Work Photos

I used this setup
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to remove this
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before rigging the rest so I could cut it loose
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and lower it after coming down.
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Removing live limbs isn't my usual thing, but the owner can't afford a pro removal and asked me to remove as many as I felt comfortable taking down. I'll probably get a couple more low ones as well as some dead stuff higher up.
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I was able to isolate a high TIP and a redirect after one good shot.
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That let me get in position to cut all this stuff
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that was hanging below the damaged and healed limb.
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That took about 75% of the load off the healed area, so I felt comfortable leaving it there.
 
So I was out for another three week stretch due to back problems (why I haven't been posting much), but have a few days back in the saddle now. Then yesterday, my ground guy tweaked his back.... and after buying the Arial Friction Brake setup from @JeffGu a while back ( https://www.treebuzz.com/forum/threads/light-rigging-sold.47899/ ) I decided sure, today is the day I'll try it out, I'll do a canopy raise over a septic system on this big ass fir solo.....

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I used slings from my MonkeyBeaver speedline kit, and by facing the limbs and hanging them into the hook, felt very confident in the safety of the system, but obviously you wouldn't want much swing or dynamic motion or it could come loose. Once on the ground, I had no trouble shaking the limb off the hook from in the tree.

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Big tree, big limbs. The device, is.... OK? Honestly it handled these huge limbs with total confidence which was great and all, let me do this solo which was neat. But you do have to fight the line back up even with 'one wrap' and working both legs of the rope, and that one wrap let me hold like 400 pounds of limbs at once with one hand. I didn't lower anything small or light, but I imagine that you'd be fighting it a bit to just get it to the ground. Just running it over the device gives hardly any friction, so you can hardly go lower than this setup. Using this with three wraps would be interesting, you'd need to be doing huge pieces. But in the right application, it would have a use.

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Multiple limbs at a time slung together. I also ended up bringing the rope bag and tail of the lowering rope up with me so it wasn't on the ground getting tangled. Made things a lot easier with bushy 25' long fir limbs, but I had to get all tangled up to learn that lesson, and I still had to go to the ground twice during the job to process material. So yah, got to ascend this three times today...

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Pile o limbs on one of the trips down to process.

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Great tree, great weather though.

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All done.

All things considered, the job went well, though would have taken like 1/4 of the time if I had my ground guy instead of doing it solo. The AFB let me get it done, so it certainly gets points for that, and I'll be hanging onto it for other occasional use.
 
Hanging limbs from a higher limb is really working for me.
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I like that the limb moves away from me when it's cut, and I can control the swing with a rope on the butt end. The limb will hang clear of my climbing gear while I come down, and I can lower it safely by backing the car up.
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Yeah, it's slow and terribly inefficient, but it's worth it to eliminate the chance of getting something tangled in my climbing gear that would keep me from being able to come down. That's my biggest worry working solo.

Besides, setting up the rigging, getting in a good climb, and cleaning up a big limb like this is enough exercise for one day.
 
Yeah, it's slow and terribly inefficient, but it's worth it to eliminate the chance of getting something tangled in my climbing gear that would keep me from being able to come down. That's my biggest worry working solo.

Another huge benefit of SRT. Since the rope doesn't have to move, as long as it is or can touch the ground, you can get there.
 
I cut the small stuff by hand with my razor saw from the redirect. The limb itself it much too big for hand sawing. I can set up the rigging from the ground with the Big Shot so I'll only need to make one cut with the 12" electric chainsaw to get it hanging.

I'm not a big fan of using the chainsaw in the tree, so I plan the work to require as little of it as possible. Thankfully, I'm doing this as a hobby and a way to get exercise, so I don't worry much about speed and efficiency.
 
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Yeah that’s it, and I cut the far side of the hinge off, we call it a swing cut but I’ve found that other people call these things different names . Like the sizwheel: we call it a draw notch. I never heard the term sizwheel until recently. Tree was leaning away from the camera hard and back to left. I was standing on little saplings and pieces of face cuts in the creek trying to keep my feet dry, kinda wobbly.
 
Always impressed with your technique man, good mix of work by the look of it too. Terminology can be wicked local, Sierras vs coastal Humboldt vs BC. I’m just sifting through in Maine behind a book and screen…

I like hotsaws101 older videos which have a couple “soft dutchman” examples, didn’t know if you’ve utilized? It accomplishes the same kind of turn to the lay but with a bunch of cripple kerfs in a Humboldt. Wish he had done some closer shots of it as the swing to lay without driving a wedge was impressive.
 
Sometimes it works good. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all.
Can’t trust it. Those Doug firs were holding on pretty good. Jack(hotsaws101) excellent timber faller for sure. I saw that soft Dutchman video, crazy.
 

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