Thunder Sling - New super light aerial friction brake

Pelorus said:
I liked the video.
Lowering something heavy enough to require 3 or all 4 rings...how happy the ground personnel gonna be repeatedly having to pull harder than they should have to, to get the end of the line back up to the climber?

No way the climber is gonna be doing that....is he? Whereas with a block and porty, the climber can retrieve the line kinda effortlessly.
Click to expand...
With a BMS Belays Spool, the climber can lift all the rope weight off the BS if the climber is at the BS. If the BS is 10' above, there is only 10' of effective rope weight causing the rope to grab the steel.

I suspect that its similar.

Part of the idea is that the climber does a lot of the lowering work, rather than watching and waiting for the groundie to land a piece while running the lowering line. While the groundie is working over the lowered piece, the climber resets the rope, and the next rig, and cuts and lowers, or sets up for the groundie to catch it and pass the rope to the climber, or lower it from the ground.
 
When doing the initial lowering work, is it likely, even necessary that the climber is gonna be one-handing the saw while making the backcut?
 
for obvious reasons, be nice to be mid line attachable if you already have a lowering crotch set and are below cutting and you come across the need for friction (heavier piece...gm is in woods taking a leak...) . A mini porty is perfect or fig 8 for that, not this thing that has to be threaded. It is the Zig zag of lowering devices :-(
 
I think somebody out there will find it useful, perhaps only because they do things differently or see advantages that outweigh the drawbacks for some particular application. The Rig 'N Wrench idea appealed to me immediately, and I've been very happy with its performance... mostly because I can do a lot of stuff solo with it that was a pain in the ass to do without it. I'll keep playing with variations of the setup until something even better comes along, but I think that all of these ideas have merit whether or not they fill my needs. I don't see evil, ulterior motives hiding under rocks or ripoff scams lurking in the dark corners. I see one idea spawning more, similar ideas. It's called empirical knowledge, and it's a good thing.

This one doesn't appeal to me much, but somebody is bound to love it.
 
Pelorus said:
When doing the initial lowering work, is it likely, even necessary that the climber is gonna be one-handing the saw while making the backcut?
Click to expand...


Sure, if you want. One hand the back cut with you hand saw or chain saw.

Tie off the tail. Pinch in between your boot and the trunk. Take a little friction with a small trunk wrap and have the rope weight on the tail, help hold it.

I've definitely been able to cut, let it start falling, then grab the rope or pin it to the tree. Probably obvious, don't do this with too big of a piece.
 
And that wasn't a pointed statement, Pelorus.:)



Again, another sorta obvious when pointed out, but someone newer might not be as savvy...

If I'm working close to the top-side friction source (natural crotch, BS, etc), I don't want to be so close that I can get a finger munched.

If I'm working close to the friction source, I'll aim more toward pinching the rope against the tree with an open hand, and intentionally not grabbing the rope.
 
How much 'pull' do you think it takes to pull the unweighted rope through the rings with one hand on the "up" feeding rope, and one hand on the 'down' pulling slack?

I'd caution about dropping things with too much friction. You have very little rope in the system, shockloading 1' or so of rope. When snubbed off when the LD is at the ground, there might be 40' of rope in the system.

Hanging it higher in the tree, with a fixed or floating nature, would be more effective at catching without resetting, and adding more rope above the tied-off wood.
 
I ran mine some with 16 strand through 4 rings and I would say about the same up but probably double down as if you were the groundie. I did play with a pulley up above the sling to help the groundie by replicating the upward rope movement and it did cut some of the pull weight down. Basically I was tricking the rope to think it was being pulled from above. It is a nice tool for those occasions but as other have mentioned it does have some drawbacks just like everything else.
 
southsoundtree said:
I'd caution about dropping things with too much friction. You have very little rope in the system, shockloading 1' or so of rope. When snubbed off when the LD is at the ground, there might be 40' of rope in the system.

Hanging it higher in the tree, with a fixed or floating nature, would be more effective at catching without resetting, and adding more rope above the tied-off wood.
Click to expand...
Well we will probably agree to disagree.

Couple of thoughts here:
  • When relocating the load to another place in the tree, (higher, other tree, other limb etc.) an estimate must be made that it is able to hold it and the shock load if one develops. Also the load from a base anchor control.
  • Put rope in the system so as to allow a gradual capture of the shock load that builds because of the rope in the system.
  • Use the currant load bearing structure, the limb itself and only reduce that load by cutting the limb, just like putting your arm to your side.
  • Do not let shock load into the system by preventing the limb from dropping vertically. The energy from the swing can be absorbed by the foliage on the limb or contact with the trunk.
So what I'm working on is a way to hinge the limb with almost zero drop at the cut or of minimal effect. (I'll put a load cell on the next one for some actual numbers)
This may work for limbs, pruning etc but not be suitable for negative blocking the trunk without some method of controlling and slowing the swing into the trunk.
 
Every ring is added friction so this makes sense like a munter the load bites as it goes. So if you run through the wham bam sling then a basal ring at 90 degrees that should hold 1 1/2x the load so could you hold 750lbs? or use 1 at the bottom you could hold 1000 lbs.

It makes sense sense every time you add a point of friction you can hold more. Cool tool but not revolutionary. As well pray to god the piece never gets stuck and you have to lift or pull up, because that won't happen especially if there is flex points in the rigging point.

But all the same good work.
 
KevinS said:
It makes sense sense every time you add a point of friction you can hold more. Cool tool but not revolutionary. As well pray to god the piece never gets stuck and you have to lift or pull up, because that won't happen especially if there is flex points in the rigging point.

But all the same good work.
Click to expand...

Don't know how I missed that. Well played, sir.
 
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