Hey Moss, I think you did the right thing in this case, but as an owl biologist I gotta do my spiel about rescuing owlets that are found on the ground. Although they do occasionally fall from the nest, the majority of owlets leave the nest before they are capable of flight. They just bail out...
I made a knotted version using a Quickie shackle this morning and it seems to work fine. Probably not as smooth as your version with the round shackle, but definitely good enough to experiment with.
I have been off on an extended road trip and am coming late to this thread. But after reading through all 16 pages I must say it makes me want to convert some of my canopy ropes to the Moss configuration. Way to think outside the box!
Mostly research work, but also contract climbing for surveys of tree voles and murrelets on US Forest Service and BLM lands. I realize this is not like urban forestry work or line clearance work, but I am pretty sure that the feds will eventually adopt any regs that are mandated for the rest of...
Good on you. Just FYI, we deal with pitchy ropes all the time and use GOOP (the white stuff) to soak the pitch loose before washing the rope. It really helps to break up heavy pitch layers.
So, here is a typical scenario in Oregon. A team of two climbers is going to climb a 260' Doug fir and rig it so that other climbers can follow. They are packing 600' of rope, two saddles with full gear, helmets and radio gear, a 10lb crossbow, 2 cubes with 600' of haul cord each, binoculars...
In my experience nearly all ropes develop some unevenness after they have been climbed on for a while. I generally attribute this to all of the ascenders/descenders that we run up and down the rope when climbing, which tends to flatten out the core and create some movement of the core inside...
This is one of those cases where knot terminology is a mess. Ashley shows a fixed loop that is tied with two single overhand knots that lock together to form a fixed loop. He gives this knot several names, including the Englishman's loop, Fisherman's loop, Angler's loop, and True Lover's knot...
I bought a 35-ton splitter years ago and it has paid for itself many times over. On big rounds you just roll them up to the splitter, flop them over onto the foot of the splitter and split. It is still a lot of work to slide the rounds around when you are splitting, but much easier than trying...
Seems to me there is a simple solution to all of this. There are so many other good ropes out there, why buy a rope that is a pain in the ass to splice and that the manufacturer will not provide good splicing instructions for? Guess I am just feeling old and grumpy today.
I just got on the McMaster-Carr website and they sell expandable sleeving in many different material types and diameters and in lengths ranging from 10-1000 foot rolls.