looking to try climbing

[moray]

What is the test that should be preformed after assembling your own lanyard.
Maybe towing a car with it?

Sure, tow your car. I would do it in a short practice piece in which you have made an eye in each end. When it doesn't break or deform, you will have great confidence in your lanyard.

Here's a well-used lanyard splice. Views from opposite sides.

Note the geometry at the throat of the eye. Also note the strands are flattened and untwisted where they are tucked. Finally, this one was tapered by cutting away half of each strand where it emerged after the 5th tuck, then tucking the remaining halves one more time. This softens the transition between splice and rope.

 

[beowulf343]

Sure, tow your car. I would do it in a short practice piece in which you have made an eye in each end. When it doesn't break or deform, you will have great confidence in your lanyard.

Note-the car should not be pulled with the finished lanyard.

 

[moray]

Towing Car

Exactly

 

[Adkpk]

I use a spreader snap keeps the d-rings from drawing in together and squeezing your guts

Thanks, nytreeman, was looking for that kind of answer. The spreader snaps are on the way.

http://www.arboristsite.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=49403&stc=1&d=1176899438

Sure, tow your car. I would do it in a short practice piece in which you have made an eye in each end. When it doesn't break or deform, you will have great confidence in your lanyard.

Here's a well-used lanyard splice. Views from opposite sides.

Note the geometry at the throat of the eye. Also note the strands are flattened and untwisted where they are tucked. Finally, this one was tapered by cutting away half of each strand where it emerged after the 5th tuck, then tucking the remaining halves one more time. This softens the transition between splice and rope.

Sorry, I was away, came on to add something to the thread and see you've added some pics, great. Did manage to get a decent eye splice out of that old rope finally. I didn't know about the untwisting thing, good one. I got my treemaster rope from Sherrill but seem to have screwed up my Bailey's order for the splicing kit, rope snaps, eyelets and a few other things I might need.
In the mean time I am tying up everything I can find.

Note-the car should not be pulled with the finished lanyard.

Good one, lol.

So, I found a half hour and a tree today. Got off the ground anyway. Good news I liked it. I wasn't scared. Made every mistake in the book getting the tree saver set (luckily I had a ladder handy) but seemed to do a good job on the Blake's hitch. I got scared at about 10' feet when I realized I hadn't tried to descend. But it worked fine so I went back up, only ten feet again. Don't want to push my luck before I get confirmed on my knot tying.
The saddle felt good and I am anxious to get it going. Thanks guys and keep up the good work.

 

[treejackyl]

new to bess. but not green

i think you should have somebody help teach you hands on and watch some experts climb before you strap on gear.safety first dude.....happy climbing

 

[Adkpk]

my splice

This is what I got. Any criticisms?

 

[moray]

Nice work!

It looks nice and clean. If you can do that well with Tree Master, you will have a bullet-proof lanyard.

When I was studying your photos, I compared them with several of my old splices. Then I remembered there are a couple of ways to start the eye. You have used what I would call the standard method, but a possibly better and maybe simpler way is the sailor's flat eye splice.

I have shown your splice with an arrow pointing to the critical strand. My second splice (red snap) is done exactly the same way. The blue snap is done with the flat eye splice. It actually is flatter, meaning less likely for the first strand to get abraded in use. Sailors liked it for that reason.

How to make it: when you fold the rope around to form the eye, one of the 3 free strands will contact the rope. This is #1. Tuck it under the strand it contacted, right on top of the rope, not off to either side. Pull it tight, then go over one and tuck it again. Snug it up nice and tight. This is the only time you take a strand and tuck it twice. Now tuck each of the other two strands once. Pull them tight. All three strands should now be at the same level. From now on you proceed in the standard way. Try it in your soft rope.

The bottom photo shows how to make a false crotch in Tree Master. These are tough. I sometimes leave one up in a tree for weeks or months with some clothes line laced through it. If I want to climb that tree for any reason, I can have my rope in place in about 30 seconds.

 

[SRT-Tech]

NICE!! now get some large heavywall heat shrink tubing and place it over the splice and and use a hair dryer to shrink it tight, will protect the splice and finish off the splice nicely.

 

[Adkpk]

update

The splicing kit is on back order. I am cutting it real close with the gtg on Saturday as far as getting the lanyard together. I was hoping to have time to get it together so I could have a couple of those guys inspect it. I might have a night or two to splice it together, I will need to get it right the first time.
That old rope I was using to practice with had a lot of nylon in it. I melted it to harden it and rolled a tip on each end that is how I was able to splice it. The tree master is loose and flimsy after you unravel it. I will definitely need a tool to thread it.
Set up my cambium saver again with the throw line and practiced knot tying. Got up a few feet into the tree again. It feels good but won't go any further until I get someone to inspect my knots.
I am definitely satisfied with the endeavor so far. It is a lot to learn about just getting into the tree. I am looking forward to see how I will handle the heights.

 

[beowulf343]

Wait a minute-there's a gtg this Saturday in NY? How did i miss that?

 

[Adkpk]

That's how rumors start. The gtg is in Mass. It's a three and a half hour ride for me from our weekender but I will combine with a visit to my sisters. Who is conveniently down the street from the gtg. If you haven't read about it check out the rec climbing forum.

 

[moray]

I wondered where you'd gone, Adrpk.

To keep the strands from unravelling, wrap a piece of electrical tape very tightly around the end of each strand.

To keep the 3 strands together where the splice will begin, tie some string tightly around the rope at that point. After you have made the first couple of tucks, you can cut it free. I do this before I start to unlay the rope.

If your fid doesn't arrive in time, you could still make a lanyard by tieing a snap to one end and a figure 8 stopper knot in the other. After the gtg, you can untie everything and use the same rope to remake the lanyard using splices instead of knots. Might be a good idea to get a little practice using the lanyard before the gtg anyway. The climbers on Saturday are going to have a ton of equipment, enough to thoroughly confuse a newbie. The more you have fooled around with your own stuff, the more it will make sense and the more you will absorb. Good luck!

 

[Adkpk]

Still no splicing kit. Ugggh!

Talked to an arborist today. Some guy I know in passing over the years. He cleared up a few things for me. Help me build my confidence. "Ya sure, climbing is good exercise". A little different than some other advise people give. Climbing a tree could be fun and useful too. My drive to work every morning is for sure more dangerous but I don't hear people saying not to do that.

Anyway he cleared some things up about the cambium saver. He said not to use one to get into the tree just up in the tree where you won't be climbing to. He told me about a two rope system that is easier and safer. I read about some guys talking about it on another thread somewhere in here.

 

[Adkpk]

made it

Well, I did it, got up my first tree. I got up an oak at the mass gtg. According to the others it sounds like I might be on my way to becoming a tree climber. And I like it.
Finally got the splicing kit. Will try to find time tonight to fiddle with it. In the meantime I made one myself with some double fishermans knots.

I hung on this the other night and noticed I wouldn't last too long on it if I had to. I am very comfortable in the saddle but hanging on the outside d's really hurt. Anybody know if this is what it is or am I doing something wrong?

 

[moray]

Wecome back and congratulations!

You're not doing anything wrong. Hanging from the Dees IS uncomfortable. But you seldom will need to do that in real life. If you need to be supported from above, use your climbing rope, which will be attached to the front Dee or the bridge of your harness, which supports your weight via your leg loops.

The side Dees and the safety are meant to support you horizontally, and in that mode the safety is very comfortable.

Incidentally, I looked at a lot of the pictures from the gtg in Mass. That looked like a pretty hairy tree for a beginner. Did you go up SRT?

I can't tell from your pic if the prusik knot on your temporary safety is a true prusik or a Schwabisch. In my experience, the true prusik is way too grabby, and needs a lot of attention to keep it from locking up.

 

[Adkpk]

Wecome back and congratulations!

You're not doing anything wrong. Hanging from the Dees IS uncomfortable. But you seldom will need to do that in real life. If you need to be supported from above, use your climbing rope, which will be attached to the front Dee or the bridge of your harness, which supports your weight via your leg loops.

The side Dees and the safety are meant to support you horizontally, and in that mode the safety is very comfortable.

Incidentally, I looked at a lot of the pictures from the gtg in Mass. That looked like a pretty hairy tree for a beginner. Did you go up SRT?

I can't tell from your pic if the prusik knot on your temporary safety is a true prusik or a Schwabisch. In my experience, the true prusik is way too grabby, and needs a lot of attention to keep it from locking up.

Drt.

Its a prusik. But I will turn around right now and put a Schwabisch on it. Thanks.

I am thinking of going to the local arborist store tomorrow and buying another 150' rope and a pulley. Thinking of trying srt. Anybody on what rope to look for?

 

[Adkpk]

Excuse me. I called this srt but I think it is drt also.
A local arborist instructed on an interesting technique and I want to take him up on it. He said, to just pull a pulley up on a rope with your climb line attached to it and pull myself up on that. Says it's a lot less work and you don't need a cambium saver. Question is, what is a good rope for this? What would compliment the arborplex, which I assume I would use to pull up the rope, I would climb up on?

 

[moray]

About SRT, even though I love it for going up and coming down, I would respectfully recommend you wait a bit. For two main reasons.

1. It requires a lot more equipment besides the smaller diameter rope. How you hook this up so you are safe in case an ascender or rappel device fails is something you need to be concerned about. You have to attach the rope to the tree somehow. You may need to worry about doubled loads at the tie-in point. You can't quickly switch from ascending to descending.

2. For most people (Tree Machine is an exception) SRT doesn't replace standard practice, so you still need to be adept at that. Standard Drt is faster to set up, simpler to operate, much easier to reposition in the tree.

I was using a sort of hybrid system for awhile before I got fully outfitted for SRT. I had one CMI expedition ascender that worked beautifully on 1/2 inch climbing rope. I put an adjustable Tenex footloop on it, but kept my other foot free. The ascender went on the rope just below the friction hitch. Essentially it was just a very easy way of footlocking up the rope. I still use this method sometimes when I'm using a Drt setup but have to climb more than 10 or 15 feet. It has the advantages of SRT (but only half as fast) without most of the disadvantages (most significantly no need for a descender).

 

[moray]

Excuse me. I called this srt but I think it is drt also.
A local arborist instructed on an interesting technique and I want to take him up on it. He said, to just pull a pulley up on a rope with your climb line attached to it and pull myself up on that. Says it's a lot less work and you don't need a cambium saver. Question is, what is a good rope for this? What would compliment the arborplex, which I assume I would use to pull up the rope, I would climb up on?

I would consider this technique as basically a fancy cambium saver. Just like in real SRT, you don't have to isolate the limb. Just like SRT, the load on the limb is doubled. If you're going to this much trouble, might as well just go up the line SRT rather than pull a pulley up and go up Drt. But maybe there would be good reasons for doing it that way sometimes...

But climbing Drt under a pulley is VERY nice. I do it a lot. Only I haven't ever installed a pulley the way you suggest.

 

[StoneGully]

Adrpk, I started reading your thread and I noticed you said something like, "once i get some rope I'll start practicing knots." I practice knots all the time. I carry a two foot piece of 1/4" clothesline (cotton braid over felt core) I practice knots all the time, at red lights, at meetings, while watching crap on TV. An anchor knot against an index finger, bowlines, running bowlines, blake's hitch, prusik, tautline, sheet bend, square knots, figure eights, double overhand, single and double fisherman's knots to make loops, cats paw, triple crown knot, butterfly, slip, figure eight on bight, etc. I think tree climber's companion mentioned this first and I have been doing it since. Keeps your hands nimble. it doesn't take long for you to be bale to do it without watching your hands.

Another book to read would be "Fundamentals of General Tree Work".