Three different double-whip rigging configurations.

[Treetopflyer]

Two blocks is my preferred way. I feel it gives the most control in lowering. I don’t like rings as rigging points.

Tony

What don't you care for in particular about rings, tony? My experience has shown me that the person controlling the lowering line needs to be intimately familiar with the differences in friction a ring or rings will provide vs. the friction blocks provide.

 

[Tony]

What don't you care for in particular about rings, tony? My experience has shown me that the person controlling the lowering line needs to be intimately familiar with the differences in friction a ring or rings will provide vs. the friction blocks provide.

By control of friction I am speaking to double block rigging. Even with two blocks I have had issues where I could not remove enough friction to let a piece descend into a system slowly. Rings would exacerbate that.

For the record we are speaking of using rings in place of a block. I like rings in some redirect situations. Just not as block replacements.

When rings replace blocks I don’t like the loss of midline attach/remove. I don’t think rings protect the rope enough in top down rigging. Unless there is a lot of rope on the fall side of the system, they don’t back feed slack like a block will as the piece goes to free-fall in a top down set up. I think stacking two or three rings together with clever splicing adds to these dislikes of mine.

I see and have to correct many “sloppy” set ups because the ring(s) is/ are on some kinda “ultra” sling and the rigging point (ring(s)) cannot be set up tight to the tree as it/they should be.

While I fully recognize that in some scenarios weight is a legitimate concern, most that claim that benefit the loudest just need to toughen up and do a tough job, with well placed proper rigging in my judgement.

Rings, like many other things in our industry, come and go. They have been here before in different forms. I tried then, took what I could, learned some lessons, improved a touch, went back to, in my mind, the more solid methods, albeit with a new insight and a few new techniques.

Now they are back, but I have been down that road. I’ll stick with blocks for heavy rigging.

Tony

 

[Mark Chisholm]

I echo Mark, who btw should run for office as far as I’m concerned. Keep your options open depending on how you read the situation.

Thanks for your vote!

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

My answer to friction to reducing control leg load on the support,
but then not be able to pre-tighten thru said 'friction buffer';
is mostly to have climber 'get inside the system' and reach for both worlds :
By '2Handing' and then sweating the line tight as can before friction buffer as ground control pulls out slack.
Favor climber hanging on a return side (down from support whether actual control leg or going to block on load); as lifts with leg force applied to return side of redirect that is received on load leg against load thru hand(s).
>>so that w/o friction would be collecting bodyweight + effort(leg) + equal& opposite(hand) of effort against load.
Even impacting some. Even very powerful arm as effort input and other arm as asserting back into system, but leg of course even more so.. Usually the Equal and Opposite is 'wasted' outside the system/not against target. Here we recycle that equal opposite back to pull on load again with redirect, and hey add bodyweight that is usually wasted/not focused against target while at it!

Friction cuts down on the return, but then 'friction buffer' is also friend in holding the rope 'purchase'(ABoK) drawn thru system. Then when linearly along it's length as tight as can be, sweat line across that linear rope length, and capture purchases behind the friction buffer/ out of the 'raw' force part of system pool or rope to control side.
2 very simple things, that climber position is key to, when all others remote/on ground.
Sweat again etc. tweaking. For the tighter each time of the line being leveraged across; then more iron bar tight/less rubbery that lever is, for greatest return from effort.

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This can give about best of both worlds: pretightend and higher friction; rather than exclusive antagonistic choice between the 2! Especially adding back in strong 5/1 pull into Porty etc. on ground to the mix as climber does their part in air.
When a rope run that can't work this as well on to 'get on both sides of something' at once to '2hand' (bodyweight and effort on control leg from pulley as hand also lifts against raw load side to collect bodyweight + effort + equal opposite against load) then to sweat, have used end of climbing line and small pulley as tighter to the rig line.
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Then if overhead rigging, hinge load down into rope to use load to pretighten rope! Even if not supposed to go down so much; if pretightened rope and it can't go down, are then just tightening rope tighter!
Then if angled rope to make load turn to side has MUCH more power to do so. So can cut down to load rope hard, then cut across for more powerfully controlled movement. Then to give more sidewards angle, exaggerate angle by how it meets load from support.
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With 2 part input (bodyweight and effort) 1 part can hold the purchase and other part can impact to tweak more purchase of line from (increasing tension and/or decreasing distance). Usually folks just have capacity to pull until bodyweight, or lift until leg strength. Putting both together, then adding equal and opposite of effort can be total absolute game changer in right powerband; let alone conspiring to then impact and the to use all that only as a preset staging to sweating the line tight as real target instead(after rope iron bar tight)! If a long horizontal, reaching out further than hitchpoint on target can give even more leverage if can flex limb from there. But still can go back to rope higher off load and take out rope stretch between there and load. Tweak, tweak, tweak real tight, quick if very targeted.
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Even on ground tie downs after job etc. Dropping back hard against a zRig, as also snatching upwards between the redirects so that it catches impact of bodyweight back, hand pull forward as an impact and then also thru body carries equal and opposite of hand effort again against load. for 4xEffort + 3xBodyweight used (each as impact if can orchestrate) is very powerful and quick upgrade to 3/1! Being able to sweat or 2hand rope like this; are 2 of the most simple, powerful yet forsaken rope strategies i have ever known;let alone both against same target!

 

[Mitch Hoy]

One thing that concerns me about adding too much friction to a double-whip system is line-leg isolation. Theoretically, putting friction on the piece or at the cut point stops the rope from stretching as a single body depending on the amount of restriction of movement. This could cancel some of the dynamic properties we tend to select in ropes for this application. It could also be much more damaging or stressful for the short leg of line, which in this case is our knotted end (straight pull abs at 50%).
I do use a set of rings and a heavy block for double-whipping, with the block on the piece. In my mind if the rope is allowed to move with a little friction up top, it can still stretch. I haven’t had a block attached to the piece suffer any damage. Double-whipped pieces seem to hit the stem lower end first, getting a pendulum effect from the attachment point on them.
We only do a couple jobs a year where I consider double-whip for negative blocking. I am usually bidding a job for the crane if the alternative is blocking down multiple >1000# pieces into rigging.