rigging and falling three large tulip trees

Daniel

Daniel

Carpal tunnel level member
Location
Suburban Philadelphia (Wayne)
OK,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpwDNQwKzFo
Here's the latest video project. Pat Epps climbing and rigging out three 100'+ tulip trees. Had a bunch of help editing from a friend's son, and actually bought a new imac for this and future projects.. Put some music over the action shots. The dialogue was all ad libbed and flowed pretty well. Camera was in a bucket truck for most of the day, so there are some nice camera angles.

I was trying to show what a good climber can accomplish with proper understanding of good cutting techniques, to steer large pieces to swing smoothly into the rigging, proper tying off at a point slightly under the center of gravity to aid in directing the piece to swing smoothly into the rigging and have it rotate slowly after seperatioin, rather than slamming down into the rigging, while keeping the piecee tip heavy to minimizing the risk of them coming back at the climber. Combining that with a groundman that can be trusted to let the pieces run, and we were able to rope out some large pieces safely while minimizing shock loads.

This is part one of two, both 10 minutes long. Part two is up on youtube already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-elOeOd4Ak
Also have another edit nearly complete of just the action without dialogue.

Reg, Ace, G.B., the master, and others have been cranking out some great videos. I hope you all enjoy this one as well... There is over 40 hours of post production in the three ten minute pieces...
 
Great work Dan, Pat and the rest of the crew
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Nice vid Dan and Pat!

My only real problem with Pat's rigging technique is his tying off his loads at mid points on the log or branch and the resulting unnecessary helicopter affect. I like my loads to hang vertically one way or the other, tip tied or butt tied.

A climber who butt hangs a branch or log with more than a couple feet between the cut and tie off point is needlessly putting his safety in the hands of his ropeman's skill at letting the load run enough tp prevent the stub kicking back at the climber.

The only time I use a midpoint tie-off is to facilitate the crane operator in feeding the branch/log into the chipper without repositioning the choker.

Nice work though guys, three fair sized trees like that in one day is pretty impressive!

jomoco
 
I thought the same thing jomoco but then Patt explained how the cuts he made were determined on the skill level of the roper. He had a good crew there in my opinion.
 
I too mentioned the same thing about the placements of the ropes before I saw the part 2 and part 3 videos.
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As long as he is aware that he is accepting more risk with that, then that is better to be ignorant of it...

BTW. I enjoyed the video for having short clips. Television shows & especially commercials, now a days, try to keep our attention by having clips last no longer than 5 seconds. Otherwise, we may loose interest and feel compelled to change the channel.

These videos were very easy to follow and enjoyable!
 
In the video, I actually mentioned "where he ties off the pieces" as a factor in allowing him to safely rig bigger (heavier) pieces, (by reducing shock loads, which unfortuntely I did not mention). I never really understood the importance of rope placement (where the lowering line is tied to the limb or wood) until I took a course taught by Mark Chisholm at Rutguers, in 2002. At the end of the day Mark tried to explain the concept when rigging down a white oak . I fortunately video taped the whole day and was able to get a handle on the concept only after reviewing the tapes a few times.

Mark explained that he liked to tie off the pieces so that there was as little movement after seperation as possible. This greatly reduces shock loads and when done properly, becomes far safer than tying off near the cut. What that often ends up looking like is tying the piece off close to the balance point, and absolutely not past its center of gravity (so the piece stays tip heavy), and then notching the limb to let it fall slowly into the rigging at a slight angle to the overhead anchor. Tying the piece off out a ways from the cut, allows the tie off point to move more before seperation, thus tensioning the line, as the piece slowly moves on the hinge. This puts more of the weight of the limb on the rope before seperation, thus leading to less shock loading after seperation.

Having the rope take more of the weight of the limb by tying off near the COG and pretensioning the line, also facilitates the cuts ability to steer the limb, by greatly reducing the force on the hinge. So when the ground crew pretensions the line, and the climber and rope man work together, the climber can create a good hinge, allowing the rope man to then control the piece. It won't start moving until the rope man lets out a bit. It then is on the rope man to let the piece run down past the climber into a smooth slow descent.

On bigger wood, the principle is the same, as long as the climber is not butt hitching. You can see how smooth that big wood "floats" down into the rigging when the pieces are tied near the balance point. Also mentioned in the taping, but not included in this edition, is a point about what side of the piece the knot is tied on. By tying it on the back side (opposite the face), the piece has less movement when the weight come on the rope, as the knot will then be on the high side of the piece, keeping the piece from twisting violently as the weight hits the rope.

The untrained observer might see all those pieces cartwheeling, and mistakenly think that all that movement is increasing force on the lowering line, when actually there is very little shock loading force generated by that movement compared to tying the pieces off just past the cut and letting them bomb into the rigging. When the pieces are cartwheeling one side is moving down as the other is moving up. If you observe carefully, you can see that the action of the line is very smooth. There is very little shock load involved.

This is exactly what Mark was trying to teach in 2002. Pat and I were both lucky enough to do a lot of big removals with Big Jon. That man could tie a 40' red oak lead off at its perfect balance point every time. The size of the pieces he used lower down on a regular basis were unbelieveable. He could only pull that off by applying the above principles, combined with an understanding of overhead rigging points and dynamic ropes.

Some years ago Mark gave a talk at the Pen-Del ISA conference, which I missed. Big Jon came back reporting with a somewhat astonished tone of voice, "He (Mark) takes down trees the way I take down trees". I knew exactly what he was talking about.

Spidey tried to explain the same basic principle at AS many years ago... And many others over the years have stated thats the way they lower out pieces, so it is not an uncommon practice. I AM really thrilled to have video as a teaching/learning tool, where we can go back over and over a cut and really see what happens. I AM actually looking forward to recreating some of the mistakes I've made in non critical situations to show what NOT to do.

Making these videos takes an huge amount of time and energy, and costs a lot! If it weren't for such a slow time in work due to the economy, I would never have the luzury of making them. Its been rewarding and a lot of fun. And hopefully all involved will have something worthwhile to show the grandchildren when all is said and done.
 
That sounds pretty fancy and all, but in my humble opinion it flies in the face of common sense and vital strategic rigging objectives big time.

A wider load requires a wider window path to ground is a no-brainer to start with, and many jobs have teeny tiny windows of a LZ that every branch or log has to go through. It's as true for a takedown rigger as it is for a crane operator, the skinnier the load, the easier it is to hit your target.

Using a long tie off point to leverage a hinge on a butt hang has probably hurt more rookie takedown amateur riggers than any other thing I can recall, except perhaps the recoil on a heavy lateral when it lets go in midcut.

I don't buy the out of alignment rigging points when catching wood either, unless you want your logs winding around the spar and tangling your climbing line up.

I'd love a link to any vids promoting these fancy new rigging techniques you speak of.

Tip tie it or butt tie it, but you want it in a vertical orientation in the vast majority of situations, rigging or craning.

jomoco
 
Proof of concept, I can see the point you're trying to make in the video, Daniel. And so long as everybody understands it, and it shows in the vid, nobody is going to get hurt.

Fine teamwork, and coordination between the ground crew and the climber.

Look to be a fine job to video.
 
Thanks for taking the time to put that together Daniel.

Whoever ran the rigging ropes did a good job with flow & timing, no hangin stuff up, nice n smooth.

All those knots tied & untied over & over throughout the day costs a lot of time. You could cut the time taken at both ends by 75% using choked rigging slings with a biner on a splice.

Nothing wrong with the way you did it though, just slow, and the emphasis is on efficiency in this clip.

Also, i agree with jomoco to a point.

The way you rigged worked great in this situation, where the was a lot of height, open space and large dropzone.

Working in tight spaces with lots of valuable targets & obstacles requires things to either come down much smaller or vertically hung.
 
[ QUOTE ]


Mark explained that he liked to tie off the pieces so that there was as little movement after seperation as possible. This greatly reduces shock loads and when done properly, becomes far safer than tying off near the cut. What that often ends up looking like is tying the piece off close to the balance point, and absolutely not past its center of gravity (so the piece stays tip heavy), and then notching the limb to let it fall slowly into the rigging at a slight angle to the overhead anchor. Tying the piece off out a ways from the cut, allows the tie off point to move more before seperation, thus tensioning the line, as the piece slowly moves on the hinge. This puts more of the weight of the limb on the rope before seperation, thus leading to less shock loading after seperation.

On bigger wood, the principle is the same, as long as the climber is not butt hitching. You can see how smooth that big wood "floats" down into the rigging when the pieces are tied near the balance point. Also mentioned in the taping, but not included in this edition, is a point about what side of the piece the knot is tied on. By tying it on the back side (opposite the face), the piece has less movement when the weight come on the rope, as the knot will then be on the high side of the piece, keeping the piece from twisting violently as the weight hits the rope.



[/ QUOTE ]

I've read through this particular post many times now and find it riddled with contradictions and mistakes that have the potential of getting someone in serious trouble in my opinion.

I disagree with the entire post basically, but I want to focus on the two paragraphs quoted above beginning with the first paragraph.

If you want your lowering line tie off point to actually guide the direction of the branch/log as it's being cut, then get out to the tip of the branch/log and tie it off there where it is most effective at accomplishing that task. The longer the lever, the more leverage/guidance gained. To try and gain a bit more leveraged guidance on a butt tie off by placing your lowering line more than two feet out from the cut not only risks a nasty kickback at the climber making the cut, it's a sign of laziness in that you didn't go out to the tip and tie off there for maximum leverage with zero chance of kickback at the climber making the cut.

Quoted paragraph two, this notion of aligning the catch block 180 degrees from the load tie-off termination knot having any benefit.

The shortest distance between any two points being a straight line is the engineering fact you're trying to turn on it's ear here. Completely contrary to what you claim, increasing the distance between those two points will only result in a higher shockload to the rigging being applied, not less.

Now I want to make clear that there are indeed situations where it makes very good sense to mis-align your Hobbs with your catch block to keep your caught load from hitting and possibly damaging/cutting your line coming up from the Hobbs when that load impacts against the spar. I mis-align those two points by 90 degrees myself everytime, but never do I mis-align the catch block and load tie-off termination knot, those two points should be kept straight as an arrow in my opinion.

I hate to denigrate your post Daniel, but I have to call it like I see it, and have experienced it over many years time.
And frankly I see more danger in your "training video" than benefit, particularly for a beginning novice climber.

Feel free to ask me to vamoose out of your thread at anytime Daniel, and I will.

Respectfully,

jomoco
 
I also do not want to turn this into a debate over rigging tactics, but one of the first things I thought when I saw those trees and the overall situation was that on alot of the limbs, a tip tie and butt line would have been ideal, and that method was not used here. It would have been quite a bit more work, but would have given quite a bit more control as well.

No offense, just my opinion.

-Tom
 
I believe the point of Daniel's vids was to demonstrate a concept. Of which both good and bad points have been cited.

Daniel's efforts are to be commended whether fault can be cited or not. He did it to make a point. Of which, mostly, some very constructive criticisms have been made.

I think he succeeded.
 
You all are going to have to forgive me here.. I've got a lot of work to do yet on my social skills...

This video would have never been shot if it weren't for some dumbazz, know nothing, loud mouth idiots at Arboristsite, who got on my case for criticizing a video of a rookie climber one handing a saw over his head like he was waiving a flag, and roping off 4" limbs in three seperate cuts while the groundman was putting 3 wraps on every cut.

One of the loudest aszholes over there, calling me names and such, admitted in seperate threads that he didn't own a port-a-wrap and spiked his prunes. At that point I decided to stop posting at AS and thought I could find a good community here. There seemed to be a high level of experience and knowledge in many of the posts here.

That was a bad experience at AS for me. It really pissed me off and I lost all taste for arguing points with a bunch of idiots. I just have no patience for it anymore, which is kind of a shame, 'cause we used to have some great debates back in the day. Please don't take that the wrong way. I AM not calling you idiots. You've been very respectful and I appreciate that.

Bottom line is in the video. If we weren't fooling around with the video and such, we'd have had those three trees, rigged, roped, notched and dropped in 5 or 5.5 hours. That is one climber and four ground men. Now if someone can show me a video that is a better example of world class suburban arboriculture, I'd like to see it. Not that mistakes weren't made... casue they were, but nobody here has mentioned them yet.

So if you don't understand it... Maybe I didn't do a good job of explaining it or maybe its just over your head. I don't know and don't care. Go ahead... do your jobs your way. Tie 'em any way you want.

There is really only one person I'd like to hear comment on this thread.... Mark Chisholm... this is his technique and his web site... he's the Master... I AM just the mouthpiece... So were is Mark?... can someone get him on it?

In the mean time here's one thing to think about:

Say you are in a bucket, cutting limbs with a handsaw. Saw is in your left hand, you're grabbing and chucking with the right. On small limbs , real light, easy to handle, you can pretty much grab them anywhere, and its just easier to grab it just outside the cut, so you do..

Now here comes a 9' limb... it's heavy and your asking yourself, "do I have enough wrist and arm to handle this thing?"... if it gets away from you, its going to be ugly.. Where do you grab it? How far out from the cut?
 
Daniel, I think you do an excellent job conveying the concepts and explaining what is going to happen/is happening/has happened. And Pat is obviously an expert climber and arborist.

I was just offering my opinion, which I think is valid. Not trying to take anything away. Keep up the good work, I appreciate the time you put in!

-Tom
 
Daniel, I for one am glad that you're back posting on TreeBuzz. I know that you used to post a lot on AS but I think you'll find the discussions more thorough here.

Please keep posting!

I'm sure Mark C. will post when he has the time. He usually does, especially when you are talking about one of his principles.
 
Hey Daniel, your effort and time producing that video are greatly appreciated by me and others here, no doubt about it mate.

It was just that particular post trying to justify some of the iffier aspects of it that really bugged me. I'd love to discuss the iffy aspects of that particular post in detail with you, Mark, Pat, Gerry or anyone else who believes I may be mistaken in my observations regarding that post.

We're all here to learn and promote professionalism in this biz in a civil rational manner.

If I came across too harshly in my observations I apologize and hope we can debate the issues further so we can all learn from it my friend. Differences of opinion are nothing new in this biz, and I've been wrong many times over the years and learned from it.

Let's discuss these issues in depth in a polite rational manner brother, I'm here to learn something new just like you Daniel.

Respectfully,

jomoco
 
Jomoco,
I appreciate the tone of your last post...
If you really want to learn something, give this some thought... The things you think of as "iffier", are actually the very points I was trying to demonstrate. How to safely and efficiently rig bigger pieces without needing two lowering lines on them... Its about production without sacraficing safety...

When you get into big wood, the force multipliers from shock loading are through the roof... Now you may need to tip tie and but tie a big piece. If you feel comfortable doing that, have at it. That takes a lot longer than the method described.

This video demonstrates how to reduce shock loading using one properly placed line, combined with a good cut and good ropework. If you want to learn, study the video. Look for shock loads. Every cut that was on tape was included in the final edit, and in chronological order. The read the posts again and open your mind. Stop arguing and appraoch this as if you know nothing. Only then will you learn..

Good luck with it..
 
Okay Daniel, cool.

But it's very telling that none of the lowered branches were tip tied that I recall, nor any of them truly butt tied. It's very easy and fast to do either with a bare minimum of shockloading whatsoever provided you have a high placed lowering pulley. That's why the Hobbs and GRCS are such handy dandy tools, you can lift or lower with excellent control and maintain vertical skinny loads. It's always been my experience that wide horizontal loads bounce around and get hung up too easily.

I gather you don't feel the potential of both a leveraged butt kickback at the cutter and a wide spinning ungainly load are big enough drawbacks to your technique to preclude using it to train novice takedown climbers to do?

The true benefits of your technique in terms of time or shock loading are vague still. The safety factor involved still seems very iffy too.

I'd love to discuss the 180 degree off pulley and load termination knot benefit further too, perhaps in another thread.

Perhaps a thread with a poll so other members can have more participation in the debate subjects?

Way to hang in there Daniel and fight relatively politely.

I'm pretty thick skinned though, perhaps even thick headed too!

jomoco
 
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