Pole pruners

A

Acerguy

Hey all,

I'm in college taking an Urban Forestry program and pretty new to tree-work. I've been gradually aquiring my gear and I'm planning to buy a pole pruner and pole saw (probably a combo) in the near future. I'm wondering which ones work best, are most durable, and are easiest to handle in the trees. Also, is it worth getting a bull pruner with the 1 3/4 branch capacity or is the standard 1 1/4 capacity really all I need (and just saw the bigger branches).

Thanks
 
I would reccomend a bull pruner if you are going to get on definately. As far as pole saws stay away from the economy grade poles they flex so much its hard to get a kerf started. I don't currently have one but the silky hayuchi is an excellent pole saw and they do have a pruner attachment available but have never talked to anyone that has used it . I've got the corona bull pruner and like it. Good luck!
 
Acer, I agree with diesel on the pruner. Get a Corona Bull Pruner, may cost a little more but you will be very pleased with it, especially if your gonna use it for larger branches. Silkys are great also, spendy, but good. I like to use Jameasons 5ft fiberglass poles. You can expand as you need and use both lopper and saw/hook with a simple snap. Also non conductive.(If you purchase yellow foam filled) Lot of different attatchments for these tool also.
With all that said you will find what you like and stick with it cuz it works for you. We all have our preferances.

Good Luck!
 
My preference is to have a Marvin 1 1/4" head mounted on a dedicated six foot section. One extension is all you should need. There are rare times when you might need to use two extensions.Doing that too often will limit developing good climbing skills and make you pole dependent.

Pole saw...same as pruner, a dedicated head section with a Silky saw. You can get either a handsaw or polesaw blade and drill mounting holes to bolt the blade to a plain, cast polesaw head. Use nylock nuts and hex head bolts to mount the blade. Slot heads will get banged up and harder to change out.

Silky and Marvin will serve you better than other brands in my experience.

Some people use the short heads for pruner/saws and clip them onto extensions. My experience with these is that over time the ferrules wear and there is too much play. When I've tried to make an accurate placement for a good cut this slop makes it hard. The head jiggles around and a stub is left.

If you have money in the budget get the Silky Longboy telescoping pole pruner. There is a trade-off though. First, cost...but like anything else we pay for performance up front. The other is that the Longboy will not take as much banging around or abuse as the extension sections. Think of an extension section like a retractable tape measure...takes abuse, cheap, performs well enough. Think of a Longboy more along the lines of a micrometer. Bang up the mic and it's junk. But...the Longboy is so much nicer to thread around in the tree instead of the two section pole saw.

I just got a Marvin Bull Pruner head for work on campus. Up until now I have never owned a large pruner head. In my usual trimming I would be climbing the tree to get the bigger limbs. Since I'm doing much more ground pruning for elevation or clearance I got the Bull. For my situation it isn't economical to do the whole tree and have to climb everyone right now. I have too many low hanging limbs or specific, individual limbs to prune so I deal with them one on one aND Not the whole tree. Working on a college campus is MUCH different than working residential/commercial. If I need to I can revisit a tree on a daily pruning cycle. Doing residential/commercial you're lucky if you can revisit a tree in three years. Wait to get the Bull. When you do, get the adapter head instead of a dedicated pole section since you're not likely to use the Bull very often.
 
I would hate to work for a tree company that doesn't have a 20-21' silky saw. If you never used one, you're OK, use one and you will miss it if you don't have it. My company has 2. I have my own personal one at home! I have a pruner attachment for my silky. I have only used it a few times, it works great, very smooth and easy to use, like I didn't realize the limb was cut. I brought that to work for a job and my boss looked at me funny, he was glad I did afetr he used it. the job is boxing to hedges, made of red maples WTF. Each hedge is only 150' long, 21' tall and about 20' wide, no big deal right? No truck access,or spider lift, exotic planting and wall, and other stuff on 3 of the 4 sides. It's a week just to do the 2 hedges. Then they added to box the bradford pairs. 12 of them, 2 groups of six. about 26' high, 20' wide, and 35' long per group. What fun!
 
Pajeepman, if you have a Stihl HT131 extendable pole pruner, you might check out their hedge trimmer attatchment. I got one last year for 3 25' tall bushes. I was very impressed with the performance, but it sure got heavy. I think I paid around $200 for the attachment.
 
weve got a couple of the bull pruners 2 monthes ago theyre awesome its nice that you can cut bigger but there are 2 downsides the blade bends quicker because you tend to see how big you can cut haha also you have to pull back twice as far with the rope its very uncomfortable in the tree we took off the second pulley to take that away but its kinda hard to cut big pieces with single pulley its also nice for attatching your handsaw to your pruner head if any of you guys do that.(thats what i use as a pole saw very rare that i need one tho)
cheers
 
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Pajeepman, if you have a Stihl HT131 extendable pole pruner, you might check out their hedge trimmer attatchment. I got one last year for 3 25' tall bushes. I was very impressed with the performance, but it sure got heavy. I think I paid around $200 for the attachment.

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We have one with the hedge trimmer attachment also. It works good but we have to clip everything. Its 10+ million dollar house and shearing it won't give a nice enough finish for the owner.
 
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