knot used to make a come along?

[rahtreelimbs]

Girth Hitch with a 'biner or pulley works good midline also!

 

[appalachianarbo]

I use a directional figure eight so the direction of pull on the knot is in line with the load. I've never had a problem with untying, even with machinery as the "muscle." The butterfly also accomplishes the same thing. I have also used triple wrap prussiks (not just a girth hitch) instead of a knot. As compared to an ascender, the prussiks will start to slip at max load, not simply pop off or break the rope like an ascender, and like others have said, they do less damage to the rope (no teeth or pinching). The prussiks are also easier to adjust than a knot. I have used the prussiks in rescue situations, and the knots in tree pulling situations.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

i like prussiks, but quiet fairly; if the prussik is grabbing down the length of the mantle only; and the force flow is down the inner kern; there can be a problem; you are not grabbing the force flow. At these and dirty rope times, cams are more appropriate; to girp/pinch thru the line and grab the force flow down the inner kern.

Double Braids that dividee the force flow to both layers can sometimes have such problems too i think.

 

[booboo]

Bowline on a bight works fine. Add a pulley if friction is going to be problem, add a dead stick to help untie it if you're going to really load the knot. Simple but effective.

 

[Tree Machine]

Friction is what steals from the force you're applying. A 3:1 run through bights alone, by the time all the friction is accounted for, may only yield you a net force equal to a 1:1 through a pulley. Friction is multiplied as force is increased on the friction points. In pulling over a tree, if you set up a 3:1 through bights, the force you're applying by pulling the rope is 'eaten' to a large degree by the first, second and third bends. Whatever force is left is applied to the actual pull on the tree. The folly here is that an involved system without the use of pulleys won't produce the degree of leverege you intend on getting. This is the 'accumulated friction' effect that sSpidey covered in detail.


The reason I bring this up again is that friction should always be viewed as a problem when you're trying to create a force. It is an asset when trying to overcome a force (namely, gravity).

 

[CoreyTMorine]

I've had mixed luck with a "cats paw". Sometimes the twists will creep down, and cause the loop to become smaller, eventually binding on the biner/krab or rope passing through it. But it is super easy to tie and untie.

If i need a lot of pull i often use the rope in conjunction with falling wedges. As Treemachine points out, friction is multiplied by tension, so the tighter the pull rope becomes the more force you lose to tension. The other side of this coin is that as the tension is decreased (by hammering the wedges and thereby lifting the tree) you get more pull on the rope.

So, if you only need to tension the rope, then no hardware is necessary. Just take a 1/2 wrap, tie your midline knot, pass the working end through the loop, and pull. Friction will eventually kill the mechanical advantage, but not before you get the line pulled fairly tight.

If you need more tension spyder mentioned the solution at the end of his post. You just tie off the gearless z-rig, and run the remaining working end around another tree so that it is perpendicular to the pull line, then pass the working end over the pull line, in effect making another z-rig. Now you can get some serious tension on the pull line. But remember it will change the direction of pull, and is not very adjustable.

So, in answer to the original question, the cats paw might work, its very easy but does have a learning curve. I don't like the slip knot, as the overhand portion can sieze on the bight making it hard to untie. So my personal standard for the gearless tension z-rig is the alpine butterfly with a stick stuck in the bridge of the tension side.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

A very good point just came up..........

It is all ways safer to back up pulls with wedge. This can be to add force; or just as a backup/safety.

Also, make sure there are no unintentional dutchmans to face!!!!

In tree pulling, we can do 2 things steer and / or place more force on hinge. Hinge strength is just a passive reflector of the active pulls/pushes on hinge; so we are making hinge stronger with non-steering forces applied/ forces applied to forward face.

In good wood, i try to use tapered hinge for steering; and apply only forward force, to strengthen hinge, which makes the tapered hinge stronger, and let it steer. If you steer directly with rope direction, you skip the multiplier of the tapered hinge with your applied forces. The hinge force is autonomous, passive force of teree effort, not yours. A lot of times steering directly with wedge/rope direction (that counters sidelean); is just you working to replace what the tree would give. This is a judgemeant call as to whether the leverages of the tapered can handle the steering; but very real. Direction is a very important part of Force that should be realized and accounted for in all examinations; in deed without direction; there is no force. Force is power X distance; power/force is the only thing that can overcome distance; so that if their is force it must try to prevail in a certain, plottable direction; without direction/ no force! All ways consider direction of forces as part of fine tuning!

 

[CoreyTMorine]

Spyder, I say "working end" because that is currently what we are working with. But would you say "Bitters" because the real working end is up in the tree to be pulled, far from the dregs on the gound. Thanks for the clarification.

quoteSo, if you only need to tension the rope, then no hardware is necessary. Just take a 1/2 wrap, tie your midline knot, pass the working end through the loop, and pull. Friction will eventually kill the mechanical advantage, but not before you get the line pulled fairly tight.

 

[Bermie]

I have two lengths of prussic cord set aside just for this situation and have used them on several occasions.
Pulling rope is tied to the tree, led back to a pulley on the anchor tree, one distel hitch is tied on the first leg and clipped down by the pulley to prevent creep back, rope goes through pulley then back up to another pulley that is held on the line with a second distel.
You can slide the second distel up as far as you need to get the length of pull you want. Once you tension it up, it stays right there.
Everything is self tending and friction is minimised, knots are avoided in the main line. The limiting factor is if the tree were to sit back or get caught by a gust, would the distels hold if it is a big tree? Do your calculations and adjust accordingly!

 

[appalachianarbo]

Bermie...Good description of a Z-drag (3:1) with a progress capturing device (distel or prussik at first pulley). This is a very common rescue MA system, but is used with 2 triple wrap prussiks at each location instead of just one.

And like Spyder said, using pulleys greatly reduces friction, thereby maintaining your pulling power.

 

[Bermie]

Yup, I learned it in the UK, works just fine!

 

[Tree Machine]

Spyder, I say "working end" because that is currently what we are working with. But would you say "Bitters" because the real working end is up in the tree to be pulled, far from the dregs on the gound.

There's the standing end, and the bitter end. 'Working end' is not an industry term, nor is 'bitters'. We don't make up terminology, unless the trerminology plain doesn't exist. We use rope terms from the standpoint of the ropes industry, rigging industry and especially sailing. Ropes have been used since the beginning of time and we tree climbers follow the already-established terminology handed down from the parent industries that make ours ours. Bitters is not a term. And if I'm tying a knot in a rope that has a limb already attached to it, which is the working end?

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

i picked up Bitters along the way from someone else. i work in regions of the line; and i'd heard Bitter part and Bitter End mixed in with the confusion of knotting terms; so clung to the term Bitters as the regions after the 'Frictions' (a common sense term i kinda came up with to include turns on capstan etc. as compared to force reductions in line as it went thru a knot; and likewise define a region between the Standing Part and the Bitter Part/End).

What's in a name; if we understand the communication?

Working End, is very definitively and Goooogle-able normal speaking people term

i kinda don't like "Standing Part" because it is meant as it implies as the Standing, slack end that you aren't tying the knot with. What i don't like is after we place tension on the line; the Standing Part is no longer this lazy; just standing there thing; but can in fact be the initiator of the force; that reduces through knot frictions and frictions on host/mount to be reduced very much in the "Bitter End" of it's force. So, sometimes i like to say Standing Tension Part; because most of my examinations are of the forces in the line while it is working, not just being tied. Also, at that point both ends are working, not just 1. So forgive me, if i try to outgrow some of the bounds hear.

One of my characterizations, is a Bus pulling the Standing (Tension) Part, and the frictions of turns on a tree reduce the bus pull force to such a point a Baby could hold a Bus. Or we could trap the lesser Bitters force, under the more intense Bus pull force to then trap it securely, trapping what a baby could hold, under bus tension.

Orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr something like that!

 

[digga]

hey guys just wanted to say thanks for help interesting thread this info will be coming in handy on the next tree that needs a little persuasion but isn’t big enough to set the winch up for

 

[woodchux]

There's the standing end, and the bitter end. 'Working end' is not an industry term, nor is 'bitters'. We don't make up terminology, unless the trerminology plain doesn't exist. We use rope terms from the standpoint of the ropes industry, rigging industry and especially sailing. Ropes have been used since the beginning of time and we tree climbers follow the already-established terminology handed down from the parent industries that make ours ours. Bitters is not a term. And if I'm tying a knot in a rope that has a limb already attached to it, which is the working end?

Arbormaster training teaches that you have the "working end" which is the part that you are using, The opposite end is the "running end", and everything in between is the "standing part".

 

[Tree Machine]

And if I'm tying a knot in a rope at one end, whose far end I have a limb tied to, I'm 'using' both ends. That means both ends are the working ends.

OK, I'm not the terminology police, nor do I really care much about local slang. I do get irked when a shot bag is referred to as a shot ball, but really, does it even matter?

But it does matter. As professional ropemen, using conventional rope terms allows us to differentiate similar things, like a knot vs a hitch vs a bend and we understand a bight is not a loop is not a bend in the rope. A whoopie is different from a loopie. I can go on, but won't.

Arbormaster, of all groups, creating terms as logical as they may be, as tight and professional and respected as they are, to mix established terms and their own chosen working terms surprises the heck out of me. Now it has us all in a conundrum, which is different than a snafu.


Please pardon this derail. We were talking about.... oh yea, a knot used to make a come-along.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

There's the standing end, and the bitter end. 'Working end' is not an industry term, nor is 'bitters'. We don't make up terminology, unless the trerminology plain doesn't exist. We use rope terms from the standpoint of the ropes industry, rigging industry and especially sailing. Ropes have been used since the beginning of time and we tree climbers follow the already-established terminology handed down from the parent industries that make ours ours. Bitters is not a term. And if I'm tying a knot in a rope that has a limb already attached to it, which is the working end?

Industry terminology is still very coloquial. So everyone is right here, if that is what you learned from the old guy who taught you.

I was talking about this with a client who allways used tip rope for tag line. I had heard it beofre, but learned tag line and find it easier, since you cannot use a tip rope to tag the but.

A bit is a small woodden tie-off on an old ship, the bitters is the bight, or round turns on the bit.

The bitter end is that which is after the bit, on the deck.

"A Bitter is but the turne of a Cable about the Bits, and veare it out by little and little. And the Bitters end is that part of the Cable doth stay within boord."​

Captain Smith
Seaman's Grammar, 1627

 

[Lonnie]

around here that knot is called a 3 ring circus.
-Ralph

Same here altho i never used it i have seen it tho.

 

[Tree Machine]

Industry terminology is still very coloquial. So everyone is right here, if that is what you learned from the old guy who taught you.

I was talking about this with a client who allways used tip rope for tag line. I had heard it beofre, but learned tag line and find it easier, since you cannot use a tip rope to tag the but.

A bit is a small woodden tie-off on an old ship, the bitters is the bight, or round turns on the bit.

The bitter end is that which is after the bit, on the deck.

"A Bitter is but the turne of a Cable about the Bits, and veare it out by little and little. And the Bitters end is that part of the Cable doth stay within boord."​

Captain Smith
Seaman's Grammar, 1627

I'm not attempting to be right, or anything. It's more about the respect for the centuries of ropemen before us, mainly the sailors and seamen.

Thanks for that, JP.

 

[knudeNoggin]

Friction is what steals from the force you're applying. A 3:1 run through bights alone, by the time all the friction is accounted for, may only yield you a net force equal to a 1:1
...
The folly here is that an involved system without the use of pulleys won't produce the degree of leverege you intend on getting.

Amen! It's instructive to set up some of these rope systems that are promoted
as "powerful" (e.g., the Versatackle) and to test them with dead weights,
to see what moves what (or not!). And if one has to choose among the
sheaves (pulley points) as to which to give the best pulley device to (say,
a choice among 1 block, 1 'biner, and pure rope eye), it should be the
one nearest the fall/haul line.

Further, using rope eyes alone can result in severe damage to the rope;
one canyoneer reported giving his new trim rope a nasty "core shot" on his
efforts to tighten a line. ouch!

-------

As for "bitter end" and associated rope terminology, I understand that term
to refer rather generally to the rope at the bits, but not to the very end of
it (though "bitter" can have such a connotation). (So I think that Capt. Smith's
"within board" meant just "aboard", "on the boat", in contrast to being out over
the water and ultimately at the opposite "end" of the operation.)
Some of the other historical terms seem to have a rub in referring to parts
of the rope only during the tying process, and not beyond that to the parts of
the tied object. "Working end" being what one is supposed to be working with
in forming a knot.

Spydey, as wee no, has his own weigh with wirds, esp. gnu wons he maid.


*kN*