How strong does my rope need to be?

[sofasurfer]

I'm not an arborist, I'm just a guy who cuts a tree from time to time. I recently cut down a couple of trees and used a rope to guide their direction. It worked out well. I learned this by watching a "pro" cut down a tree. I have a cheap rope from Harbor Freight, 75ft long and a working load of 300 lbs.... https://www.harborfreight.com/mater...8-eighth-inch-camouflage-poly-rope-47835.html
I also used a cable to extend the length.
I tightened the rope with a ratchet strap such as this.... https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...7?store=1682&cid=Google-Shopping&gad_source=1
This all worked out great and it was a good learning experience. I attached the rope about half way up the tree and with more practice I could have gone higher. I was able to tighten the rope enough that I could barely crank the ratchet any more. So far the rope did NOT break. I cut the tree and it fell right where I wanted it to.
My question is...I want to buy a proper rope. How much working load do I need my rope to handle? I was really surprised at how much force I could put on my cheap rope. I looked at an arborist rope at my local landscape and tree dumping yard. It was about 150ft and something over 1000 lb working load. They told me it was for dropping limbs and the price was $130.
What type, strength and price should I aim for.
I anchored my rope to another large tree, but when another tree or anything else is not available how do you anchor your rope? How adequete is it to attach to a pickup truck.

 

[J D]

All the questions you are asking are very subjective to the actual situation & will likely vary with every tree. By all means buy the best rope you can afford that you feel will do what you need it to, but make sure you know what it is rated to & keep its use to within thoae limits. Usually if you have to put a rope on a tree to get it to go where you want it to there's a reasonable chance things will go horribly wrong if you stuff it up. That generally isn't the kind of tree felling you want to be doing without a bit of experience & a reasonable amount of consideration.
There are ropes with different characteristics for different uses (more/less bounce erc) so thats something else to think about before you buy anything

 

[Groundman One]

I'm not an arborist, I'm just a guy who cuts a tree from time to time. I recently cut down a couple of trees and used a rope to guide their direction. It worked out well. I learned this by watching a "pro" cut down a tree. I have a cheap rope from Harbor Freight, 75ft long and a working load of 300 lbs.... https://www.harborfreight.com/mater...8-eighth-inch-camouflage-poly-rope-47835.html
I also used a cable to extend the length.
I tightened the rope with a ratchet strap such as this.... https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...7?store=1682&cid=Google-Shopping&gad_source=1
This all worked out great and it was a good learning experience. I attached the rope about half way up the tree and with more practice I could have gone higher. I was able to tighten the rope enough that I could barely crank the ratchet any more. So far the rope did NOT break. I cut the tree and it fell right where I wanted it to.
My question is...I want to buy a proper rope. How much working load do I need my rope to handle? I was really surprised at how much force I could put on my cheap rope. I looked at an arborist rope at my local landscape and tree dumping yard. It was about 150ft and something over 1000 lb working load. They told me it was for dropping limbs and the price was $130.
What type, strength and price should I aim for.
I anchored my rope to another large tree, but when another tree or anything else is not available how do you anchor your rope? How adequete is it to attach to a pickup truck.

Get a good 1/2" rigging rope (about 1000lb WLL) from a reputable company. It will handle most of what you will want to do and it's a great all-purpose rope. If you think you're really going to beat up on the rope and stress it out, go with 9/16". I've been beating up 9/16 ropes and they can really handle a lot. The WLL on a 9/16 will be about 1300 to 1500lbs. It's a great rope that will handle most jobs. It's what I use every day.

If you have the cash, spend the cash. Get a quality rope. And if you get a carabiner to use with it, make sure it is suitable for the rope. I use the Iron Wizard carabiners and they are about the same WLL as my 9/16 rope, so it avoids a weak link in the chain, so to speak. Same with any pulley or other device you might get. Keep a balanced system with the same minimum WLL on each piece. One less thing to worry about.

The difference between a cheap rope and a good rope is the cheap one might surprise you with how much it can handle. No surprises with the good rope. You can simply count on it.

 

[Groundman One]

I have a cheap rope from Harbor Freight, 75ft long and a working load of 300 lbs.... https://www.harborfreight.com/mater...8-eighth-inch-camouflage-poly-rope-47835.html

The problem with a rope like that is it might work well, or better than expected, and you'll begin to trust it. And that is not a rope to be trusted when life, limb, or valuable property is at stake.

That's a... handy rope. Good for a bunch of different things, but not tree work. Too dangerous for hardware store tools.

You'll have to excuse me, I'm a bit of a rope snob.

 

[solserenade]

Maasdam Rope Puller Kit (150 ft)​

$174.99
treestuff.com
for basic work it’s hard to beat this IMO - maybe add a few good carabiners and a pully… and a “big shot” - you can really increase safety and confidence.

 

[EchoRomeoCharlie]

I would not be doing any tree work with harbor freight rope. Simply too dangerous of a situation to deal with cheap rope.

If all I needed was something to pull trees with, I would get these:
https://www.wesspur.com/RIG201K-maasdam-continuous-rope-puller-kit
https://www.wesspur.com/arborist-throw-line-kit

With these, you can throw a line up into a tree and have a continuous pulling force with pretty solid rope. This is gear you can trust and use for a really long time. 1 job with these and you pay them off.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

One thing that should be mentioned is cycles to failure. Every time you use a rope it stresses it. It's been a while since I actually looked up the numbers, but if you are constantly using a rope close to it's working load numbers, you will loose close to 5 % with each pull, where as if you go with an oversized rope, the cycles stretch out dramatically.

 

[Groundman One]

One thing that should be mentioned is cycles to failure. Every time you use a rope it stresses it. It's been a while since I actually looked up the numbers, but if you are constantly using a rope close to it's working load numbers, you will loose close to 5 % with each pull, where as if you go with an oversized rope, the cycles stretch out dramatically.

By that standard I'd be up around 500% failure with what I've done to some of my 9/16 ropes.

 

[D Kitchen]

I'm not an arborist, I'm just a guy who cuts a tree from time to time. I recently cut down a couple of trees and used a rope to guide their direction. It worked out well. I learned this by watching a "pro" cut down a tree. I have a cheap rope from Harbor Freight, 75ft long and a working load of 300 lbs.... https://www.harborfreight.com/mater...8-eighth-inch-camouflage-poly-rope-47835.html
I also used a cable to extend the length.
I tightened the rope with a ratchet strap such as this.... https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...7?store=1682&cid=Google-Shopping&gad_source=1
This all worked out great and it was a good learning experience. I attached the rope about half way up the tree and with more practice I could have gone higher. I was able to tighten the rope enough that I could barely crank the ratchet any more. So far the rope did NOT break. I cut the tree and it fell right where I wanted it to.
My question is...I want to buy a proper rope. How much working load do I need my rope to handle? I was really surprised at how much force I could put on my cheap rope. I looked at an arborist rope at my local landscape and tree dumping yard. It was about 150ft and something over 1000 lb working load. They told me it was for dropping limbs and the price was $130.
What type, strength and price should I aim for.
I anchored my rope to another large tree, but when another tree or anything else is not available how do you anchor your rope? How adequete is it to attach to a pickup truck.

I'm also a homeowner. I do similar things as you describe. However, for safety I decided to buy the best rope I could find. I suggest you take a look a site called "Right Rope". I was able to buy a 100 ft bullrope 5/8 inch rope that has a 15500lb breaking strength for $1.00/ft. It's been AWESOME rope and at a great price.

Look at it here:
https://rightrope.com/v-hex-arborist-bull-rope/

See specs for strength of various diameters.

They have lots of other choices if you prefer

 

[SCMtnHaul]

A rope is never too strong but rope diameter and construction type greatly affect its usability in a given situation. Just for instance, tying certain knots with my 5/8" Notch Kracken double-braid can be a PITA but the same knot is much easier to tie and dress properly in Pelican 1/2" 16 strand. And if you're using pulleys or other hardware then it needs to match the size of the rope. If life or property is at all in danger then don't try and save $50-$100 on rope.

 

[Groundman One]

. . . tying certain knots with my 5/8" Notch Kracken double-braid can be a PITA . . .

That is why one should get the original Dynasorb 5/8" Great for knots, soft enough to tie up your loved one with on a fanciful Saturday night, and suitable for heavy tree work.

Such a shame they came out with the Dynasorb Model II. It's a clearly inferior rope to the original.

 

[Bullseye T&L]

My suggestion is to first stop looking at working load ratings and start comparing ropes using the minimum breaking strength (MBS). Different "entities", whoever they might be at the time, use different safety factors to come up with the safe working load (SWL). One entity may use 5:1, another 10:1 for their safety factor. This might for example have the same 10,000 MBS rope rated at 2,000 lb SWL at 5:1, while another may rate it at 1,000 using a 10:1 factor. MBS is the only way to compare apples to apples.

That rope they're selling at your mulch place, chances are they're using a 10:1, and that rope is actually a 10,000 lb MBS. However, I know some arborists who apply a 5:1 rating on rigging ropes and would call that a 2,000 SWL rope, but acknowledging that it would ultimately fail in fewer cycles than if they had used it as a 1,000 lb SWL rope.

And just for the record and to confuse things even more ... when you're dealing with ratchet straps like the yellow 2" ones at HD or HF, those have a safety factor of 3:1. So that 3,333 SWL actually only correlates to a 10,000 break strength. Now I would never trust it for that, but that's just an example of the variability out there in setting SWL numbers.