Spider Lift - Usage Tips & Tricks

VenasNursery said:
"Keep it clean

Store inside ( if possible)"
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I'm going to buy and keep it in an enclosed trailer all the time accept when in use. I live next to the coast so salt in the air is an issue for just about everything.

While talking to an owner and then a technician at TCIA the both of us, owner and soon to be owner, were surprised to hear that the heavy white grease that the Easy Lift is shipped with is "assembly grease" and meant to be wiped off with Teflon spray lubricant being applied in its place. The other guy had been running his lower hour machine that way for three years - oops.

Does anyone have a great spray product they are using for the boom? @oceans ??
 
Merle Nelson said:
I'm going to buy and keep it in an enclosed trailer all the time accept when in use. I live next to the coast so salt in the air is an issue for just about everything.

While talking to an owner and then a technician at TCIA the both of us, owner and soon to be owner, were surprised to hear that the heavy white grease that the Easy Lift is shipped with is "assembly grease" and meant to be wiped off with Teflon spray lubricant being applied in its place. The other guy had been running his lower hour machine that way for three years - oops.

Does anyone have a great spray product they are using for the boom? @oceans ??
Click to expand...
I have always just cleaned mine with simple green or the purple stuff.
Lube attracts dirt , dust , and whatever creating basically a liquid sandpaper.
1500 hrs 2 1/2 years and my wear pads and booms look great.
 
I've been watching youtube videos on lift usage and even some bucket truck work to get ideas of how to get the most out of working a lift. I see lots of usage where a person is okay with cutting limbs and letting them rub their boom - both hand held and heavier rigged pieces. I even see at least one poster rigging big pieces above the boom and counting on angled under cuts to move the piece over from above the boom before it drops into the rigging. (Great plan A, limited plan B.)

Are there lift users who hold themselves to pretty tight rules of safety with regard to working material overhead? And if so, what rules do you hold yourself or your crew to? Are you still able to keep production rate up?
 
Merle Nelson said:
I've been watching youtube videos on lift usage and even some bucket truck work to get ideas of how to get the most out of working a lift. I see lots of usage where a person is okay with cutting limbs and letting them rub their boom - both hand held and heavier rigged pieces. I even see at least one poster rigging big pieces above the boom and counting on angled under cuts to move the piece over from above the boom before it drops into the rigging. (Great plan A, limited plan B.)

Are there lift users who hold themselves to pretty tight rules of safety with regard to working material overhead? And if so, what rules do you hold yourself or your crew to? Are you still able to keep production rate up?
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We don't let limbs rub or hit our boom at all costs basically..
 
I had alot of boom chatter between boom and wear pad, when I cleaned mine and didn't re apply some form of lubricant.I love lube a boom and wd 40 on our crane, black boom color , no problem , the white boom on spider makes me go for this colorless recipe, lol, oh the vanity when I come to think of it.
 
Merle Nelson said:
I'm going to buy and keep it in an enclosed trailer all the time accept when in use. I live next to the coast so salt in the air is an issue for just about everything.

While talking to an owner and then a technician at TCIA the both of us, owner and soon to be owner, were surprised to hear that the heavy white grease that the Easy Lift is shipped with is "assembly grease" and meant to be wiped off with Teflon spray lubricant being applied in its place. The other guy had been running his lower hour machine that way for three years - oops.

Does anyone have a great spray product they are using for the boom? @oceans ??
Click to expand...
We are using a dry moly lubricant, I’ll try to remember to check in at the shop tomorrow to let you know what it’s called. If I don’t remember, feel free to remind me.

It is moly colored though, it bothers me to spray dark grey stripes on a red boom, but the stuff seems to work and it’s dry, which sure beats using something greasy that will attract sawdust.
 
Think of it like a ladder.
Great to get there but sucks to work off of. It can be very hard on the body, is what I want to say. Nothing like being held fast by a tip and positioning lanyard and spurs for that matter.
 
Ahh, interesting thought Thomas. A lot of the trees I work that have lived through decades of ocean wind only need to be lightened on the outside. Frequently they are not significantly benefited by the additional hours or cost of pruning out small tangled brush inside. I'm looking forward to using a lift on trees like that as well as dead trees beyond their "sell by" date.

I'm thinking if I only use it four days a month it will be well worth having as an added tool.
 
Merle Nelson said:
I've been watching youtube videos on lift usage and even some bucket truck work to get ideas of how to get the most out of working a lift. I see lots of usage where a person is okay with cutting limbs and letting them rub their boom - both hand held and heavier rigged pieces. I even see at least one poster rigging big pieces above the boom and counting on angled under cuts to move the piece over from above the boom before it drops into the rigging. (Great plan A, limited plan B.)

Are there lift users who hold themselves to pretty tight rules of safety with regard to working material overhead? And if so, what rules do you hold yourself or your crew to? Are you still able to keep production rate up?
Click to expand...
We do not lay things across the boom, ever. Can’t say nothing has ever fallen wrong and hit the boom, but that’s always the fault of a careless operator.

We generally don’t cut anything that is reaching over the boom except perhaps the top of a tree that will fall the direction opposite the boom. That has not hurt our production one bit, we just cut smaller pieces, and more of them. We disassembled a 60’ Silver Maple that was half over a house on Friday, down and cleaned up in about 4 hours. The guy in the lift burned two tanks of fuel in his 201T, and a partial tank in his 400, and kept the ground crew hustling. They only had to trim one or two branches before chipping them, and made about 12 yards of chips, plus 1/3 of a log truck of logs.
 
Merle Nelson said:
Ahh, interesting thought Thomas. A lot of the trees I work that have lived through decades of ocean wind only need to be lightened on the outside. Frequently they are not significantly benefited by the additional hours or cost of pruning out small tangled brush inside. I'm looking forward to using a lift on trees like that as well as dead trees beyond their "sell by" date.

I'm thinking if I only use it four days a month it will be well worth having as an added tool.
Click to expand...
You may only expect to use it on occasion, but you’ll find that it will largely replace climbing. There’s no sense in owning it and not using it every time you can, it’s a waste of efficiency to leave it sit and climb when you could be up in a bucket.
 
Reach said:
We do not lay things across the boom, ever. Can’t say nothing has ever fallen wrong and hit the boom, but that’s always the fault of a careless operator.

We generally don’t cut anything that is reaching over the boom except perhaps the top of a tree that will fall the direction opposite the boom. That has not hurt our production one bit, we just cut smaller pieces, and more of them. We disassembled a 60’ Silver Maple that was half over a house on Friday, down and cleaned up in about 4 hours. The guy in the lift burned two tanks of fuel in his 201T, and a partial tank in his 400, and kept the ground crew hustling. They only had to trim one or two branches before chipping them, and made about 12 yards of chips, plus 1/3 of a log truck of logs.
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Thanks for the perspective and facts to back it up Reach. I would like to use it very cleanly or not at all. And your post points to my suspicion that this can be done and keep production up.

As an example of getting into trouble without even trying I have rented various lifts and used them about 8 or 10 times in life. The last time I did I was working a wide spreading oak removal and the lift was maxed out over the house. A lot of the limbs I cut and held by hand were long and tangled up in other limbs and I had to jerk them hard to pull them out. Reflecting on the job after the fact it occurred to me that if I was already close to maxed out on weight limits that far out in the bucket it wouldn't have taken a lot more force from pulling to go over max.
 
Merle Nelson said:
Thanks for the perspective and facts to back it up Reach. I would like to use it very cleanly or not at all. And your post points to my suspicion that this can be done and keep production up.

As an example of getting into trouble without even trying I have rented various lifts and used them about 8 or 10 times in life. The last time I did I was working a wide spreading oak removal and the lift was maxed out over the house. A lot of the limbs I cut and held by hand were long and tangled up in other limbs and I had to jerk them hard to pull them out. Reflecting on the job after the fact it occurred to me that if I was already close to maxed out on weight limits that far out in the bucket it wouldn't have taken a lot more force from pulling to go over max.
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I suspect that even if you were close to the limit of the lift, you are not going to be able to pull the lift over by hand. Keep in mind the safety factors the lift has built in - the manufacturer will tell you in the manual, but it should be able to handle a 28 mph wind, and it should have a “lateral force” rating; I believe that will be around 100 pounds. The safety factor of that lift should allow it to handle the rated weight in the basket, plus the wind, plus the lateral force without falling over.

Don’t take that as a license to do whatever you please, I just don’t want you to fear that you will be able to tip your lift over just because you’re pulling pretty hard on a stuck tree limb.

Also, not sure if yours is this way, but our CMC has the center of the pivot much close to one end than the other, so we try to set up to work over that end, especially when we have to work far out to the side - like a crane, it increases the working load limit, or at least decreases the tip-over potential that way, as the machine is acting as it’s own additional counterweight.
 
RopeShield said:
Think of it like a ladder.
Great to get there but sucks to work off of. It can be very hard on the body, is what I want to say. Nothing like being held fast by a tip and positioning lanyard and spurs for that matter.
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Ladders are not great to work off, way more core involved than standing in an aerial platform, this is not hard on my body I guess I can't speak for others... comparing it to climbing from a harness isn't very fair though Thomas. I have been climbing over 20 years and when there's a real deal climbing job to be completed I'm the one doing it whilst my 20 year old employee works from the lift. He would be wore out and sore doing the same thing I'm doing on my tie in point lanyard and spurs i wont even break a sweat. I'm not saying I'm superman and certainly not saying he wouldn't try his best or perform well with his all 20 months of training thus far , but he's half my age and knows when to use a line or a lift basically without question with a fraction of experience. Maybe I'm just that good at training him ;) long winded way to say....
All tools have a place in time..
I could go on and on and on
I won't
happy Sunday yall
 
Sorry you missed my point. Many times the lift just gets you there with less effort but I personally found getting out of the bucket and tie in and getting the actual work done with the machine out of the way is more profitable. Of course it depends on the task. No argument here you do you but be aware of how you stand, brace and load your body.
I climb everything mostly and leave bucket work for others.
Climbing is still pretty easy for me but lift is always on my mind
 
RopeShield said:
Sorry you missed my point. Many times the lift just gets you there with less effort but I personally found getting out of the bucket and tie in and getting the actual work done with the machine out of the way is more profitable. Of course it depends on the task. No argument here you do you but be aware of how you stand, brace and load your body.
I climb everything mostly and leave bucket work for others.
Climbing is still pretty easy for me but lift is always on my mind
Click to expand...
It should be brother ! You can do end weight reduction prune very quickly with little effort as opposed to climbing the tips and we do many of them and just maintenance for beautiful mature trees.
 
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