throwline reel

Re: Shotline Reel Jan 15

Ahhh, but you already have one, Jerry.

What we are going to do just slightly different, and this is because of the tapered drum, is to make the lip slightly higher and we're going to pack the reels with 200 feet of line instead of 180 or 150 like you get in replacement spools. The extra length allows us to fill the low end of the taper to flatten the drum ideally, early on.

On my (current) reel I put ~90 feet of Zing-it and tied it to ~90 feet of dynaglide. If I want to try the different line, I'll do a monster shot, empty the remainder of the reel, then wind the line starting from the other end.

On the first run of the new reels we will be putting All-gear's Fling IT line, which is dyneema, same as Zing-it, different color (Orange).

I'm contemplating a usage video, not that the thing is complicated in any way. The ground help who have trouble folding up a cube should do quite well with the reel. I want to show how you can be reeling the line in <u>while</u> walking to the truck, and a real-time demo showing just how swift this procedure is, beginning-to-end.


We're looking for a permanent name for this device. 'Shotline reel' is very, very close in name to Tobe Sherrill's BigShot line reel, a closed-face fishing reel nothing remotely like the winder we're talking about here.
 
Re: Shotline Reel Jan 15

Oh, I thought the newest reels were going to be different, Jim. Still have yet to get Rion at the Woodland office to ship me that box of freight I sent from Baltimore. The reel you gave me is in that box. Along with a bunch of other stuff I sent back. Dang it.
 
Feb 2010, the shotline winder is now available

[ QUOTE ]
Hey, Jim, I'm drawing a blank page when I click on your link. But nonetheless count me in for one of your limited run reels

Jer

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Me too. Cody

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry about the bunk link, try <font color="blue">this link. </font>


Reel 001 went to Geezers.
002 and 003 to Australia
004 Purdue University
005 is mine

I'll continue to number them so we can track performance and durability.

The pricing is the same as an F cube, except the reel comes pre-loaded with 200 feet of line and a Black Diamond Micron mini-biner, which is the user's choice whether or not to employ. It is ready to go to work as soon as it gets to your door. Just add your favorite weight bag and your whole shotline / rope setting experience become a kinder, gentler animal.

The performance, I am <u>very</u> happy to say, is excellent. 200 feet of line goes on in 29 seconds, casually, winding at a reasonable rate. You can expect and count on, a 50 foot shot (50 up, 50 down =100 feet of line) will require somewhere between 10 to 15 seconds to put back on the reel. You can retrieve the line back onto the reel while walking the reel back to the truck. Although I don't know this for sure, firsthand, I believe a noobie groundguy could be trusted with this and manage this new tool with success from the first time in his hands. It is very straight-forward, intuitive and uncomplicated.

By far the biggest advantage though, is being able to throw or bigshot right off the reel without tangle.

85 feet is my best BigShot, off the reel, so far, though I haven't been going for a record, just regular use at work in setting lines. I 'measure' by virtue of having a 150' rope and the reel has 100 feet of red Zing-It and 100 feet of orange Fling-it, I'm not actually using a measuring tape. I estimate. These aren't highly critical measurements. The 85 foot shot left my 150 foot rope 20 feet short by the time the bitter end left the ground (yes, I went and got a longer rope).

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200 is the magic number

Beranek, we loaded your pre-001, the fetus model, with 180 feet of dynaglide.

I suggest you pull the line, add a minimum of 20 feet to the start of the line, and then re-wind it with the full 200 feet. This completely solves what I thought would be a problem with the tapered drum. By having the 20 feet of scratch line, it builds up the shallow V and the rest of the line goes on (and comes off) really nicely. At max velocity (bigshot), the line comes off more quietly than former reels, assumedly then with less resistance.

The all-important 'lip' that had to be formed on the former 'vertical drum' versions no longer applies. The 'lip' on this version is the fire-polished top edge of the opposing taper, and it just works GREAT!

I have to honestly say, this version of the reel is the best performing of any version yet to date.
 
Re: 200 is the magic number

Jim, the guys in Woodland put the box, with your reel in it, somewhere in the warehouse. I would have made a video for you by now if they would have gotten it to me. I'm still having a difficult time with those guys.

On another note the guys at Bailey's are looking at your reel. You may be a call from them about it. Looking that way.

Glad to see you're marketing them now. It's a great device. I give it two thumbs up.
 
Re: Reelin\' in the years

Wow, the Shotline Winder has a theme song.

I'm with Gibson now, can't get it out of my head.
Good one, Tom.


TrevMcRev, glad to know your two reels made it to the southern hemisphere OK.

Here's a pic of Trev's reels, along with the debut showing at the ISA Indiana Chapter annual conference and expo. Trev's reels are right up front, one has a shorter lip, the regular version, and the taller one, with a higher lip to accommodate the 400 feet of line for his work in the Eucalyptus reglans, the tallest trees in the southern hemisphere.
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Re: Reelin\' in the years

TM,
My order from TreeStuff arrived and either I got reel #006 or #900 depending on how you look at it.

I'm either in the lucky top-ten or the lucky top-thousand adopters...

...either way, glad to have it.

Do you see the old-school throwball in the first picture which we found in a hedgerow after it'd been lost for many a year?
ShotlineWinder01.jpg
ShotlineWinder02.jpg
 
Re: Reelin\' in the years

Pigwot, I want to personally thank you. You are both a lucky top ten <u>and</u> a lucky top thousand adopter. When you report back, just promise no sugar-coating of the feedback, we want the good the bad and the ugly. I doubt there will be any bad or ugly, though.


As far as being a top 1000 adopter, there are only 300 of these available. I bought out the entire stock of raw reels, the boxes came with a heavy coating of dust as they had been stored for a couple years in a warehouse as the last run. A well-aged vintage. For the reason of the limited production, I chose to not advertise these in the TCIA magazine.

I asked TCIA if I could write an article introducing the winder, but they said it would be a 'conflict of interest' since the writer of the article is the same person who's doing the promoting, and who wouldn't want that privilege? They told me to write a blurb, along with a picture and submit the write-up to be published in the "Cutting Edge Products" section.

If the intent was to move these things fast, a blurb in a magazine with 20,000+ subscribers would be the way to go. However, 300 is not a big number and I'm choosing to share with the online community exclusively. The choice to <u>not</u> advertise in TCIA is deliberate. At 300 reels, profit is hardly a motivation, we addressed that earlier. As far as Gerry Beranek, and the offer to hand-deliver this idea to Bailey's, as much as I appreciate and value that kind offer, I must also politely decline. Tobe Sherrill.... let me start a new post on this.
 
Re: Reelin\' in the years

Tobe was the first to see the reel. I brought an early version to the TCIA Expo, Milwaukee, not the recent 2008 show, but the one 4 years earlier, 2004.

Tobe held it in his hands, we talked, discussed some ideas and shook hands.
At the time, I did not have a consistent source for the raw reels. I had ten from an earlier purchase, but truly felt like the reel needed more refinement. Every time I improved it a little bit, and then used it with the new improvement, I could envision another way to improve it further.

Now Tobe could have chosen to capitalize on the idea and run with it, and at the time I had no legal protection to do anything about it. But he's a bigger man. He also knew that if I produced a reel, it potentially could have a competitive impact on the shotline management tools sold by Sherrill. But Tobe knows that new, advanced tools help the Arbo community and it's not really about one company vs another. We're all in this together, a pretty tight-knit community, and benefit to the tree care community is truly the goal.

So Tobe, I just want to personally thank you. Your efforts are huge toward educating our community through the Sherrill catalog, bringing us new products and being a place where innovators can display and sell their products. Your involvement with the professional arborist community (not to mention the recreational tree climbing community) is unparalleled. As a whole, we probably wouldn't be where we are without you.

At this point, the shotline winder has been refined to the point where I can't find a way to further improve it and I can be proud and confident that it will benefit the extreme end user in speed, efficiency the elimination of tangles. The bugs have been worked out, the t's crossed and the i's dotted. The reel is real. Just don't run over it with your truck or send it through the chipper and you should get years of service out of it.
 
Re: Reel improvements

This is Gerry Beranek's reel. Compare it to Pigwot's reel......

198581-newmodel.jpg




ShotlineWinder01.jpg


See how Pigwot's orange-line reel has a higher lip? On Gerry's pre #1 the lip was cut flush with the inner handle. I have found that a lip about an inch high, like Pigwot's is just perfect.

Remember earlier how I said I didn't like the tapered-drum reel?
Well, I learned it simply needs to be initially wound up differently
than the old vertical drum reel.

On the older vertical-drum reel, you want to wind the reel so you end up with a slanted buildup of line. With the newer reel, you're already starting with a slant.

On the vertical drum reel I would start winding the empty reel by tightly winding on a single, continuous wrap onto the drum, from bottom side, completely to the top side covering all the plastic surface on the drum; THEN start building up the shallow taper profile with line.

On the new reel the line starts building immediately in the V-ist part of the shallow V on the reel. Then the line is applied to the reel and you build the slant form without covering all the plastic on the drum first.

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