How big of a top do you dare rope out on it's own spar?

[Scars2prove-it]

I usually don't go too big because quite frankly I'm afraid to do it. I have done large tops from my bucket but that doesn't count.

 

[monkeypuzzle]

It depends who is running the ropes. My best rope man is also the best chainsaw man, climbing man, ground man, so he is not always available.

 

[ORclimber]

Also depends on what kind of tree and how sound it is. My blocks and ropes max out at 1500lbs SWL, but I rarely rope over 200lbs. The common exeption being hanging a block in a central lead and lowering the other tops.

roping cottonwood tops scares me.

 

[treeman82]

I agree with Brian here. I will take as big a piece as the situation allows for. Obviously if there is not much room to work down below, I won't take a big piece. If I can tie in somewhere else, or have the piece swing out away from me from another tree... I will take a big piece. Two things that will always make me take small pieces are; rot, and a skinny tree. Rot scares me. The other thing is if the tree is skinny, simply because I can feel EVERYTHING so much more due to not having as much mass to spread the stress over.

 

[Abbershay]

I would do any size. I sometimes do it just to test what i can get away with on the rope.. If it is questionable i will tie it twice at different levels just incase the first impact takes the rope out. It is simply amazing what the black max rope will take. It is pretty cool to feel the weight and the woosh of those huge pieces of wood falling . one thing you can do if you dont feel safe about your belt on the other side of the tree is take an eye screw bolt and screw into the tree and use that to hold yourself to the tree this will protect you if you dont get enough of an undercut and tears....

It does scare me. after all if you screw up it could kill you very fast .. but so can a 80000lb truck in traffic..

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

200#, sound wood; sounds real reasonable to start.

From there, my first question would be, how fast could it be run, possibly into the ground, then, how slow could i bend it over, before going over ~200#, if load/shock on vertical will go straight down into ground through spar-or if spar is leaning. i like rigging such forces straight down host tree and not spreading out load to another high support in another tree, because of the side loading possible on host tree, at such a high leveraged position.

 

[Stumper]

No disputing Brian's answer but if you are struggling to get a handle on how big is safe I think that Spydy's 200 lb rule works well. Much bigger pieces CAN be taken safely in some situations and I've done so at times but I like to take pieces that I stand a chance against in a fair fight. 200lbs or less don't pose much risk of iniating failure in typical host spars and can be wrestled with if necessary.

Wish you were here Brian-I've got a big elm this week that I'd much rather watch you do while being your groundie. I can do it but I won't enjoy it.

 

[NickfromWI]

200 pounds sounds very.....little. If you are using the right equipment, a thousand can be reasonable. Now dropping huge chunks on Black Max sounds a bit scary , but if you've got the right equipment, why waste the time?

love
nick

 

[MasterBlaster]

Out of a bucket I've broken 3/4 lines before on large pine tops(weird situation).

Climbing? Roping the top out? Lets just say a 1/2 is all the rope I'll ever need!

 

[Abbershay]

, All the shock is below and broke the rope on a really huge elm but i was just practicing what i could get away with so it was a big deal. It really amazing to see what you can get away with. I leave pleanty of slack to make sure that it gets as far away as posible. It burns the rope but it doesnt matter i have lots of rope.. The one that broke that rope i would have guessed it to be about 4000lbs but it was really cooking.. If i would have had another rope on it is wouldnt have broken the second piece.

 

[Abbershay]

i beleive you but i cant believe you could break a 3/4 line on a tree much less a pine... was it old?

 

[Stumper]

Abbershay, I wasn't there and you were but I have difficulty imagining a 4000piece of elm on your rope. A couple of years of dumping at a pay by weight facility was educational for me-very few trees have 4000 lbs in the entire top.(I know that you guys in the PacNW work on some monsters and there are biggies scattered all over the country-I'm talking about average residential trees.) As Brian alluded to, you could have very easily have generated far more than 4000lbs of force dropping an 800 lb piece onto a slack rope.

P.S. Green pine is pretty heavy and they come in all sizes-I don't know what Butch did but the potential for huge forces is there.

 

[Abbershay]

well i do my weight estimations according to how the clam works to load the stuff.... the pieces acted about the same as a cadillac. the tensile stength on 3/4 is 20,000lbs..

I never weighed the stuff but it was reallly heavy full of water.

just a 12'' diameter piece of elm 12'' long is 56 lbs if i remember right.

I weighed my pick-up with a load of fire wood and i was at almost 10,000lbs.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Originally posted by Abbershay
i beleive you but i cant believe you could break a 3/4 line on a tree much less a pine... was it old?

Trust me.

3/4 line CAN be broken.

I've seen 6" rope snapped like twine!

Of course, that was a 300 ton boat offshore.

 

[Joe]

Originally posted by Abbershay
well i do my weight estimations according to how the clam works to load the stuff....

???

just a 12'' diameter piece of elm 12'' long is 56 lbs if i remember right.

There isn't a cubic foot of wood in a 12" cylinder of wood 12" long. It weighs less than a cubic foot of wood.
For American Elm it's 54' per cubic foot.

It's perceivable to have 2 tons of wood on a rope. I ran across a couple of figures I recorded from dong an oak removal. I estimated the largest piece to be about 2900 lbs. I believe it was trunk wood taken by a crane.

I weighed my pick-up with a load of fire wood and i was at almost 10,000lbs.

Yep.

Joe

 

[TREETX]

I am with Lovey on this one.

Don't do anything you aren't comfy with but 200lb is pretty small. Heck, I am even in central TX saying that.

Up north, west, and east, I don't see how you can rope everything out a sniglet at a time.

Know your equipment, know its limits. Know your trees...

 

[Stumper]

Nathan, I grant that bigger is often sensible but.... We all think we are stonger than we really are or something. Weight rooms are one thing but manhandling trees we tend to overestimate the weight of what we are moving. A limb or top that I can't pick up is HUGE and I know that my limits are lower than what most people assume.

 

[rbtree]

I have seen a video made at an Arbormaster training in Vancouver of about 40 feet of a 110-120 foot fir being lowered out. Impressive! The tree was rather spindly, but with an open face and judicious load running, it went smoothly. I rarely do that with a conifer, but occasionally lower tops of 30-35 feet in bigger trees, maybe weighing 400-500 lb....and trunk wood of well over 1000 lb off itself.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Originally posted by Can-Do-It
It seems my rope man took a extra wrap around the bottom our letdown tree and it was to much. much to much.

Sounds like your groundman eats the same stupid biscuits for breakfast as the ones I deal with.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Consider yourself lucky. At least you've got someone that can learn from their mistakes.

These guys here wake up every day to a new world...