DIY Tree Squeeze - Share your ideas

[Matias]

What people are missing here is.... the point of the Tree Squeeze. It excels for conifer removals, because it is semi-rigid, and you can advance it extremely easy, in your hand along with a steel-core flipline at the same time in a way that is 10x easier than a floppy rope tied back onto itself.

Set it up DRT at the ground, grab it and your flip-line, spur up 20, 30, 40 feet to the first limb, you can cut that and you are already double tied in, choked so you can't corkscrew down the trunk if you gaff out, then grab both again and spur up to the next cut. It moves back down the spar just as easily. Unless you are taking 20' logs, it's faster and easier to just spur back down (in way that is nice to your knees) to the next trunk cut. Then if the site lets you fall a large trunk section from the ground, again, you are already tied in, can rap to the ground, and retrieve it before felling the stick, without having to mess with STR tail lengths, retrieval lines, etc. I do this like... 1-10 times a week. Presetting a SRT line here simply doesn't help much and is a waste of time, your going to be spurring up the tree either way and the limbs in the whole top half aren't big enough to support you anyways.

This is the most common way I do fir climbing removals where you can't take big pieces. I did this like 90 foot fir removal, cutting and tossing every single limb to avoid the house, shed propane tank and fence, then took the whole trunk down in like 3' sections since they were just turning it into firewood, dropping every piece between the fence and propane tank. Always double tied in, always in control, Tree Squeeze below my flipline making all my rope moving super easy, 75 minutes total start to finish.

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I never really looked into it, and never knew anyone that had one, but that does sound super useful in our envronment. I would probably get one today if I were still climbing daily.

 

[pcpTR33]

I just set a canopy anchor and avoid the use of the friction saver, have a line dedicated for pines so that first few feet are permasapped. I have in the past done like you’ve described using a pulleysaver or the fimblsaver depending on the size of the trunk but you’re obviously limited to the size of the sling/friction saver.

 

[Matias]

I just set a canopy anchor and avoid the use of the friction saver, have a line dedicated for pines so that first few feet are permasapped. I have in the past done like you’ve described using a pulleysaver or the fimblsaver depending on the size of the trunk but you’re obviously limited to the size of the sling/friction saver.

I get that for the first half of the job, on the way up, but what about trees over 100' to the TIP? how long will you spend, on average, to get a TIP set up there, and what do you do to be quick and smooth on the way down? I can set a line 160' up, but like 27RMTON said, sometimes there ain't shit up there to tie in to.

 

[pcpTR33]

I get that for the first half of the job, on the way up, but what about trees over 100' to the TIP? how long will you spend, on average, to get a TIP set up there, and what do you do to be quick and smooth on the way down? I can set a line 160' up, but like 27RMTON said, sometimes there ain't shit up there to tie in to.

the tall 100’+ trees are a different animal, go for the highest quickest shot and maneuver via alternating lanyard, and if only on lanyard I’ll use the cinching bight if I’m a good distance between, but with an overhead reach of 8 foot or so combined with a pruner or a quick monkey fist I can advance rather easily, now if my top splits into smaller fingers then it’s a different ball game. For on the way down I’ll just capture the tail of the rope and depending on the size of the logs being sent I’ll descend down, use my lanyard to choke off, generate the slack and pull the anchor down to me by pulling on the captured bight of tail.

 

[Matias]

the tall 100’+ trees are a different animal, go for the highest quickest shot and maneuver via alternating lanyard, and if only on lanyard I’ll use the cinching bight if I’m a good distance between, but with an overhead reach of 8 foot or so combined with a pruner or a quick monkey fist I can advance rather easily, now if my top splits into smaller fingers then it’s a different ball game. For on the way down I’ll just capture the tail of the rope and depending on the size of the logs being sent I’ll descend down, use my lanyard to choke off, generate the slack and pull the anchor down to me by pulling on the captured bight of tail.

Yea, so same same here, but we get a lot of tall conifers like that around here, and often enough the good branches to throw in to are nowhere near the top. I was trying to get smooth using an AFS but it just doesn't flip up like a steel core. That said, I think to answer the original question, this thread has me thinking of making an AFS out of a steel core flip line, of which I have an extra.

 

[pcpTR33]

Yea, so same same here, but we get a lot of tall conifers like that around here, and often enough the good branches to throw in to are nowhere near the top. I was trying to get smooth using an AFS but it just doesn't flip up like a steel core. That said, I think to answer the original question, this thread has me thinking of making an AFS out of a steel core flip line, of which I have an extra.

That’s actually a pretty good thought! I think the thimble terminating might be too small of a bend radius when descending might have to add a ring before the small ring prussic just to spread it out a bit kind of “chicken rings style” like Dave at wesspur called it.

 

[Bendroctanus]

Biner choke on SRS. Done.

I didn’t thank that was considered “safe” due to the propensity of side loading or loading weird on the gate?

 

[Matias]

I didn’t thank that was considered “safe” due to the propensity of side loading or loading weird on the gate?

True, but I generally don't climb for other companies anymore, so I'll do what I like. I feel plenty safe doing it with a steel carabiner with a rated gate. If they can handle rigging with them the way I have, then they can handle me swinging around on them. Obviously separate rigging and life support biners.