tool/chainsaw lanyard attachment options while in a bucket truck?

Phil

Phil

Carpal tunnel level member
Location
Oak Lawn, IL
In the past I have attached the chainsaw lanyard to the same fall arrest anchor my deceleration lanyard is attached to while in a bucket/lift. On some units, the location of that anchor means the lanyard is too short to reach the cuts or the saw lanyard interfers/crosses over the bucket controls. These days I have taken to attaching the chainsaw lanyard to my fall arrest harness as there are no other options for attachment on the bucket. I specifically use breakaway lanyards.

Wondering where others attach their saw lanyards while in a lift.
 
I've never used a saw lanyard in a lift or seen it done. I don't have enough faith in breakaway lanyards to trust them in that scenario. The potential loading on the lift if the lanyard doesn't immediately break is far more dangerous than dropping the saw, in most cases, in my opinion. Depending on the lift as well, spider-lift being more delicate than bucket truck, etc.
 
You can attach any lanyard to a weak point such as a zip tie. Choose your strength.

I hang rigging lines on zipties on my saddle gear loops.
 
Muggs said:
I've never used a saw lanyard in a lift or seen it done. I don't have enough faith in breakaway lanyards to trust them in that scenario. The potential loading on the lift if the lanyard doesn't immediately break is far more dangerous than dropping the saw, in most cases, in my opinion. Depending on the lift as well, spider-lift being more delicate than bucket truck, etc.
Click to expand...
I understand that sentiment. The lanyard is meant to prevent accidental drops of the saw, which even the smallest saw dropped on a ground worker would be devastating. Then there's the damage to the tool to consider. I know it seems like we have more control in a lift as far as gear storage when compared to climbing. Saw is in the bucket when stored, we are in a standing, stable, upright position on two feet when cutting, there's no branches to knock the saw out of its storage holder like when we climb etc. but the human factor is fickle. We get tired, our hands and arms cramp, ground workers enter the drop zone when getting complacent, our gloves get wet, dexterity fades, not every tree worker is as in control or as competent as some.of us, so we kind of work to the weakest link and lead by example. Unfortunately, we have had several saws dropped from a lift simply due to operator laps in judgment and awareness. No lanyards were used. Luckily no one was hurt and we just had damaged saws. My work requires lanyards and I agree with that. The question i posed was raised at work so I wanted to see if there were other solutions that I hadn't considered.

I use light weight lanyards like this:
belcherspower.com

# 17049 BUCK TOOL TEATHER LANYARD

Save yourself the worry of dropping a tool with the Buck Tool Tether Lanyard that keeps your tools secured. Expands with the user's reach to reduce fatigue and contracts easily to the original length when not in use. Features stretch cord surrounded by tubular nylon webbing, lock stitching at...
belcherspower.com belcherspower.com

If the saw gets stuck in a log, this will not stop it. Which is fine. If I'm cutting, the drop zone is clear anyways.

Some breakaway lanyards have like 200lb limits which is crazy to me because exactly what your concerns are.

Tracked lifts are kind of a different ballgame though. Their tipping margins are probably much smaller compared to traditional truck mounted booms. On that note, anyone have any info on tip over testing on spider/tracked lifts? I would be curious what load is needed to tip a rig at full side reach.
 
Muggs said:
I've never used a saw lanyard in a lift or seen it done. I don't have enough faith in breakaway lanyards to trust them in that scenario. The potential loading on the lift if the lanyard doesn't immediately break is far more dangerous than dropping the saw, in most cases, in my opinion. Depending on the lift as well, spider-lift being more delicate than bucket truck, etc.
Click to expand...
I use a saw lanyard everyday in my lift. I know saw snatching is a potential but precise saw handling helps mitigate that potential. IMO
 
flushcut said:
I use a saw lanyard everyday in my lift. I know saw snatching is a potential but precise saw handling helps mitigate that potential. IMO
Click to expand...
I agree that precise saw handling helps mitigate the potential of a saw being snatched, and for myself, saw snatching is not of particular concern. Not because it has never happened to me, but in general I feel I know how to avoid it. This is how confidence works, we feel that it's all well and good for other people to follow a certain rule, but as for me, well I know what I'm doing so I'll be fine. Is my confidence misplaced? Probably, at least a little bit. I have had a saw at least partially snatched from me but I've always been able to yank it out as its happening. I have dropped a saw out of a lift before. I was stowing the boom between overhanging branches, looking behind me, and branches lifted the saw up and out of the scabbard. It was not good. I have dropped a saw while climbing, lowering a big 28" bar 575 down to the ground while exhausted. It took a free-fall of at least 30 feet. It was not good. I have also seen other climbers drop saws while climbing, one was using a lanyard with a non-locking crab and one was moving the saw to the belt after pulling it up on a rope. Both situations were bad. All situations could have had injuries, God forbid.

But self-confidence aside, to me the issue is about employees. Just because I feel comfortable and confident that I can avoid saw snatch, am I just as confident that my apprentice can do the same? For me the answer is: not really. I just bought a spider lift last week, and my apprentices will be running it a lot this year, so this issue is important personally. Saw snatch is far more common on big cuts with big saws, and these cuts don't usually happen until the operator is tired.

I would also argue that 'precise saw handling' helps mitigate the potential of dropping a saw at height, which is what the lanyard is there for in the first place. It's a really delicate balance to find a lanyard that is both strong enough to do its job of catching a dropped saw (shock load) but also weak enough to break away when called upon. Maybe it's fair to say that everyone here has heard stories of breakaway lanyards that didn't break when the user thought they should have. I don't know the right answer. Maybe I'm just old and breakaway lanyard technology has come a long way in the last 10 years. Maybe I need to try one of the newer lanyards. Maybe zip ties are the answer. How many zip ties to use is the question. I would love to know how much peak-load a big saw can generate, being dropped on a fully extended lanyard. You're talking probably at least 7 feet of freefall to be absorbed by a short piece of textile. I have a load cell, I should try it. Would be a big difference between a top handle and a big saw with a big bar. Has this testing already been done? So many questions.
 
I'd venture a home brew saw lanyard made out of small cordage which can takes a few hundred lbs. 15 lb saw at 6 G's is only 90 lbs and 6 G's is a pretty big spike. You could start simple, a little longer than currently causes frustration and tweak the length. Make a handle-girthing loop on one end and cinch-knot an accessory biner on the other - tool-less construction. At least you could try it out. Maybe a longer lanyard will start to get in your way. If it works ok the construction could always be refined.

I only dropped a saw once in a tightly branched pine when a branch unhooked the caritool or bent it, I'm not sure. I had an MS260 snatch on a spar and a regular webbing style lanyard made the yank and catch on a caritool. Cross-loaded too!

As to the peak G's, spar chunks -ve rigged put either 5 or 10 G's peak in the rig line, IIRC it's 5 in the line and 10 on the block sling. Your saddle snubs the G peak quite effectively hence my number 6 G's. The odd random orientation of the saw at catch will convert drop energy into rotation energy too further decreasing the spike, similar to how -ve rig spar chunk reduces the spike by converting drop into swing velocity at the catch spike.

edit - confirmed 5G's in the line and 10 on the sling. From my notes it was a hard fought battle to tune my test rig to get that. There's spike absorption in several places and my final key was resetting the rig tip sling for every drop because it absorbs quite a bit when it slips/skids on the spar to loaded form.
 
Last edited:
Phil said:
If this video actually posts and loads properly, Makes me wonder what a snatched saw would actually do. How much force was placed on the boom by the tree? by the operator falling?
Click to expand...
Was the saw snatched or did the tree hit the lift?
 
  • Like
Reactions: ATH
IMO compact lifts are only made as strong as the need to be and no more. Kinda like building a house to the code required minimums.
 
southsoundtree said:
Shoulda cut a Humboldt and backed away at time of commitment.

What is the lag time between activating the controls and movement?
Click to expand...
On that lift, almost no lag. It does have a ramp up feature, so it doesn't jolt you out of the basket, but it responds pretty quickly. I blame the operator for that one though, you should not keep a lift in place where the tree can roll onto it. When I made cuts like that out of our lift, I always boom up hard as soon as the tree starts to move, so I am above the butt.
 
100% user error. To my eyes, he also doesn't have his harness adjusted properly. He should end up hanging quite vertically, but he is hanging like the dorsal attachment there is way low on his back; should be higher, right between the shoulder blades. I hope he didn't suffer to much whiplash. people have broken their backs like that.
 
To me, I could see the spar hit the bucket in the video.

A standard conundrum is let the saw break away, you're not yanked out of the bucket/tree but the saw drops onto people/targets below, or avoid the saw drop (not-breakaway lanyard) but risk a big yank that could hurt you.

I guesstimate 50 lb breakaway would be good middle ground compromise for mid/small saws. Could be tuned to preference or saw size/weight from there. Tuning that experimentally would make a good arborist version "hownot2" video. Suggest using dummy weight-"saws" for dropping. Maybe the ex-mythbuster guy would do the experiment/vid?
 
southsoundtree said:
Shoulda cut a Humboldt and backed away at time of commitment.

What is the lag time between activating the controls and movement?
Click to expand...
Little lag time but its grabbing the right toggle at a crucial moment is difficult. With a spider you really have to pay attention to what’s going on and think of all the possible outcomes before committing to the cut. Just my personal observations.
 
Phenomenal contribution to do that test and put it up - thank you. I wonder if it is breaking the zip ties, essentially, one at a time? So adding more gains little. Perhaps going to beefier zip ties?

Separately TreeStuff has break away lanyards with two bucklesnaps that they say reliably break at 300#. I've wondered if removing one snap would get that down to a reasonable level for lift use on a top handle saw.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom