OPG - Saw lanyards
This piece has gotten more "Where'd ya get that?"'s than any other piece of gear I own. I've also had a healthy number of arborists tell me I should market this, which I'm unwilling to do, but I'll gladly share it with you. I won't go as far as to suggest you make one, as I'm sure there's some standard against using this sort of thing, so do as you will. I'm just sharing what I've got, not suggesting you do it like I do.
I got the idea in Orlando, Florida, in a West Marine. What I saw was something similar to the attached photo- a bungee cord sheathed in scrunched-up, 1" tube webbing. It was for hooking your boat up to a dock, allowing the cord to stretch, but with a definite stopping point. I decided to fashion a chainsaw lanyard after this, with carabiners on each end. This was in 1993, and I'm still using the original one I made. It's seen 8 saddles in the last ten years, and I suppose it's my oldest piece of tree gear.
Tearaway lanyards are available out there, and they're sorta similar in principal, though very different in action. The key difference is, mine is not a 'tearaway', meaning if you cut a limb and create a 'saw snatcher' you'll get yanked, hence my refusal to even think about making them for anyone other than myself and the guys who hire me for contract climbing. Much of my cutting is done with the saw off-lanyard.
The other major difference is the diameter of the bungee inside. There are regular cheesie-wussie bungies, then there are the heavy duty bungies. Inside my lanyard is a heavy- heavy duty bungee.
The contracted lanyard length is ~ 12" and the extended length is almost twice that, allowing you to make reaching cuts with thesaw on-lanyard. The length only extends fully when the 394 is hanging on it. I can bend down and comfortably reach the saw's handle, though I usually flex my right hip and 'bounce' the saw handle up into my hand. During the climb I may clip the saw onto the D-ring of my saddle for hip-side travel, though a lot of times I just let the saw hang alongside as I move about- depends on the tree. If the saw gets hung up in a crotch while I'm moving, I get elastic resistance before I'm completely stopped.
At the saddle end I use a Petzl Spirit locking biner and I've 'frozen' the locking mechanism with some silicone, as I've rarely ever had a reason to remove the lanyard from the saddle. At the saw handle end of the lanyard, I've tried all kinds of locking biners, and have settled on a Petzl William Ball Lock, with the ball drilled out, rendering it simply an ideally sized and shaped aluminum twist-lock. I remove my saw from the lanyard with a great deal of frequency and need to be able to one-hand this biner off the saw, instantly, by feel, as well as clip it back on in the same sort of instant motion. Same deal as when clipping and unclipping the saw/lanyard to the saddle's right side D-ring.
Making one is fairly easy, though it takes two vises and some patience and attention to what you're doing. This is a piece of gear that is not allowed to fail, or a saw can come off, possibly killing someone below, or trashing a saw.
That's all. -TM-
