Your advice is not wasted on me Reg, excellent vid. My question is how do you find that balance point so well? Are you estimating center then putting 1 sling a little in front of it and another behind while spreading both slings to the side also? So the 2 slings kind of sit diagonal to each other? Does this work well or add a spider to complete the triangle?
This is why I was going to single choke, to get good at finding the exact balance point. Of course then a piece can pitch or roll on you, but I figured you could play that a bit at the cut.
The Stein crane bag you designed seems to be slick. What would be the American dollars cost roughly?
Nails, like I said earlier, all but 2 of the limbs were rigged with 2 slings. The main benefit of rope slings is that they can be tied at any point along their length, so the bite can be set perfect each time, unlike loops or straps which are obviously a fixed length so sometimes need wrapping a few times to get two at irregular lengths to bite at the same time. Having said that, choker slings are generally tougher, faster and more resistant to abrasion. Biggest drawback of all is whether the spiders alone are even lawful in your area, if not then a choker must precede them and the spiders used only to stabilise the load.
I’ll use the same vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1cRBM9BUM to pin-point a few examples, although spotting a balance point is kinda intuitive and I think we can all appreciate that not everyone’s eyes see things the same. I speak from experience as having supervised/coached a few guys doing crane work in the past, it is tough to watch man I can tell you.
You are correct that to spread the slings outside of the COG gives you a better chance of nailing it, although I didn’t feel the need to do that so much on the beech in the video. Sometimes you just spot COG....when I see it I never take my eyes off it until those slings are in place, and never let any doubt enter my mind (4:20 & 4:40). But other times this is not enough as the foliage might still cause the limb to roll sideways. If you’re lucky and the foliage splits as a simple co-dominant (3:00) then it should hold still pretty well....but then other’s are more irregular (3:20), in which case additional slings are very useful.
The pick at 5:15 uses several slings also, and apart from a little deflection on the crane comes off ok. Now other guys might prefer to put just a couple of slings at 2/3-3/4 and look to stand that limb up on a ledge. That’s cool, but it takes practice/experience to know when and when not to....and the time to experiment with that stuff is only when you are well within the WLL, in a relatively non-critical situation, and in full view of a crane-op who is responsive enough to get you out of trouble if you screw up.
Nails, I generally carry more rigging hardware to a job that any other Freelance Climber that I know....and it’s not like I get paid any extra, but more in that I hate getting to jobs blind only to realise an easier method but not having the equipment at hand to carry it out.
Start with but a couple of chokers for sure to build up your experience....but I guess the message is don’t close your mind to all the options. I was a little like that with the Hobbs and GRcS a few years back, like not only can I manage without but I can still out-think, out-manoeuvre, and out-pace any SOB around wherever I’d be residing....until I used them and realised just how much easier things can be!
Dont cheap-out on the hardware either Nail’s, buy quality. Look forward to seeing how things work out for you.
I still don’t have a price on that bag, we’ve had some terrible sample's back from supposed respected manufactures. From what I understand they are now being made in Portugal to be on the market in the fall.
