New Climber Seeking advice (Video inside!)

[southsoundtree]

right at the beginning, you are Tying-In on small branches rather than the trunk. If you are around the trunk, you can stand up tall, pulling slightly upward on your TIP, in order to get your next TIP as high as reasonable.

Keep your Climbing system on a full strength TIP.

Wrap your thumbs while cutting.


As mentioned, Just flush cut small branches with a top cut.

NO STUBS.


A 1/3 cut on the top of fir limbs gets them to pop off with a little help from your other hand, guiding into the drop zone. You can quickly snap off a handful of branches, guiding as needed, then chainsaw the stubs with two-hands, quick and easy.


If you want limbs to drop flatter, slight undercut and vertically aligned, or to the 'inside' will get them to "pop" off, as will a fast cut from above in a small enough limb.

If you want them to flip over, tip drop, butt flip to the outside, or swing back under the tree, cut Doug-fir limbs with a down and outward 45* cut. It doesn't release as early.



Seems like you're pretty green to become a production climber with production pressure. That combo greatly increases the risk of injury or property damage. Keep working at your own pace. Maybe working at a bid price would allow you more breathing room.

 

[Stephen.G.FIddes]

right at the beginning, you are Tying-In on small branches rather than the trunk. If you are around the trunk, you can stand up tall, pulling slightly upward on your TIP, in order to get your next TIP as high as reasonable.

Keep your Climbing system on a full strength TIP.

Wrap your thumbs while cutting.

On the saw? That'll take some getting used to lol. I make a conscious effort to not wrap my thumbs when I drive and that translates into other things lol. (Airbag deployment with your thumbs wrapped around the steering wheel can break your thumbs. Not that I plan on crashing, but things happen...)

As mentioned, Just flush cut small branches with a top cut.

NO STUBS.

A 1/3 cut on the top of fir limbs gets them to pop off with a little help from your other hand, guiding into the drop zone. You can quickly snap off a handful of branches, guiding as needed, then chainsaw the stubs with two-hands, quick and easy.

If you want limbs to drop flatter, slight undercut and vertically aligned, or to the 'inside' will get them to "pop" off, as will a fast cut from above in a small enough limb.

If you want them to flip over, tip drop, butt flip to the outside, or swing back under the tree, cut Doug-fir limbs with a down and outward 45* cut. It doesn't release as early.

I'll try to remember to play with that on my next removal. Especially if it's fully in the open like this one was. Part of the reason for making a couple cuts on a few of the branches was my lanyard or top line was close. From previous posters, I have a few ideas on how to remedy that issue, which should actually improve efficiency too. I plan on re-reading this thread as a refresher a day or so before the next one.

Seems like you're pretty green to become a production climber with production pressure. That combo greatly increases the risk of injury or property damage. Keep working at your own pace. Maybe working at a bid price would allow you more breathing room.

I'm very green, but a fast learner. I will not work faster than my brain can safely think through things. My main intent with this wasn't to figure out "How can I speed this up to be a production level climber on my next removal" rather, how can I improve my technique to be safer, and work more efficiently. And by efficient, I mean having less fatigue, doing less work (un-necessary multi-cuts on branches for example), not unnecessarily climbing the spar twice, etc. (Obviously if I have to set a rigging line or speedline, I'm climbing it twice regardless, so at that point a top TIP makes sense, but on this tree that was a chop-and-drop, it didn't make a lot of sense to me after the fact.)

My pricing is currently a bit low, but I also have very low overhead. No chipper or chip truck, no employees, etc. At this point I'm not in it for the money, rather the experience. With experience comes speed, referrals, and money. I've built my other business that way quite successfully. I do a bid price tho, and this one worked out almost exactly where I wanted it to be as far as time I was in the tree, and prep/ cleanup time. (Total of 4.5-5 hours on-site), which I didn't feel was too bad for still being green.

In the military we always say
"Slow is smooth.
Smooth is fast"

I add to that
"Smooth is not going to the hospital."

Or i guess in this business, "Smooth is not going to the morgue"




Thanks again to everyone for the input, I greatly appreciate it, and look forward to more!

 

[CutHighnLetFly]

Lean back a little more into your spikes. Lengthen that bad boy up a little bit.

You asked about stripping branches on your ascent (sorry if this was mentioned already). I always strip conifers on the way up if I can drop them easily. BUT I spent some time figuring out a comfortable method for this. I did what you did once and said the same thing, why am I come BACK to these before I cut then??
Well with a lanyard and your zig zag set up you can toss your zig zag up a few limbs, so into your lanyard, and cut whats at your position. Strip what you can, then move up. Repeat till your at the top.

Anyone have useful footage of a choking / retrievable anchor for stem work for this guy? It's the absolute balls Steph.

Keep working work sites with low pressure settings. I learned under the gun leading to needless accidents and injuries. Stay safe and stay learning.

 

[Stephen.G.FIddes]

Thanks!

I have a late start at my regular job today so I plan to play with an SRT choke that should be more easily recoverable. I think I may pick up a unicender too. Didn't think about the fact that the ZigZag doesn't do SRT when I got it. Uni does both. I love the zigzag operation much better tho.

Also going to make my improved version of the 2-in-1 lanyard, and experiment with attaching to the rope bridge rings instead of the D rings for the lanyard. Should get me a little higher in the work area

 

[ghostice]

Stephen, sorry to wade in here again, but I'm a Rope Runner user - declare it flat out. I found the Uni to have a learning curve and on some of the ropes I have, to be kinda temperamental. The Uni also doesn't work with my 1/2" ropes really very well. So maybe research and certainly low and slow if you buy . . .
Couple more videos:

Note that Richard has modified his Uni with a 'Drum" on top for smoother operation.

(Also Mom made me say this - no one has commented on backing up when descending . . . sorry, it's my pet thing)

 

[Stephen.G.FIddes]

Hahahaha, thats funny because I literally just watched all of those videos 30 seconds before I saw your post, and was going to edit my previous post to add "Or rope runner" due to the reports of heavy wear on the unicender.

I guess I'll take my harness to the local tree shop today and try out the rope runner and unicender both after watching a few more videos. I've got 2 climbing lines, so I can easily keep one for DDRT and one for SRT so one more piece of gear in the box wont hurt me too much on space.

 

[ghostice]

Stephen you might find this thread interesting too:
http://www.treebuzz.com/forum/threads/well-that-sucked.35730/

One of the things that's big with me is that the Runner (and the Uni) both clean up well. Zig-zag is a challenge to get in there. Last summer for me in Alberta here was the summer of the sticky gooey sap flowing freely. Some of the trees I was in, a rope and hitch would last the morning. The ease of cleaning (and just lack of effect of sap on grab/ advancing) is also one of the good "features" of mechanical adjusters on lanyards too. But I've found that all the devices have their quirks. On many of the deciduous trees it's all good.

There's also lots of ways to choke rope on a stem too but I have kinda settled on Teufelberger Pulley Savers with a long tail when chunking down a stem, just to preserve the climbing rope (sap and goo). You can get replacement rope for the Pulleysaver and it seems less work to clean up (actually I don't fuss sap on it too much anyway - prussik is backed up with a butterfly) and the pulley is easy to clean.

Be interested in your thoughts as you go through this - I've been experimenting lots with Tom's uni setup this winter.

 

[Stephen.G.FIddes]

Wow! That thread offers a lot of thought... Note to self on a lot of things...

I like that pulley saver idea a lot. I'll change my current choke setup for DDRT to a similar configuration to that. That's too easy, and looks a lot easier and safer than what I had going.

 

[Stephen.G.FIddes]

New Choke lanyard setup for DDRT.

 

[ghostice]

Stephen as I understand the Teufelberger Pulley Saver is PPE certified up the ying yang (for when your state OSHA comes a callin'). Standards: EN 795B:1996, EN 795B:2012, ANSI Z133-2012, AS/NZS 5532:2013 - see:
https://www.teufelberger.com/en/pulleysaver-baumpflege.html
The advantage of their resilient eye is "it returns to shape even after thousands of cycles" and this makes retrieval much easier - I've never had one hang up yet. Not sure how the rope loop would retrieve as it wears in. Thats what the special eye is - it does spring back to shape (open loop) when unloaded.
If you purchase the rope bit of their system alone, then it doesn't bear the CE certification anymore - don't know if that's an issue for you.
https://www.honeybros.com/Item/Teufelberger_pulleySAVER
One "feature" I've used many times with the pinto pulleys is their ability to attach via another carabiner in the bottom becket of the pulley to yet another pinto pulley (or rig pulley) so I can set up a mechanical advantage system for hauling my sorry butt around in the air. I do find this easier sometimes than going in and out of a foot ascender for fiddly positioning.

 

[owScott]

Good work. 1st about gaffing out , like whats been said position from the spar is important, but also look at how the tip of your gaff is filed. It should look like a little triangle not just a point. That will really help with the gaff sliding. the other piece of advice is when working on the spar get really high on your cut, especially when working with a big saw. I like the saw between my chest and belly button. That will give you better control of the saw and better leverage on pushing on the piece. The lanyard should be level or even down a little. And last, my golden rule, cut only what you can control.

 

[Stephen.G.FIddes]

Good work. 1st about gaffing out , like whats been said position from the spar is important, but also look at how the tip of your gaff is filed. It should look like a little triangle not just a point. That will really help with the gaff sliding. the other piece of advice is when working on the spar get really high on your cut, especially when working with a big saw. I like the saw between my chest and belly button. That will give you better control of the saw and better leverage on pushing on the piece. The lanyard should be level or even down a little. And last, my golden rule, cut only what you can control.

Thank you!

Gaff is filed to factory spec basically. I touched it up after 2 trees (where I spent about 40 total steps on concrete) prior to this one. I think most of the issues stemmed from not being leaned back enough, and also the pads I had. today along with my new rope wrench, I picked up some new spur pads that have a metal insert, and two straps vs one. Intially trying it out on a few rounds I have at my house, the new pads feel WAY better when they're not swinging around my leg, and I feel like that will lead to less gaff-outs, in conjunction with growing a pair and leaning farther back when I'm working back down the spar.

On my next removal, I'm going to put the lanyard on the rings for the bridge, which I think that extra 6" lower should help a lot with fatigue on all accounts, and on the limbing give me a little extra reach. }


For those that didn't catch it, Today I tried the Rope Runner at my local tree supply store, and was sold. Best device for SRT I've tried period.

I've played around with various hitches with the Rope Wrench, and personally decided on the Distel hitch, but still couldn't get it tending the way I wanted. So mechanical I went. Originally I wanted the Unicender, and planned on selling the ZigZag. but I can very much see the advantages of having the two different devices for dedicate SRT and DdRT. They're seriously the best mechanical's for the job, becuase they're a master at one trade, vs a "Jack of all, master of none".

 

[ghostice]

This video shows another option for tending the RR - on the other end, for me an e2e prussik loop or a sewn loop and an accessory biner still beats a chest harness clip or an over the shoulder lanyard.

Made one of Richard's tending bits from 8 mm abalakov cord laying around, a metal eyelet and an hour stitching job with a hand stitcher and shrink tubing to cover the sewing (it's not life support)
http://www.treestuff.com/store/catalog.asp?category_id=298&item=1754
It works well too.

 

[Stephen.G.FIddes]

Stephen as I understand the Teufelberger Pulley Saver is PPE certified up the ying yang (for when your state OSHA comes a callin'). Standards: EN 795B:1996, EN 795B:2012, ANSI Z133-2012, AS/NZS 5532:2013 - see:
https://www.teufelberger.com/en/pulleysaver-baumpflege.html
The advantage of their resilient eye is "it returns to shape even after thousands of cycles" and this makes retrieval much easier - I've never had one hang up yet. Not sure how the rope loop would retrieve as it wears in. Thats what the special eye is - it does spring back to shape (open loop) when unloaded.
If you purchase the rope bit of their system alone, then it doesn't bear the CE certification anymore - don't know if that's an issue for you.
https://www.honeybros.com/Item/Teufelberger_pulleySAVER
One "feature" I've used many times with the pinto pulleys is their ability to attach via another carabiner in the bottom becket of the pulley to yet another pinto pulley (or rig pulley) so I can set up a mechanical advantage system for hauling my sorry butt around in the air. I do find this easier sometimes than going in and out of a foot ascender for fiddly positioning.

At this point, OSHA doesn't mean a thing to me. It will likely mean something in the future, but at that point I won't be worried about saving a few bucks where I can. It's my life at stake, and that's what I have life insurance for. (Not that I'm looking to die... I take as much safety precaution as possible...) Sure the actual Tueffelberger lanyard might be easier to retrieve, but again, not too worried about that. I have a few options as far as retrievable things go in the back of my head to work with when needed. My main concern is working a spar for a removal. Most of what I will be doing is removals, because I do not have the knowledge (YET) to do pruning. On the rare occasion (Deadwood/ hanger removal) I need to have a retrievable TIP, I'll use one of the multiple options stored in my head currently, or learn by school of hard knocks of "Oh crap, here I am, let me figure this out" and likely come up with a similar thing to the actual Tueffelberger, at which point I'd buy the real thing soon after.

(Reading up very avidly on pruning tho, not only for my own benefit, but also to improve my knowledge base... Goal is to become certified by the ISA...)

 

[Brocky]

Having the RR, you might want to switch from a DdRT system for working on the stem.

 

[Stephen.G.FIddes]

Having the RR, you might want to switch from a DdRT system for working on the stem.

That's the plan. The main reason I didn't use SRT on this job was lack of experimenting with Hitches enough, but knowing they all bound up from what I had played with.

Can't wait to play with the RR today!

 

[Brocky]

Most hitches would require the use of a munter hitch, or descender to descend a fixed rope. There are a few that work, but would still require a descender, if an emergency, or fast descend is needed.

 

[Stephen.G.FIddes]

I had the rope wrench on it, and like I said, the diestel worked the best for me, but I could tell that it would still tighten up on me when working. Nature of Hitches.

 

[Stephen.G.FIddes]

Had an interesting SRT experience today. Video coming soon. Definitely need to get past having one leg of rope holding me instead of two like in DDRT. Also learning how to work a tree would be good too. Thankfully I have really cool neighbors!

 

[Stephen.G.FIddes]

Here's my first SRT climb! Seriously... I was nervous... DDRT No issues, as there's twice the line there... SRT, my brain was wigging out a bit. I know its safe, rock climbers climb on single line all day long with lots of falls... But something about the guitar string tension, along with something totally new, had my brain going bonkers.

Maybe I just need to do a low fall. Climb up 6-7 feet, add some slack, and jump, prepared to land on my feet and roll out...

Aside from that, I REALLY like the Rope Runner (aside from the broken tending tether ring... ). I'm going to practice a bit more with it on my tower soon, and really get to know how it handles and what not. Today I REALLY wanted to get in my neighbors tree and remove what I removed. SRT greatly helped with being able to redirect like I did. Then on the next tree, it was DDRT due to how the access was.

I can't wait to get more comfortable with SRT!!! It will be a great tool in the bag.

Widowmaker removal at another neighbors place at the end.