Rigging block sizing and slings

I also agree with letting groundies haul the gear up. When I wrenched all the time i would just poke a bight from between my hitch and my pulley, hook a revolver with throw weight on it in the bight and have the groundies hook the rigging rope, block/sling, and saw up to it all at once. Once it gets to me, tie a stopper knot and secure each piece one by one before undoing the knot.
 
I've also taken to incorporating a little loop of accessory cord with accessory biner to each piece of gear I may ask for in the canopy. This was a response to a near miss I had not long ago:

I asked for the 3/4" big block with the dead eye. The groundie didn't give the sling a look over (I know, I should have looked at it before I ascended, but I had changed my mind on the GP after seeing a weak point in the tree that needed an additional block). The lock stitch thread was damaged, and the splice was a long straight bury instead of brummels. The groundie tied to it with a cord loop, girthed, in the eye loop of the sling, on the buried end.....perfect storm. When the sling pulled apart, I yelled headache and the greenhorn looked up instead of boot scootin' out-a-there. Missed his face by way too little. I made a few changes due to that incident.
 
i work shorter trees than presumably a lot of you guys, and i still would prefer a rigging line longer than 150'.
Ideally i would have a 150' and a 200', but we take lines off a "community spool", so i dont want to burn someone else in the company who needs a line cause i wanted a 200'er just in case...
ive taken some good sized stuff off a 1/2" line, neggy rigging or anything else. as long as things are runnin', its all good around here.
but its the only rigging rope you are going to have, i wouldnt cheap out and just get 9/16"
 
Ya know.....I can't believe anyone hasn't brought it up yet, especially you x, there may be a better and lower cost option in x rigging rings if you are comfortable with the idea. My only concern is the long run to ground on the pines you are looking to do. I usually use x rings when the run is short, because of the heat build on the anodized rings. X could give you a billion times more and better info on this, as I am still green as all get out on the rings. I use em more for redirects than anything else, and you probably won't be doing any redirecting in the stereotypical white pine (unless low and behold they grew up without any other trees next to them and they actually have a canopy to speak of).
 
Full ring conversation may happen for me in the next year or so, depending on how much time I get to mess around with gear before next winter. Seems like I usually do all my major changes over winter time. Durring the busy time of year, it's just make what I've got work the best it can.
 
JTree said:
Ya know.....I can't believe anyone hasn't brought it up yet, especially you x, there may be a better and lower cost option in x rigging rings if you are comfortable with the idea. My only concern is the long run to ground on the pines you are looking to do. I usually use x rings when the run is short, because of the heat build on the anodized rings. X could give you a billion times more and better info on this, as I am still green as all get out on the rings. I use em more for redirects than anything else, and you probably won't be doing any redirecting in the stereotypical white pine (unless low and behold they grew up without any other trees next to them and they actually have a canopy to speak of).
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Jtree, what do you want me to speak on? Heat is low on XRRs on lowering from trees. Even tall trees. but I caution against low heat tolerable sling material like dyneema.
 
I can't believe everyone on here mentioned the ISC 5/8" block and no one suggested the CMI 5/8". Every tree guy I know in this area has at least one CMI 5/8"! They're $50 cheaper, a pound lighter and just as strong. (OK, they have a lower manufacturer WLL, but that's only because ISC uses a 5:1 safety factor and CMI uses 7:1; the CMI still has a MBS that's 5500 lbs greater than the ISC.) Why no love for the CMIs??

I would copy Swingdude's recommendation, exactly, except swap the ISC for the CMI and pocket the $50, IMHO.
 
theXman said:
Jtree, what do you want me to speak on? Heat is low on XRRs on lowering from trees. Even tall trees. but I caution against low heat tolerable sling material like dyneema.
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IDK, X. Y'all are the gurus...like I said, I'm still new with the rings, and the thread is getting long upon long for me to go searching for specifics right this second. Could have sworn you said at one point that you would always recommend blocks over rings for long repeated operations. Maybe I'm remembering wrong.
 
Jtree, yes, I probably did. Long runs or repeated runs. What is long, what is repeated though? For all normal tree rigging, rings are king.

The other week, we were pulling logs up a long steep hill. Using 1 inch amsteel 2 coated plus as the pulling line. Pickup truck did the pulls. Pickup would drive down the road pulling the rope. Two beast rings was the final re-direct. Many pulls happened, lots of force, lots of friction due to the large line, long distance. I would have used blocks if I had numerous 1 inch blocks, but I only owned one and it was being used earlier in the extraction system.

I felt the rings after the last pull and they were hot. The hottest I have EVER felt any rings. I would guess 150 degrees F. I could not keep my hand on them for a long time; heat was too much.

So if I said, long runs or repeated runs might get them hot, I was correct.

I would not suggest someone lower a 1000 lb log, 3000 feet to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on XRRs.
 
Ha, alright. So yeah, back to the original question of the thread, if you are competent splicing, make a nice 3 ring sling and forget about the block. If you aren't confident, go with the block.
 
three ring sling would be limiting....as he could not negative block....so my suggestion is still go with the block and get two single large rings on 5/8th tenex dead eye style and have many options....many....make one 10' the other 14'
 
I wasn't talking about 2 rings on one side and 1 on the other, but 2 on one end and one on a prussick, but yeah, I hear ya.
 
swingdude said:
...but one block one sling and one rigging line.....I would go with ISC 5/8 small block red, 15' 5/8 tenex dead eye, and 200' 9/16 stable braid by Samson.....that will do a whole heap of damage....
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The more I think about it, Swing hit the nail on the head. Look at Crash's original post: For someone new to rigging who's making his first rigging gear purchase, Swing's recommended gear list will not only get him thru every rigging job he should be attempting in his first year, but will also continue to be useful as he moves forward and adds more gear to his collection. Loopies, Whoopies, X rings, etc are all great additions to anyone's gear bag, but they're also more specialized pieces and not as widely versatile as the basic 5/8" block, dead eye and Stable Braid combo.
 
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