Friction devices aloft

[xtremetrees]

Well, I can understand that. I Have thought of a way to fly thru a forest hanging ropes while the ground men riggs/loads your ropes withthe treres. you wanna be carefull not to blow up/out/down limbs tree you use for rigging /load points. This is the zero ground impact way and I have been moderated in accord with what I sought. When the whole trees waves gently to the house slows down as it approaches the eves and hangs in the air above the chipper.
What do you mean a twisting notch is that sum kinda imbention.

 

[xtremetrees]

To the tree guy that manages large tops 2500 3000 lb on a GRSC all day/ even out the buckets my hats off to you.

 

[Tree Machine]

I do have the option of rigging big wood, and I have, many times. I find that in the time it takes to rig a big limb, get the ground guy and his gear all dialled in, I could have by then cut the brush off the end and whacked the rest of the limb into firewood chunks. It's done, and the ground guy was doing something else while I knocked that out. In traditional big limb rigging, ground guy waits for you to rig, you wait for him to lower and untie. Whatever time that takes, double it from a man-hour perspective.

if I didn't ultimately have to buck it up into firewood, I would proably go with the rigging of bigger wood, more traditionally. If I had a chipper that would eat the whole limb, I would definitely lower the whole limb. Consider your machinery before moving onto self-belaying of limbage. it may not be the fastest way, so stay with what works for you.

 

[Tree Machine]

Tm Did you always float trees like that one pic you got floating the tree above your truck.

This client of mine taught me the art of floating trees.

 

[simpletreeman]

thanks for the info treemachine, btw you're a funny guy.

So would you attach the limb to be lowered to the lowering line by using a sling choked around the limb with a steel biner (functioning as a moveable pulley) or is there a better option for the attachment like a small pulley or ring? Would the rope be running free through the biner besides the friction or could you possibly use a munter hitch, although I know you dislike hitches? Thanks

-stm

 

[Ny finest]

TM<


Could you show some pictures of your rigging setups?How many slings do you typically use? I read the whole thread I guess they won't let you show us roping by yourself but the general setup would be interesting.
My job as a sub consist of doing nothing but big ugly removals and I'm always looking for ways to shave time.
Case in point:Yesterday I had a huge Douglas Fir coming down.It was around 45"dbh in between two garages (6ft apart) with the primaries running behind the tree.I had a 6x20ft area as a drop zone between the garages.At 130ft tall there was a lot of limbs to be lowered.I used a couple of slings to speed up the process but would a boquet help in a situation like this?How do you attach the slings to your line?
Also, the tree had a lean to it and as I changed my rigging point as I went up the tree It was positioned more and more over the roof.Would a boquet make things more difficult? That may sound like a stupid question but I don't know your technique of attaching them to the line.
Finally,the spar had to be blocked down.The smaller wood at the top I was able to cut and throw but at 70 ft up it was 20" and too heavy and akward to throw in such a tight area.So I had no choice but to rig the wood down.I know that practice is frowned upon at this site but I end up doing that all too often.

Thanks in advance for the insight on the subject

Nate

 

[clearance]

The drop zone was 6x20' the chunks were 20" and you couldn't throw them into that spot, eat some more buddy, I pushed of Doug fir blocks that were like 30" into a 4x4 area. After you do it a lot you will get better, no need to rig blocks.Get your groundsman to build walls with the blocks to protect structures, if you fire them into the same spot it pounds a hole and the next blocks stay there or close by.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

There goes another good thread....

 

[Tree Machine]

I don't know why you say that, Spidey. How Clearance describes is exactly how I would do it. A 4x4 area is plenty of room. To rig down individual blocks of wood has got to be one of the slowest bottlenecks you can create. It's nice to do now and again so you stay sharp, but as a regular pattern of knocking down a spar, or trunk... only if it is directly over an area that absolutely requires it.

With bombing firewood chunks, you can count on gravity to do it's thing, and wind has essentially no effect on big chunks. I have bombed tens of thousands of firewood chunks, though I have rigged maybe a dozen pieces. There is nothing to prove in lowering mondo chunks if it's not needed.

I wish I had pics of a dead oak I dismantled a couple weeks ago, very similar to NY Finest where trees to the east of the oak cause the majority of the oak's limbs to grow westward, and the lean of the towering crown also to go westward, so almost all of it, except the mid and lower trunk was over the house (this is my favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite work). My ground help were three relatives of my wife's, none of which had tree experience. This is where the art of solo aerial rigging shines. All the ground guys needed to do was unclip a biner and drag the limb away. This was a tree that two other companies said would require a crane. I'm happy that I could tie in to the hickory to the east.

Now it's not fair to compare a 70' leaning oak to a 140' leaning fir, but the lean is the same, and in both scenarios there's a house below. Chances are, the techniques can be the same. Aunt Sarah took all kinds of pictures, but I haven't seen them yet.

As far as bombing chunks into a tight area, chances are you're on spikes, so you should be able to move around the trunk like a squirrel. If the chunk is really big, and the lean substantial, and you're not TOO FAR out over the house you do your salami cut from the positive incline side with a little length in your flipline. Once through, lanyard your saw, tighten your flipline to the point of balls on bark, move around to the negative incline side, position yourself for a big push, then give it a big push. This will get you a good bit of distance if needed, especially if you're generally good at doing pushups, b'cause that's the motion. I usually prefer to do the cut, set the saw on lanyard, tighten up the flipline, pull/rotate the chunk back towards me until it balances, half on and half off. With two free arms and a chest I dump it off to the left and back of me. A tight flipline is essential. If you drop the chunk between you and the spar you're on, that would be a major problem. Remember, the chunks I am talking about are 16" firewood lengths, no longer than that.

If I bomb chunks longer than firewood length, it would look more like this, where a ground guy is assisting pulling it off, from a distance, with a rope.

 

[Tree Machine]

As Clearance says a tight zone is not hard to hit. One chunk is generally, pretty much the same as the next chunk.

My target zone is smaller than Clearance's. I pride myself in being low-impact, so I have a sheet of old plywood and the testosterone tire on top of that. My impact zone is the size of a truck tire and I use this regardless of whether the area below is sensitive or not. If I create divets in the earth, I have to fix them, so the fewer the better.

The first pic shows a hollowed out maple. I'd gotten all the limbs dow, chipped them, and then I go up with a bigger saw and do the chunks. Some of the bomb shunks were over the house, but most of them were over a sensitive area between the house and the trunk. There is a sheet of plywood and a testosterone tire somewhere in there. Note the ALAP stump in the upper right of this pic. Note ZERO impact on the lawn. This is the beauty of the testosterone tire on plywood on tarp.

Second pic is the source of the testosterone tire, I cornered a curb a little too tight.

Pic three IS the testosterone tire, actually three, but there are two chipper tires stuffed inside the truck tire. This sucker has taken some major pounding and has saved countless divets. It is my drop target and nailing the sucker dead-on is one of my favorite things to do. If I miss, I generally hit plywood. With any 'new' piece of old plywood, I like to bore a handle hole in each end, giving a means for a ground guy to shift it around by hand, or sink a sling in it so it can be tugged and moved.

Hitting this small a target is really not hard, much faster then rigging the chunks, and the time in setup is quick and obliterates the time that would have been spent in in forking and filling divets.

So we're off topic a bit, but I promise to come back to solo aerial rigging and lowering and address the questions of Simpleman and NY.

 

[xtremetrees]

Thats a good point that you make about positioning your body almost against the tree. I find most chunkers do this. Pushing verticle snap cut logs or firewood. They may rarely sit on the saddle thou be tied in.The use of two lanyards seems great for this type work.

Nice pics bro. Big saw for big trees right on.

Heres this weeks job, I rented two (faulty) chippers and finally got a good one. I made a quick time video of the chunking this small tree with a 44 but its 177 mb.
http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=31912

Here let me go take pics of the chunks on my truck.

 

[Tree Machine]

Two lanyards is an excellent measure (unlike the pic of the sycamore mondo hunk a couple pics ago). Whenever I'm spiked into a spar I have the flipline sunk and my climbing line chokered right alongside and I'm attached to it also. I always try to be tied in twice when making a cut, as should we all.

 

[Tree Machine]

Nice pics bro. Big saw for big trees right on.

I love working the 395 up in the air. It's a great big laser light saber. I'll usually opt to reduce the trunk in firewood blocks rather than dumping the trunk as it keeps the mess more localized and my saw out of the dirt.

 

[xtremetrees]

Do the tires ever wear out? Nice pics bro easy to understand

Could you bomb concrete or asphalt beneath the tires?

 

[Tree Machine]

Do the tires ever wear out?

Surprisingly, I have pics of a set that 'wore out'. It takes a lot of bombing, though.

Could you bomb concrete or asphalt beneath the tires?

Not recommended, but yes, though it would really depend on weight and height. Once did tarp, then 10 x 10 carpeting, then plywood, then the tires. Now if I'm over concrete or asphalt it goes tarp, plywood, big stack of brush, skip the tires til the brush pile collapses some and the chunks being bombed are lower and bigger. Then throw the tire on the brush. The lower the trunk, the better should be your accuracy to hit the target dead-on.

Big chunks can bounce back up pretty high sometimes. It is most entertaining.

 

[046]

thanks again for sharing. amazing what one or two pictures can do.

 

[Tree Machine]

Well then, here's one or two more.

The first is the bomb system I used, jeez, for 5 or 6 years. I t was so helpful I actually designed my tree truck system to accomodate them.

Three tires held together by a rope and a retired biner. All that had to be done was cut a couple holes opposite each other with a jig saw w/a metal cutting blade, and put a termination on a short piece of rope. Normally I'd drag the trio, in-line, but there was a way that if you stood the three up next to each other, without removing the rope from the holes, you could use the biner to clip the ropes together inside the tires so they would all roll as one and wouldn't tip over. This required a dual-eye length of rope, and a small stick through one of the two eyes and sometimes I could get it, but sometimes I couldn't figure it out. It was like one of those mind bender puzzles, only with tires.

These are the tires I blew out. When 'new' the jig-sawed hole were intact. With the biner clipped to the eye, I could pull the other end of the rope, and drag all three as a unit. Through a couple of years of major league bombing the ropeholes blew out and the biner would pull through. Easy fix; choker the last of the three. But then after another couple years of intensive bombing, the sidewall and steel cord around the rim seal blew. I worked hard to destroy that piece of gear.

The three functioned OK after that, but with the tire torn like that, I sorta looked like a hack, and we can't have that. I could have replaced the one majorly blown out tire, but let's say you adopted three kids, they're all brothers. Could you truly get rid of one and replace him?

Anyway, since I now knew it was possible to destroy a tire, I wanted to build a better, stronger tire. My bombing aim had gotten seriously good over time and I decided to upgrade and go with ONE tire, with two tires inside it. Actually, one chipper tire was stuffed inside the truck tire and I couldn't help but wonder if another one would fit in there. Had to wrastle it, but possibly for the first time in human history, two chipper tires were stuffed into one truck tire. It's now the Bomb Target. I s'pose you could call it Ground Zero because its on the ground and its shaped like a zero, or for zero impact on the ground. I hate fixing lawns and am thrilled when I can send down a couple hundred chunks of firewood and never create a divet in the lawn. I mean, that's a good day in my book.

Early in the days I would lay a piece of carpet over the tires. Carpet didn't last. I tried carpet under the tires. Carpet didn't last. Also, I thought it looked kinda hackish, and we can't have that. So then for about three years I had this section of rubber conveyor belt that covered most of the three when they were arranged in a triangle. I will drop a saw log on the tires also, but this takes a little skill to nail it impacto directo. Let me see if I can dig up a few pics of the tires and log slammage and the conveyor belt.

 

[Tree Machine]

I found em.

 

[Tree Machine]

So enough on tires. The story to that moral is that there are creative ways of getting wood down without rigging, and the system is really moderately price, if ya know what I mean.

I've gone into good detail for you for a reason. It answers the question to how the Tree Machine gets by without rigging big wood when big wood is over an area that requires rigging. This is one of the ways. I may rig down a fatter diameter limb, but will likely remove the brush (chippable) end first, so the small cut end would be about wrist diameter. The 'limbs' are long stubs at that point and I may knick that limb 5 or 6 times at firewood length intervals and then make the cut. This way most if what comes down has a consistent length and I have the ground guy stack them strategically over a choker rope so I can gang-cut the pile the the big saw.

I am not a compulsive freak. I'm a professional firewood maker. I do a lot of it every week, do it in excellence and have a good number of methods and techniques to get it done swiftly, which means profitably. I just take it serious as I have limitless people who will take it away. All I have to do is create a quality product, and give it away for free. This is also how I can keep my rig small, and general overhead low.

If you have no reason to turn your takedowns into 100% firewood and an occasional saw log, then mebbe reading this stuff is completely worthless.

So should we try getting back to aerial friction devices?

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

i've (ab)used tires too similarly. i use a thick brush pile on top of the tires. Over some roofs with no over head place to rig, and weight low enough that ya know it has to hit roof, i rig piece under itself, pretighten line and then tires/ brush under. The line takes so much of the impact, doesn't let the piece run away, tires/ brush take the rest. Sometimes the tires/ brush are touching the load piece right after facing, then back cut and let it crush down the matting.

A few times pulling over ~48"+ diameter stumps, mebbe just 4' tall, have stacked tires on only available open area- the driveway; and then muscled stump over to crush tires flat with a belch of air; and no damage to concrete!

Kinda like rope elasticity in reverse, whereby; rope is elastic tension device, tires are elastic compression device. Another thing we've done is to lay 2 spars as rails pairallell with a fall; then half way cut through spars trestled across; so as to catch spar being felled and break the halfway cut through spars. If it takes 1000# to break one, that is 1000# force matched/ dissipated of impacting force. i call it a mechanical fuse; cuz it blows out at the overloading of so much force. Can have tires or brush underneath to. Felling on otp of stuff can keep it off the ground and relieve some bucking pressures/ allowing some shifts on soft stuff under tree, and pivots of balance. The pivots of balance can let you chop some stuff of the heavy end as light end is ballast relieving some pinching, then switch ends (if necessary/ assuming opposite end is now heavy) as to see-saw the fallen spar back and forth. All this also lets ya cut under fallen spar, and keep saw outta dirt too. 1 problem with that and tires is the steel belts in them.

Dang nice arch strategy! i was going to get another look at it to perhaps make a point about an adjustable stop over end of spar inside arch (to help float opposite end better?), but got tired of chasing thru the tiered indexing trails and more replies below this level stuff after half a dozen tries; and that is not the first time....