AHPP

I really want to like rigging wrenches but surely annoying when you want to send a saw down or a really light rig. A bit of friction is so easy to put on elsewhere.

I understand they're prized for pollution tolerance. Surely there's some other tree that's tolerant enough, otherwise suitable enough and isn't bloody poisonous?

Keep one on the line. You can leave it with the main rigging anchor (or just use it as the main rigging anchor) or take it with the crab to redirect or span rig.

**************** the modern world. Let it grind to a halt and starve through competitive ignorance.

Further to what Dan said about small trees, I have a cambium saver type pair of rings that I use for smaller and simpler stuff. Usually just about long enough to do a main point and a redirect point but I’ll make them a bit longer when I replace the rope on this pair. You can always wrap a branch to use up extra rope (and keep them in place). You can of course choke with them too or just use one ring and tie with the other end. Or a biner through one end and they’ll retrieve with a knotted rope. They’re also my crane tie in. Handy thing.

They’re just nice. Lighter than pulleys. Nothing ever runs over a sharp pulley cheek. The little bit of extra friction stops your rigging line shooting up to the top of the tree if you drop it. I almost always use a pulley on my main anchor and a ring on a redirect over a favourable drop zone. Having the pulley first in line probably makes lifting with the Hobbs easier but I don’t know how much it really matters. Two rings would probably work fine too. They’re a lovely sweet spot of friction for most tree things.

Why do communists drink rooibos? Because proper tea is theft. I think I told that one on the last flask thread on here.

I really must get a bollard on my grab… Have you worked out the trick for anchoring with the grab yet? Rotate the pincer into digger thumb orientation (as opposed to scorpion orientation), open it and use the thumb half of the grab like a winch spade. Dig in behind roots for extra hold. You can get a bit of pre-tension on if you nod the grab back while you pierce the thumb down into the ground. Once you get good, you can retract it cleanly and leave a barely visible hole. While you’re getting good, you’ll dig geet holes in your customers’ lawns.

You’re the most outspoken cryptoskeptic I can think of on here and, I suspect, a free-marketeer. Launch Diggercoin for a laugh.

The big frankengrab on big rings this afternoon. Available to hire most of England and some of Scotland.

You (I) don’t know. They just seem like that sometimes. Very unscientific I’m afraid. I might have never seen one and have just bullshitted myself.

I don't follow. Perhaps unrelatedly, the process of building the base of a hedge up by shovelling soil at it is known as casting up. I couldn't even tell you off the top of my head why it's done. Some west country bumpkin on here will know.

PM Joe Newton about some gloves.

Clearing woodland but importantly leaving a band as a hedge. A niche interest and something you need an eye for. When I spot one, I feel a bit like an ancienter man who can survey a landscape and subconsciously know where water is etc. I could easily be wrong half the time though. If another bit looks similarly rotten, I'd say it's similarly rotten. I couldn't say there isn't some other fungus or whatever in play but the main damage is always going to be the fact it's been previously cut. Trees grow as maidens with the grain sweeping elegantly around branch unions etc; they're strong and protect themselves from pestilence with bark. You cut them and they regrow hard, new branches can end up at ganky angles, holding water, trapping weak bark between stems etc. Once they're cut once, they need cutting regularly to stop new stems becoming too heavy for their union strength. Your hedge is overstood. Say it was forty years since the last cut. It should have probably have been cut at twenty years ish. Other tree is a cedar, probably deodar. They're snappy. Basically nothing looks untoward. Just trees doing tree things.

Actually I’ll have stab at the opening question since I’m here now but with the caveat that my tree health knowledge isn’t as good as that of others’ already on this thread. I say the rot/ripped patch is just general gnarliness from previous coppicing and probably no deadly infection or whatever. I’d coppice the big ones and lay the small ones for something to do and for the sake of interest.

Can't help you with your original query but would be interested to know if you're familiar with the process of assarting and whether you think your hedge is the product of it?

One way to get a vehicle that fits you.

Rope wrench(es)? Those ISC pulleys with one way bearings if they need further convincing.

Those interferers would have to whinge to the landowner (or someone that passes the whinge onto the landowner), then the landowner has to care, then they have to do something. If they do do something, reassess the situation then but not before.

None of their business. Not their land.

To whom?

You're right to be irked. Steal the land back.

No ill effects, no brill fx.

What a boy! Well done supporting him too. An acquaintance's daughter was freestyle kayaking competitively and the running her about, dealing with sponsors etc was serious work. Good dadding.