Short or Long Spikes?

Colin · Mar 23, 2006

Colin · Mar 23, 2006

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Well maybe if you had a friend in pennsylvania (joke) you could send him money and he could ship you the things you need. How is it to import things into your country?

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I have some good folk ship me some things, no worries, they're in WA and WI, here's a webcam shot of one of the places http://www.tenforward.com/webcam.php burrrr pretty cold!

I'm sorry, I dont get the Pennsylvania joke? Are people their like the people from Maine? Apparently their a bit different the further north you go?? But dont hold me to that it's just what I hear on the grapevine.

Here's a list of what I had sent, ropes, caddie pads, ms200 carby, ms440,ms250,ms200,pretty cool hey ...

God Bless America!! and the internet. /forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Colin · Mar 23, 2006

Long gaffs here, just sold my short gaff Kliens.

Mark Chisholm · Mar 23, 2006

I like the short T2's. And Big jon, if they go all the way in and still won't hold, then I'd climb back down-slowly! /forum/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Peter McS · Mar 23, 2006

I prefer the short gaffs, however the 2nd climber in my team prefers the long ones. I asked the groundie about it today and he said that we have diferent styles of movement. He noticed that i prefer to stand on branches and in forks where as andrew will clean everything away from his feet and rely soley on his gaffs for support.

Graeme_McMahon · Mar 24, 2006

If the gaffs are identified at point of sale as "pole climbing" or "tree climbing", are we voiding a degree of the manafactures waranty or directions? My understanding is that you use pole climbing gaffs on trees at your own peril.

Mparko93 · Apr 30, 2021

Colin said:
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If you have both types, when do you change between? When you loose traction, or do you make a perfect decision every time before you leave the ground?

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Hi Graeme

Depends on the tree, if it's thin barked like Chinese Elm, Leopard trees etc I take the shorts, if it's like Pine or Ironbark etc I take the longs ... if in doubt take the longs.

Sometimes with species that have a sock like Blackbutt or Flooded gum you need the longs to get past the sock but shorts will do the trick once you are in the canopy .... so instances like this I assess whether or not I have to block down the sock ... if so, take the longs, if not and the barrel can be felled then I take the shorts ... of course a high lines in to get past the sock.

I wonder why they don't make a medium? I have Bashlin climbers and the difference between the short and long gaff is huge ... the only place a completely bury a long gaff on those Bashlins is in the crown of a palm.

Anyway, a few fans have been asking if you sell your DVD's yet? Last I saw your vids was GreenX Sydney 2003, have you any new material?

Hi Colin,

Do you have two seperate pairs altogether ? OR are you changing the spikes over?
I ask as I've just bought my own set (apprentice here!) and not sure if I really want to rock the long spikes on certain palms and trees, but my first thought was is it going to wear the screws downs enough to create a weak point if I'm changing screws over etc?

Reach · Apr 30, 2021

Mparko93 said:
Hi Colin,

Do you have two seperate pairs altogether ? OR are you changing the spikes over?
I ask as I've just bought my own set (apprentice here!) and not sure if I really want to rock the long spikes on certain palms and trees, but my first thought was is it going to wear the screws downs enough to create a weak point if I'm changing screws over etc?

@Mparko93 The poster, Colin, has not logged in on TreeBuzz since 2009, so you may not get an answer from him...

I’ll take a guess though and say that he has two sets of spurs. I don’t see many people changing the gaffs out on the job, my thought is that it would be bad for the screws, and just plain too time consuming to change them all the time.

Mparko93 · Apr 30, 2021

pete_mctree said:
I prefer the short gaffs, however the 2nd climber in my team prefers the long ones. I asked the groundie about it today and he said that we have diferent styles of movement. He noticed that i prefer to stand on branches and in forks where as andrew will clean everything away from his feet and rely soley on his gaffs for support.

I can see how that works !
I have just switched to longs and have noticed that

Serf Life · Apr 30, 2021

Unless we are taking down a big and deeply fissured pine I run pole gaffs. More nimble when one needs to run out on long limbs and comfortable (imo) in small diameter hardwood. Spikes are super shallow in rock maple and the expansive red spruce here has pretty thin bark. If it’s 90% conifers then tree spikes.

Mparko93 · May 2, 2021

Th

Reach said:
@Mparko93 The poster, Colin, has not logged in on TreeBuzz since 2009, so you may not get an answer from him...

I’ll take a guess though and say that he has two sets of spurs. I don’t see many people changing the gaffs out on the job, my thought is that it would be bad for the screws, and just plain too time consuming to change them all the time.

Thanks for the response!