Merle Nelson

What’s “the new feed system” on the Bandit 75XP? Thanks in advance.

Chainmiester bar vise from TreeStuff. Mount to a board or about anything.

Or two down three up prussic. I use that when I just need a quick knot. (About 260-270 pounds with gear on a 1/2 rope [sorry not in metrics].)

That is a thing of beauty. I keep dreaming of having one of those on a trailer with hydraulics to allow it to ‘kneel’ and function at proper hight behind a truck while still on the trailer.

I bought one to get by if/when my climbing saws are acting up. Very disappointing air filter. Does not appear to take cleanings well (and an expensive part to replace).

Tree:Tment thanks again for bringing this up (I have had the benefit of reading of it elsewhere). In post #49 you bring up ‘hypersensitive’ and then it is referred to a number of times after that. After all the common sense things that one could use, like dust masks, avoiding heavy moldy concentrations when possible etc., there is another thing that comes into play. Our bodies can take an energetic ‘set’ for various reasons. One of those reasons is if we have had a big negative experience around something (such as a debilitating sickness). The next time we are exposed to even a small amount of same we can react to it in an out of proportion way. A synonym for this is ‘allergic’. If you want to clear ‘hypersensitivity’ or ‘allergies’ to anything, look into N.A.E.T. Nambudripads (sp) Allergy Elimination Technique. Also have you noticed that if you chip into the back of a truck in a light mist/rain and leave it for a day or so the chip pile will grow an inordinate amount of mold? I stuck my hand into the steaming pile I dumped out one time and was surprised I could not hold my hand there it was so hot. A short time latter I heard of a chip truck spontaneously combusting and burning to the ground. Fixed it for me, I dump same day I chip in the rain just in case.

Wow, lots of advice in a short period of hours. A lot of good friends/mates I suspect. What could I say that would get a point across? Ask kids that care about you the same questions. You could ask till you’re blue in the face, they would have no opinion - they have no experience in such matters. Why is that? How come so many of us know so much about back issues/body pain? If a person wanted to be done with this long term I would suggest two books. One is Pain Free by Pete Egoscue. And the second which I believe would give quicker, more easily accomplished results is Somatics by Thomas Hanna. In the tag line or closing thought that GTR tool repair uses in his posts it says, “All the great things are simple...”, thats the way it is with this. When we get our muscles back a little closer to the condition they were in as kids they will work fine till the time of our death and with the work load we put on them. That condition is quickly and easily within each of our reach. That has been my experience.

Taupotreeman just saw this thread. If you're headed south in Calif. I am about 60 miles north of San Francisco, right on the water - Bodega Bay. If there is anything around that I can help you with local insight or? would love to help out. Buy you a meal and? Whatever. Will leave my cell no. on your messages. Merle and Wife

Heat shrink tubbing covering my replacement cable makes it last longer and have less jagers sticking out.

Warning: For those using wire core fliplines - I replace mine every year now. Used to go by any outside nicks on rope etc. and as I was careful was getting several years of use out of a flipline. One day about one foot of cable slipped right out of it’s rope jacket. Appeared to have been breaking a strand at a time over some time. As soon as someone is ‘splicing’ the snap and thimble end with the wire and rope both through the compression fitting on (5/8 in,) rope, I will start buying those.

Ha! Ha! Have wanted the spring loaded Fly Reel or chalkline for some time. Acquired the parts and they sat for months. Just got prompted by a post elsewhere and finished them both in a short time. Used Fly Reel was $12 on ebay (seems like I will have to be careful not to bang it around too much). 55 ft.+/- on my reel of some thinner line, 65ft. +/- of 1.7 dyneema on my ’75 ft’ chalkline. Diff. gear ratios on the chalk lines-mine is 6 to 1 and seems ok. I am looking forward to not having to fight and struggle and climb extra to retrieve rigging line with the terminal rigging point set 25 feet to the side of me.

Just came on this thread, nice idea. That would have saved me a lot of work and agravation through the years.

Was offered an old production model of these (rather than fabricated) and turned it down some time ago, no thanks. Then last year I saw on YouTube where someone had a slightly larger one mounted out in front of a skidsteer and used the tractor to push it down vertically into rounds of wood that were over three foot diameter. It did a great job of breaking them up to smaller manigable chunks. Went back to that lady - too late already gone. Context is everything for me.

After 35 years of hard work/tree work and dealing with a lot of major pain I now think that our bodies are capable of working well until the day we die-without pain. I used to go to a Chiro. three times a week and wrap myself from waist to arm pits with ace bandages just to go out and make it through a day of work. I have used sports massage, acupuncture, osteopathy, stretching, years of yoga, and even changed my career for a time on the advice of doctors. Non of this was a solution for the pain or workability of being able to use my body long term. I finally came to a book called, Pain Free by Pete Egoscue and as long as I did the exercises faithfully (about 45-60 minute routine for me) I would be in great shape to work and not have back/body pain. Used that for about 8 years. Now I am using the info. contained in a book called Somatics by Thomas Hanna. My routine is about 10 min at least once a day, twice is better especially when I am working hard and long days. I would call these movements rather than exercises. And the result is a pain free body where movement is comfortable and easy in a surprisingly short period of time. If anyone needs more info. I would be happy to help.

With regard to original post, I use a Chiro., $52US per visit. Upside is it tends to feel better and or get me going again. Downside is my Chiro. can work me for minutes while my muscles are ready to get going again and work me for 24 hours a day. If anyone would like to know how I got away from chiropractor reliance I will do a longer post latter.

I bought the RopeArmor just to do the “difficult”shots where bags kept getting stuck in trees, Cypress trees with matted dead foliage on the interior or Euc. trees that have a lot of sucker growth as a result of repeated defoliation from pests. I left it unused for a couple of weeks because all of the work I was doing was easy. When I did pull it out to do some Cypress trees not only did it snake down through matted foliage like a dream but it made rope retrieval so much easier than I have had it too. Truthfully most of the time I just do a lazy retrieval where I leave RopeArmor on the throwline/bigshot line put a clove hitch on my climb line and pull it back over with the end of the climbline coming along first and the RA dangling beside and a few inches behind that . One difficult crotch I came to I just pulled my climbline back to me a few inches and then when I pulled on the throwline hard I noticed that the RA pitched up and over through the crotch and then the climbline followed along. It was only as I was working a little latter in the day that I remember seeing that on a YouTube video somewhere. Also use the RA for setting pull lines in trees that I used to climb to get a line in proper position. RopeArmor has become my first choice and I have bags with me if I chose not to use it on occasion.

Called Madsen's and put in an order today (I'm in northern California, USA) they do not have any drums. Alec, I am new here and would understand if you wanted to avoid the risk/hassle but, I would love to get one of those 090 drums from Australia. Would be happy to pay all costs to cover my part of it and would stand ready to expidite a purchase and shippment from the US when you need something. Thanks for your concsideration, Merle

To the original post, I have been using stubs and natural crotches to lower small/modest stuff for 20 plus years. For the last couple of years I have been carrying up a mini port a wrap with sling, arb block with sling, and 13 mm let down rope all in a small back pac and enjoying the smooth consistent control a lot more. Recently I read about a new product (X Rigging Rings) that in one three ring configuration will replace my steel arb block for modest lowering, and in another configuration will allow me to install a steel block and ring from the ground. Not sure if you will need to wait for these to one day be CE certified or if that doesn’t apply to rigging gear. If you want to take a look at those a Google search for X Rigging Rings should yeald a YouTube video entitled “ Early Versions “ (14+ min.) and a Tom Hoffman video entitled, “Arrival” also a post listed on another forum that has a lot of good info. from the developer.