier ever since.

People still get married.

Searched without any luck. Like this?

What's a Vancouver V please?

Please do.

Where from please? PM if you’d prefer.

Did you build it?

Is drawboring where you purposefully misalign holes so the peg pulls the joint together tighter?

Since this is now half about shooting and this is a forum: Where on the internet are people talking about shooting these days? Been away from the forums for a few years and the bbs and ukv are both now dead. Not checked pigeonwatch but assume similar. The stalking directory seemingly less affected. Is everything on Facebook and Instagram?

Also an excellent card game.

Didn’t really answer my question unless I’m missing something.

Rig it like that. If you need help to clear the fences, rip the limbs in with a base pulley and portawrap truck pull (unless you have a bollard that lifts). Light negative rigging high up then reverse a truck half full of chip up to the stem to chog into.

A decent climber and an avant zipping about will do that in a day without the stress of harming the paving.

Question open to anyone.

Assuming the operation was performed before the TPO was on it, what’s the crime?

The ones with induction hardened tips may be too hard to sharpen with a file but will still sharpen with diamond. I’ve sharpened the sides and not the tops before and felt modest improvement but I think that’s the wrong method.

Straight out the back for me. I could justify it by reckoning that pulling cambium fibre is better timber practise than pulling heartwood fibre but the reality is just that the saw’s already there and I’ve never had a problem with it.

Putting tops down a channel in conifers is good for protection but of course increases the likelihood of hanging stuff up. Also more work if the top is leaning away from the channel and you have to pull it over or change the balance. Good food for thought in terms of mass damping lower down as well as up top though.

It was a line of conifers that made me think about the topic. On spready hardwood, I’m more inclined to build tie in and rigging points around Y shapes and get rid of brash at the ends of the Ys as early as convenient. I place more importance on good geometry than mass damping (cheers, Paddy) there.

Does it though? Perhaps it would let the anchor point take greater loads when applied slowly but wouldn’t hold up as well to shock loads? That’s my gut feeling. Largely theoretical I hasten to add. If you’re banging big loads onto a pole and think you need a top to cope with it, you’re probably rigging too roughly.

Exposure certainly a factor. Any number of other things too. Chip runs etc. Annoying having a little bit of brash saved until the end of the day.

Unless it’s really windy, I generally like to leave the top where my tie in point and rigging probably is while I’m doing the rest of the tree. The dead weight of flexible branches makes it feel like it’s a better anchor, less prone to twanging about like a bare pole does. But theorising, if you cut the top off first, that’s less pole strength being wasted on keeping the top up there so more strength for climber and rigging. But it feels worse. Example: I recently negative rigged a top from a neighbouring tree onto my tie in and rigging tree and was hugely grateful to have left the top on the rigging tree. A bare pole would have twanged horribly. I suppose the question comes down to balancing intuition against physics. Top on or top off? I remember @RobRainford posting a while ago about trees coping with wind by spreading load about the network of branches, the inertia of branches letting unions etc work as nature intended. Sounds a similar area of discussion to the above. Would be interested in input on this too.

And I suspect the answer.

The question I was about to ask.

All you need to add to DRT gear is a rope wrench, a stiff tether and a foot ascender. That alone will be a huge improvement on DRT. The wrench and tether can quite realistically be home made if you can be bothered. I climb 95% SRT on a 35m rope and never needed longer, including redirects in big crowns and into different trees. Buy more stuff as you discover you want it but you don't need it to get going.