Gareth 85

I know it's been there in the garage ages

Mate it Its mad..about a year ago I came across a near new ms361...I 💯 loved that saw and the 362 is not close to as good as the 361. I couldn't believe it after they were produced for a limiter time due to bearing issues

Lol..fk...I didn't even think of looking ..it was still in the plastic box in the cardboard one lol I was impressed with it tho straight out of the box.. old lady customer had it wnd said her husband bought I'd and passed soon after.. she said I want 200 I nearly said its not enough lol 😆 Well it's Been used to cut up two conifers now lol

Got hold of a brand new old 044 in the case for £200 Think this could be a good saw once tuned...not sure if I could do anything to modify the anti vibration ...

definitely...I used to make a lot of unnecessary technical mistakes like climbing back up through forks or back up and around parts instead of simply unclipping the climbing lines and passing them around or throwing them up and over ..and it took me at least a year to get efficient and to get into the routine of that type of detail. Also its really important to be in as comfortable a position as possible. nothing worse than being out on a long lateral limb with too steep an anchor pulling you backwards and out sideways from the point your trying to work on and having to constantly press your legs into the branch to create equal pressure to keep you in place all while your harness is digging into your side lol... when I first started working in trees I used to just get up and just work in any way or direction, going up then down , back up then around in circles and by the end of the day I would be so tired from lots of unnecessary movements and inefficient climbing. now as I'm going up I am mentally taking in information that will help me get around the tree and work from top and then round as I go down and making sure my main line is as vertical and has as clear a path as possible and if necessary work out any places you may need redirects...the same goes for lowering, nothing worse than branches getting hung up half way down and having to repeatedly go down to free them just to have to climb up again...also another thing that's creates a lot of unnecessary fatigue is your climbing line running against or thrusts of points or especially twisted around the trunk as you go, that goes for above or below you, all that rop making contact creates friction and will end up costing you a lot of wasted energy xx I've been climbing 14 years now and it takes a good 5 years to get competent never mind good at it and may be 8 years or more before your can confidently, safely, efficiently and quickly tackle any tree and I still do things sometimes without realising until I've gone through a horizontal fork and made it harder work than need be by forgetting simple but effective small things again like leaving part of your rope draped over the branch so you can unclip your system and pull the draped part to get the system back up through the fork and back to you so u don't have to climb up and through it lol this will save joints and muscles in the long run..and reducing friction in your system is a huge factor in saving energy as is carrying too much unnecessary kit ..carry things you may need like few webbing slings and spare karabiner and a first aid kit but don't go attaching all sorts of spare ascender, karabiner, figure 8, prussik loops , if you need it get it sent up..carrying extra weight is not worth it ..hope that helps

yeah I think your right, that is basically exactly what I was thinking once I got around and had a look...some branches and limbs I removed completely where definitely in a bad shape and you could tell they would be a problem not too far into the future.

thanks..its good to get feedback off people that understand the job and I value their opinions.. its sometimes difficult to be totally sure your doing what the specs intend when they are so vague lol

might get a better idea of the heights of some cavities further up..and some another photo of old cuts from a lot longer than 8 years ago..

thanks...really appreciate everyone's feedback 🙏 yeah I did read it and it was a single a4 letter to the customer who dealt with the tree officer. it literally said crown reduction of up to 40%, thinned canopy and 4 meters crown lift, didnt mention dead wood on the letter , only in person was that mentioned. hes actually been sub contractor to the two local borough councils for over 21 years and the customer said he retired from the position this year and only does choice private jobs or reports. my old boss had him do work for us whist we where doing tree work on building sites for companies like redrow homes, barrets and St modwens. I I did find it pretty non specific and wondered if it had been purposely left vague to avoid being restricted in options provided we didn't use it as an excuse to take the piss 🤔 the cavities where at various heights the biggest being around 15ft high and the two in the one photo where they are at different heights where around 35 ft to 45ft up and the other fairly large one was again around the 40ft point with multiple smaller ones around 60ft or more. ill attach a photo of some of the cuts from years before I had worked on this tree, these where right at the top and a lot of these cuts where poorly done with a few step cuts left without a finishing cut

yeah that makes sense because the last lime i did a reduction on the spec where reduction of height by 8 metres because it had grown tall reaching between two sycamores and another big ash was saying to reduce it in metres and they attached photos of the tree with lines edited exactly where the cuts needed to be. imo there's too much of a grey area regarding reduction specs and sometimes customers get a tree report done and see 30% and then they assume that means nearly 30ft off a 90ft tree. I've also been on site for the forestry commission and they have said to do reductions on quite a few trees and they have specifically said take off 5% of each leaf bearing branch or the very last significant points of growth and I mean nearly every piece taken off is the diameter of your thumb.. but I did get the sense that some of these reductions where just to spend money to ensure next year's funding. and coronation ( I think) cuts...done a few of those for the forestry commission

I have used a distel on my flip line, I used wire cored for around 10 years and the last few years I tend to go for my 13mm rope one that's got 10mm ocean polyester (I think its called) friction cord tied with 2x fisherman knots because I find pre made Valdotain with splices are either too long or two short when i cut my own lengths of cord I can make subtle adjustments until the VT works smoothly without ever needing adjustments and I use a hitch climber rapid pulley... and I like DMM sentinel Karabiner for easy one handed use. I've never liked the isc rope grabs.. I never liked that you have to take your weight off the grab to lengthen your line, while with the Valdotain and hitch climber you can make tiny adjustments while still loading your flip line.. I use the same set up on secondary climbing lines , but 11.7mm spliced with a zigzag on my main lines with basic cambium savers. I dont know how anyone could climb with a brakes hitch if you have used anything with a pulley lol

Thanks..was a nice one to work on after the time off over Xmas. other than the 28th and 29th December I hadn't worked since Xmas eve

Thanks i definitely enjoyed working in this one, it was tiring, especially the long taller vertical sections without gaffs and virtually nothing to stand on to give the legs a break lol at one point I had 3 climbing lines to get to the tops. the pictures don't show how wide the canopy really is. also lots and lots of epicormic

not too sure..I have heard different from different arborist or agents, I think that it would generally depend on where it is located in the tree.. but I do think the tension wood is often stronger that the original wood.

I always used to prefer big reductions especially if they were big oak Turkish oak, cedar or certain beech trees, but I had pneumonia around 6 months ago and I was really ill...still haven't recovered from it and I don't feel anywhere near as fit or strong as I was before it. I noticed that im finding it a lot harder physically to get around larger trees and its been frustrating to deal with.. but if I hadn't had pneumonia then the dr would not have picked up on a blood issue i didn't know i had... Good luck with the reduction mate, sure you'll ace it

thanks...I was thinking about taking it a bit lower and going a bit harder but once I started with the top it soon became clearer that a lot of the more significant branches had very little in options and it would have been a problem to not have to take more unnecessarily from other parts to keep the balance and shape. I did purposely start on the one side, take the top down a bit and try a few different points down to about 30ft. asked the customers to give their opinion and then we did decide we could take a bit more off but being mindful of how dense the one side was but also how long the branches were with minimal growth points. There was one pretty big limb that had a cavity filled with water near the trunk and another around the second point out, I used a redirect to get to the end of the branches and the limb had a lot of movement in it and after taking a bit out, I descended onto a lower part and that extra weight slightly to one side was enough to cause the limb to twist then break at that second point and to bend /fall down with me on it lol but it didn't completely detach, so it was definitely structurally compromised in places. I took multiple photos to send him to be on the safe side. thanks...I was thinking I wish I had a bit more to work with but not this time lol

I think that he was getting at the same treatment as last time and it when he was there he was saying to leave this branch, and only cut any dead or epicormic growth in the lower areas, thin and clear out some of the middle and reduce the top as much as possible but without going to hard. there wasn't much to work with.. long branches without many growth points. was hard to find a balance and keep a consistent shape with substantial enough crown left

the same private company have been maintaining the grounds for years and have asked for bits of work done on all the trees in the grounds and there is a even taller cedar and red wood next to the lime and the red woods been shedding considerable dead wood...and im sure the work had been agreed with another tree officer and was left while a decision was made regarding the two trees next to it..they are definitely too close together

lots of cavities and crossed branches

yeah it was and there was 4 gardens a lot of fences and 2 summer houses underneath some pretty big low limbs and we where not allowed access the the one area which I could have used to make the job easier..but got it done as best as I could and try keep the shape ..there was a lot less to work with on the right side...

hey there was quite a lot of dead wood in it and cavities, seemed a lot more dead wood than the last time I did it

reduced few years ago (8? can't remember) and customer has cone back to us with another report done just 2 weeks ago. specifications are 1: Up to 40% Reduction (not very specific as per usual 🙄) 2: crown thin ( no explanation or expectation..but its obviously to allow wind flow through the tree) 3: Raise crown by 4 metres literally one paragraph of writing so its obviously left to my discretion although the last Reduction specifications where 20% reduction approx.... the tree, if I remember correctly is now still around 100ft tall and was around 115 or so before the last one I'm looking forward to this one, again... , other than a few 30ft cherry trees taken down while clearing a building plot...this is the first day back climbing since Xmas eve .... ...Will post photos of the tree after the newest reduction tomorrow evening .. 20220103_150755.mp4

they said to me to not get it wet at all, but only because of how wide open the cut was, and they did say the new skin was paper thin and moisture would break it down, the specialist was actually the one that cleaned it and decided that even though the cut was still bleeding and leaking fluid, it was going well enough to change to the foam padding, I knew within a few hours it was making it sore from rubbing and by the next morning it had stuck to the new tissue which stopped it rubbing, and I thought that even though I knew something was going wrong, I trusted the specialist opinion and got on with it. when I went to a dressing change a nurse and two other Dr's couldn't believe what the specialist had done and they said I was pretty much worse off than day one. but sh1t happens and im lucky it wasn't any worse. did you have any issues once yours healed? thanks im getting it changed tomorrow so I'll update then.

doesn't sound like something I'd want to deal with, this was bad enough, thanks, im getting there..it was nice to wake up and not have a pounding headache and pain in my nose, ears and teeth..it all really kicked the crap out of me ..hope all is good 👍

aw nice...the only good thing to come from this, is the rest from climbing constantly has been good for the original nerve and overuse issue that was making my arm go dead, which was how I ended up cutting myself. my weight is currently down 32lbs since the start of this and getting sick..be a while before I feel like myself again..have you had any ongoing issues with the thumb? the side of my finger is finally coming back to life and I can straighten it slightly now lol