Questions: Pulling Trees Over With Pulleys

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With just ading 1 pulley, i'd anchor seperataely (though probably to same anchor) and place that 2:1 next pulley on the end of the 3:1 zrif, for 6x, if the distance can be traded equitably for the increased power.

Also, then by pulling that 6x rig by it's tail, and reaching inside of the zrig, and pulling the line as it came out of the anchor pulley, you could make it a 7xEffort + 6xBodyWeight. For, the equal and oppsoite of your effort pull, would pull agaqin 1x on load. Now the Z needs to be long, and the 2x inset inside of it, so that pull on tail is before anchor, to then pull on line of Z coming out of anchor, as equal opposite force we are tapping. This closes the system, that otherwise affords the leaking out of this promised equal and opposite force, that we now fold back to pull on target. This is the 4th pulley 'position'/use IMLH

Placing that extra pulley on any static anchor to pull, rather than on a dynamic load pull position, will not increase p[ower on target, just be an anchor redirect.
 
I haven't heard anyone mention this yet so I'll be the safety guy in the room for a minute. You can rig so that you can have enough MA to pick your truck with your own strength...doesn't mean you should. Be mind full of the capacities of your equipment and calculate your line tensions before getting crazy with some of these high MA apparati. When you crunch the numbers you may find that the line tensions are greater than the capacity of the line even though in theory you can move that 5k lbs. load by hand. I would encourage everyone to get a copy of "Bob's Rigging and Crane Handbook" by Pellow Engineering Services, Inc. It is inexpensive and indispensable. My background is heavy construction where we deal with extremely heavy picks and all kinds of MA achieved through blocks and rigging (heaviest pick I've been a part of to date is 1,000 ton). The book is cheap and so is the hour it takes to crunch the numbers. Riggers aren't.
 
Maasdam Rope Puller

I, too, like this continuous rope puller. It works best with three strand, but arbor plex works sufficiently. My friend has a dedicated piece of three strand with a hook spliced on the end. He can hook his rigging rope to that and only set it up once. There is a good rope bend radius when the rigging rope is put through the puller (about a 3" "sheave"). One person can operate, and knowing the MA of the machine, a person can estimate the force reasonable.

Not for high speed pulls.
When I need to have fast pull, I'll tension the line, then lean on the rope perpendicular to the rope. This increases the tension dramatically (its like if two people are in a tug of war, pulling horizontally and opposite to one another, and you sit on the rope, forcing it perpendicular to their two forces. A lot of force on the two anchor points.
A person must be careful of being in line with the tensioned line, though, and this is probably one of its biggest drawbacks.
 
With just ading 1 pulley, i'd anchor seperataely (though probably to same anchor) and place that 2:1 next pulley on the end of the 3:1 zrif, for 6x, if the distance can be traded equitably for the increased power.

Also, then by pulling that 6x rig by it's tail, and reaching inside of the zrig, and pulling the line as it came out of the anchor pulley, you could make it a 7xEffort + 6xBodyWeight. For, the equal and oppsoite of your effort pull, would pull agaqin 1x on load. Now the Z needs to be long, and the 2x inset inside of it, so that pull on tail is before anchor, to then pull on line of Z coming out of anchor, as equal opposite force we are tapping. This closes the system, that otherwise affords the leaking out of this promised equal and opposite force, that we now fold back to pull on target. This is the 4th pulley 'position'/use IMLH

Placing that extra pulley on any static anchor to pull, rather than on a dynamic load pull position, will not increase p[ower on target, just be an anchor redirect.

:agree2: +1

Look at figure C or D on page 9 of this Document

Take the time to look at this document, at least at page nine. Figure D is (I believe) what TreeSpyder is referring to.



.
 
I use friction hitches both mid line AND at the anchor tree.
The advantage of a friction hitch to attach the mid line pulley is that if you pull it all the way to the anchor tree, you can let go, the hitch at the anchor tree holds the line (and the what you are pulling) without loss of any tension, then you can push the mid line pulley back out, set the hitch and pull again.
With a butterfly or a comealong, if you misjudge how much distance you need to complete your pull, its difficult to reset without losing the tree!
 
I use friction hitches both mid line AND at the anchor tree.
The advantage of a friction hitch to attach the mid line pulley is that if you pull it all the way to the anchor tree, you can let go, the hitch at the anchor tree holds the line (and the what you are pulling) without loss of any tension, then you can push the mid line pulley back out, set the hitch and pull again.
With a butterfly or a comealong, if you misjudge how much distance you need to complete your pull, its difficult to reset without losing the tree!

You still use the distel for that chore?
 
Re: Ghillie 15:1

If you piggybacked a 5:1 onto a "z-rig" like is drawn, you have 15:1

Ghillie, you are right. My bad. 15:1 it is. No wonder that leaner came so easy. Eljefe
 
If you piggybacked a 5:1 onto a "z-rig" like is drawn, you have 15:1

Ghillie, you are right. My bad. 15:1 it is. No wonder that leaner came so easy. Eljefe

LOL, I was just on a roll that day.

Bermie, thanks for the distel suggestion in an earlier thread, I will be trying that out soon! I just started using the distel in my climbing and I really like it.
 
I'm afraid I don't understand the interest...

Why are you guys so interested in getting all these gigantic power factors with pulleys?

If you need that much force to pull a tree over, then it must be leaning way over to one side. If that's the case, then you will likely run out of rope (or pulley travel) before you get it pulled to where you need it. 15:1 power factor needs 15 times the rope for any distance to pull. Move a load 5 feet, you need 75' of rope to do it with! That is why Bermie is recommending the friction hitch as a mid-line attachment: you can re-set it as often as you need to, which will be very often.

If you are just attaching low (less travel of load) to avoid the work of setting the rope higher, then you are loosing time and working too hard. It's easier (and more reliable) to just set the rope higher in the tree.

If you just need more force because you are working without bigger machines, you will spend less on one good rope winch than you will on the 4 pulleys and all the extra rope you will need to equal it's pulling strength. Need more than 1000lbs of pull? Rig a single pulley high in the tree and fix one end of the rope to the rope winch. Functionally, this is almost as easy as a single line pull, and now you are pulling with 2000lbs of force for the whole distance back to the tree.

So...what am I not seeing?
 
Ghillie, I don't often make mistakes like this, but I stand corrected.

Yep. that's 3:1, and my suggestions would have made it 5:1

I was not considering the rope from the mid-line pulley to the tree to be a loaded leg of the pulling system. Upon a closer read (or thought?) I realized that was a single pulley attached to the anchor tree, hence 3:1.

[When I hook that up to a tree, we don't use pulleys. Just knots & ropes. The friction going around the tree soaks up any mechanical advantage on the first leg. Oops.]

Yeah I was getting confused. Its an odd ratio when an even number of pulleys are used. You count the rope, not the pulley.
 
Why shouldn't you attach a pulley midline w/ a friction hitch, Dman? I do it all the time. I atually had to set up the exact system pictured on Saturday but instead of pulling it with my hands I hooked up the ranger. Yeah, it was a BIG tree.

It could slip a knot can't. Just a Ranger? We did that with the top -kick. Once I strapped the back of the toyota to another truck and when pulling the yota came off the ground. The front tires were about 6 inches off the ground, bounced a little when she came back down. We were using the winch on the yota which is way overated for the truck, its common for me to tie a winch truck down.
 
Why are you guys so interested in getting all these gigantic power factors with pulleys?

If you need that much force to pull a tree over, then it must be leaning way over to one side. If that's the case, then you will likely run out of rope (or pulley travel) before you get it pulled to where you need it. 15:1 power factor needs 15 times the rope for any distance to pull. Move a load 5 feet, you need 75' of rope to do it with! That is why Bermie is recommending the friction hitch as a mid-line attachment: you can re-set it as often as you need to, which will be very often.

If you are just attaching low (less travel of load) to avoid the work of setting the rope higher, then you are loosing time and working too hard. It's easier (and more reliable) to just set the rope higher in the tree.

If you just need more force because you are working without bigger machines, you will spend less on one good rope winch than you will on the 4 pulleys and all the extra rope you will need to equal it's pulling strength. Need more than 1000lbs of pull? Rig a single pulley high in the tree and fix one end of the rope to the rope winch. Functionally, this is almost as easy as a single line pull, and now you are pulling with 2000lbs of force for the whole distance back to the tree.

So...what am I not seeing?

Maybe they want to make a tree catapult:dizzy:

Speaking of winches I like that Honda powered portable unit. That winch, some blocks, and about 300' of 1/2" Stablebraid should cover just about anything!
 
power is good, more power is better

even if you don't use it, it should be there, ready to use if needed.

I was up this one tree, 5 guys on the ground, 2 were the owners of the company. They all grabbed the rope and the boss said cut it. I asked my usually line of questions which included " Are you sure". He said he was and he was a smart man. I knew he was wrong but I wanted to play anyway.
I notched it, and started my backcut which I knew would close on the saw and it did. It was headed back toward the wires and cars on the road all stopped watching us at the red light. I looked at the 5 guys straining real hard, tied off my 20 and came down.
I had to set up the Massdam myself, everybody else was pretty busy, kinda all tied up you know? I couldn't resist walking over to the boss and sticking my finger in his ribs. I mean, what was he gonna do huh? Nothing, he just took it.
So we tied it to the massdam and Jamie cranked it over all by his little self.


A pull system should always have way more strenth than needed, bombproof. You just can't be so giddy to use it right off the bat.
 
If you just place/piggyback a 3xRig on the end of a 5xRig you have 15x. If you inset the 3xRig, so that it pulls on tail of 5xRig with it's 3xPosition, but then also the 2xPosition of the 3xRig(usually put on anchor) pulls again on the 5x, you can get 21xEffort + 15xBodyWeight (of BodyWeight used as input into the system). i think we must all ways and always break it down to device weight and device power (even of yourself) as separate considerations in these things, for the static weight will have 1 pull/push, whereas produced power of same device will have it's force and it's equal/opposite. If you inset your effort(s) inside of the 3xRig that in turn is inset inside the 5xRig, you get 32xEffort + 21xBodyWeight. That 32x comes from the series of insetting/stacked multipliers, the 21x not as much, as it carries lower multipliers, and the originating pull(s) have the Bodyweight + Effort + equal/oppsoite of Effort... All you have to do is place the 3xRig to pull at potent points, in opposite directions on the 5xRig. MTL: Ancient Ship Rig, shows an ol'example.

Usually, we just look at placing a pulley on 1 of 3 positions:
2:1-On the load to give 2xPower, that requires 2xDistance input.
1:1-On the Anchor position as a 1:1 redirect, no alteration in power or distance, just change in direction.
1:2-Or, on the effort input, for .5xPower, but at double speed.

So, an anchor position is usually looked at as no power gain. But, because of the promise of the equal and opposite reaction/force; we can use the change in direction of the anchored pulley to capture the equal and opposite (direction) force, and align it back around to pull on load, for 2x power from an anchor position. Because this takes an open system, and makes it a closed one, so it conserves more of the forces, and folds them to target, rather than terminating their flow at anchor.

Also, insetting a system (or effort as above) inside of another system (so that it pulls 2x on that system) can give more multiplier; like in a Spanish Burton etc.

Another reason to place a lot of force on tree, is that the hinge strength is set by the force on the hinge at first folding. So, if we increase this force at the point of first folding, we can get a stronger hinge for better steering and softer felling. Notice, that if the tree will then fold on it's own the rest of the way Naturally, pulls added after first folding event, would only serve to hasten fall/ for a harder fall. A softer fall can mean less ground damage, spring poles etc. But, do remember that you give up distance, stretch, forces to friction etc. So, at some point this is just a theoretical discussion; which too is important, just to extend the limits of what you can do, to give more immediate survey of workable strategies.

So, with a 5xRig alone, we can get 8xEffort + 5xBodyWeight, with this 2ndHand/underhand technique. But, we don't all ways have to; so we can pull faster at 5xEffort as far as we can, but then drop gear to 8xEffort(but slower pulling/ more distance to input per output) by using equal and opposite pull of free hand pulling on system too, to finish; so this can be a transmission of sorts. Also, a prussick, can be tended; this will allow a pull to be placed on system, then held automatically by system to take break/conserve forces, set up for impact, leverage with perpendicular force(higher multiplier) etc.

These theories can also get your truck unstuck, help to tie down, bind etc. We probably won't take them as far there, but just immediately know more fully how to immediately, and sometimes seemingly magically maximize, by calling up these forces correctly, for as Sir Francis Bacon gave us..........
 
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Excellent post Treespyder!!

You had me lost for awhile untill I saw the drawing. I am cursed with attention deficict diso....... WAS THAT A SQUIRREL!???!? :)

That is going in my reference archives. I thought I was knot crazy untill I started reading some of your stuff.
 
I use friction hitches both mid line AND at the anchor tree.
The advantage of a friction hitch to attach the mid line pulley is that if you pull it all the way to the anchor tree, you can let go, the hitch at the anchor tree holds the line (and the what you are pulling) without loss of any tension, then you can push the mid line pulley back out, set the hitch and pull again.
With a butterfly or a comealong, if you misjudge how much distance you need to complete your pull, its difficult to reset without losing the tree!


Use a friction hitch at the mid point, using the pulley and the steel biner just like your climbing system but use a port-a-wrap as a termination and you can tie and lock off to that while you run your hitch out. This assumes that you're using one line for the pulley system and have the hitch tied to your pulling line.
 
If you just place/piggyback a 3xRig on the end of a 5xRig you have 15x. If you inset the 3xRig, so that it pulls on tail of 5xRig with it's 3xPosition, but then also the 2xPosition of the 3xRig(usually put on anchor) pulls again on the 5x, you can get 21xEffort + 15xBodyWeight (of BodyWeight used as input into the system). i think we must all ways and always break it down to device weight and device power (even of yourself) as separate considerations in these things, for the static weight will have 1 pull/push, whereas produced power of same device will have it's force and it's equal/opposite. If you inset your effort(s) inside of the 3xRig that in turn is inset inside the 5xRig, you get 32xEffort + 21xBodyWeight. That 32x comes from the series of insetting/stacked multipliers, the 21x not as much, as it carries lower multipliers, and the originating pull(s) have the Bodyweight + Effort + equal/oppsoite of Effort... All you have to do is place the 3xRig to pull at potent points, in opposite directions on the 5xRig. MTL: Ancient Ship Rig, shows an ol'example.

Usually, we just look at placing a pulley on 1 of 3 positions:
2:1-On the load to give 2xPower, that requires 2xDistance input.
1:1-On the Anchor position as a 1:1 redirect, no alteration in power or distance, just change in direction.
1:2-Or, on the effort input, for .5xPower, but at double speed.

So, an anchor position is usually looked at as no power gain. But, because of the promise of the equal and opposite reaction/force; we can use the change in direction of the anchored pulley to capture the equal and opposite (direction) force, and align it back around to pull on load, for 2x power from an anchor position. Because this takes an open system, and makes it a closed one, so it conserves more of the forces, and folds them to target, rather than terminating their flow at anchor.

Also, insetting a system (or effort as above) inside of another system (so that it pulls 2x on that system) can give more multiplier; like in a Spanish Burton etc.

Another reason to place a lot of force on tree, is that the hinge strength is set by the force on the hinge at first folding. So, if we increase this force at the point of first folding, we can get a stronger hinge for better steering and softer felling. Notice, that if the tree will then fold on it's own the rest of the way Naturally, pulls added after first folding event, would only serve to hasten fall/ for a harder fall. A softer fall can mean less ground damage, spring poles etc. But, do remember that you give up distance, stretch, forces to friction etc. So, at some point this is just a theoretical discussion; which too is important, just to extend the limits of what you can do, to give more immediate survey of workable strategies.

So, with a 5xRig alone, we can get 8xEffort + 5xBodyWeight, with this 2ndHand/underhand technique. But, we don't all ways have to; so we can pull faster at 5xEffort as far as we can, but then drop gear to 8xEffort(but slower pulling/ more distance to input per output) by using equal and opposite pull of free hand pulling on system too, to finish; so this can be a transmission of sorts. Also, a prussick, can be tended; this will allow a pull to be placed on system, then held automatically by system to take break/conserve forces, set up for impact, leverage with perpendicular force(higher multiplier) etc.

These theories can also get your truck unstuck, help to tie down, bind etc. We probably won't take them as far there, but just immediately know more fully how to immediately, and sometimes seemingly magically maximize, by calling up these forces correctly, for as Sir Francis Bacon gave us..........


Owww. Brain hurts...:newbie:
 
This doesn't have to be isolated to just whole trees, but for me, mainly tree tops.

I use a two separate pulley system to pull tops of trees over when the climber is ready to go. The mechanical advantage is nice; especially when there's only one guy pulling or just to make the pulling easier.

Instead of describing how I do it, I drew a simple picture to save time. You can see it below:
attachment.php


What I would like to know is, How can I hook up a 3rd pulley to get more of a mechanical advantage?

I was thinking of adding a 3rd pulley on the tree and instead of leaving off where you see the rope ending, it will be looped in the 3rd pulley. Now I like this system. It gives just about all the power I need for most jobs. If I need much more power, I got my ways. LOL! Also, I know about other pulley systems made just for this job, but I'd like to stick with more along the lines of what I do & ask here.(Thanks!)

Can you please describe or show a picture of how you do it using a 3rd pulley? If you do it with 2 pulleys, but a different way, I'd appreciate a look at that too.

Thanks for y'alls help!

StihlRockin'
icon7.gif

The best way is with 2 double pulleys or 5to1. I actually hook everything up and when finished using it, unhook the prusik from the tag line and take the slack out leaving it intact. I throw it in a rope bag so it's quick and easy to hook back up. Much more efficient than a come-along.
 

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