Tree Runner P500 - First Impressions

Had a couple of opportunities recently to try out the new Tree runner rigging bollard I picked up for CTC's lightweight rigging kit from the APF

Rigged down this smallish sycamore last week 

Nothing overly massive or complicated but still needed rigging

The ratchet holds the bollard well, and there was no sign of any movement, even when rigging some pretty hefty lumps (kind of size lumps that need cutting into 3 - 4 pieces in order to lift them onto the van)

We were using it with a 16mm rope, which is technically bigger than recommended (14mm) but seemed fine, just needed less wraps than you'd need with a thinner rope. 

As a secondary device for reductions/limb removals it would more than sufficient and a definite improvement on a portawrap or similar. The main advantage being the user friendly nature and how quickly in-experienced ground staff can pick it up and get to grips with it. 

Being rated at only 500kg it is no replacement for a Stein bollard, but would be a good device for small crews and start ups. or as a secondary device for larger firms. 

APF 2014

Managed to get across to Ragley Hall yesterday to check out the APF forestry exhibition. Its always a good opportunity to check out the latest gear and machinery, as well as do some shopping!

Picked up a few bits for myself -

Another Petzl bucket bag! 25m of 8mm Sirius accessory cord (my hitch cord of choice, this should last me a while!) and some 8mm Liros armor hitch cord I decided to try.

Also got myself a pair of Arborwear canopy trousers that I've wanted to try for ages 

As well as an Arborwear polo shirt. I'm currently looking to get some work shirts printed, but want to start off with a decent shirt, rather than the standard fruit of the loom ones. So thought I'd give one of these a go. 

Also picked up some bits for the company I do some work for in London - 

A tree runner p500, to replace the portawrap in our lightweight rigging kit (fixed bollards are so much easier for people to get to grips with)

Some weaver spikes for the aerial rescue kit and a new husky T540xp for the other team. 

Stein RC3001 - storage solution

Anyone who has read more than one of my posts will no doubt be aware of my slight obsession with climbing/rigging gear and there associated kit bags, as well as generally being OCD about organising my tools and equipment.

So when I recently got a new Stein rigging bollard I was faced with the challenge of somehow getting it to fit in one of the Petzl bucket bags I'm always waxing lyrical about.

I knew it would fit, but not lying down as it would be too wide, so it would have to be standing, but weighing in at 14kg that was going to be an awful lot of pressure in one spot. That coupled with the general awkwardness of getting anything else in the bag, as well as keeping the bag upright in transit led me to the following solution.

It all fits

Stein block, ratchet, strap, dead eye sling and rubber mountings... 

With everything else removed the stein block remains upright with the aid of a lump of Cedar

A 4" thick plank cut to roughly the dimensions of the bag, with a slit notched into it for the bottom anchor point of the bollard to slot into...

Which keeps the Stein block nicely upright and means the rest of the kit can be fitted in around it 

The rubber mounting blocks fit into the back of the bollard, as they make it too wide if fitted in their normal configuration 

Everything needed in one 25lt bag, it is pretty heavy, but manageable on your own 

Rigging kits

This is my current set up in terms of rigging gear that I take out on my own private jobs. 

I've talked about these petzl bags before, still can't say enough good things about them.

First up in the large (35lt) bag I have 60m of 16mm Sirius Bull rope and a 4m long 16mm dead eye sling with a small ISC cast pulley attached, this kit only comes out on big jobs or if I don't know the job (i.e.  freelancing) then I may chuck it in as well. 

Then in the first small (25lt) bag I have a selection of things; 30m 14mm sirius bull rope, 5 m dead eye, small ISC portawrap, small woopie sling, large woopie sling,  Medium ISC swing cheek lowering pulley with steel dmm crab,  2m split tail, large loopie sling, x2 petzl tandem pulleys, another smaller woopie (orange) , small mallion, small rigging plate,  2m tape sling and crab, 10m length of xtc line, couple of lengths of hitch cord. 

The idea with this bag was to have everything I'd need for small/medium scale lowering, as well as all the other trinkets you occasionally need for complicated lowering jobs. The 30m rope is usually sufficient for most small trees and also comes in handy as a second line if using the bigger rope. 

Then in the other small bag are some other bits that go out with me on almost every job now. From left to right: in the black bag is the Mini MA system, 22m of 12mm sirius bull rope (tag line), 5m multi sling, 4.5m dead eye, rigging gloves, and big shot/trigger set up 

The tag line has come in handy on numerous occasions, especially on those jobs where I've been told there is no rigging to do and then discover that there definitely is!

I'm pretty happy with my current set up, It covers me for a large range of rigging scenarios, the only major thing I need now is a decent bollard, something like the Stein RC3001 that I get to use for my current main employer 

SRT and redirects

Just a couple of pics from the big pop fell last week showing the use of some redirects and the further benefits of SRT

This one is a little confusing as the perspective is off slightly,  the left hand stem is the rigging point with my initial  anchor being the middle stem which is then redirected off the next one, allowing me to get much further out on the branch I'm rigging back in. 

My view

The redirect, a lyon sling round the stem with my climbing line secured in place with a clove hitch 

getting out on the tips of this branch enabled us to rig it clear of a couple of fences

                     

Lots of rigging

Couple of videos here of the Stein Block and Husky top handle  in action, whilst taking down a couple of big poplars.

Nicely overhanging some fences and industrial units, pretty much everything had to be rigged.

                                          

Ended up having a tag line on most of the pieces in order to pull them clear, even had to use the Mini MA system I've been harping on about so much. Came in very handy for a lot of the lower growth that actually dipped down lower than the fences, allowed us to pretension the line much more than usual and in a couple of case lift the pieces up completely with the felling cut on top of the branch. 

You can just see the fence in this photo, with that razor wire type top it was definitely something we didn't want branches getting caught up in. 

Pulling over a stem/mini MA in action - video

Quick video of the big poplar stem being pulled over with the aid of the Mini MA

The video better illustrates the size and weight of this stem, which standing perfectly upright would have taken a lot of pulling/wedging to get over without the aid of mechanical advantage 

Big chogs

This is just a quick video of me using a felling lever to walk/lever a big lump of poplar off the top of the stem

Quite a useful trick when dealing with short heavy lumps as you don't have any leverage with a pull line. The trick is to make a double thickness cut facing you before you cut through the rest of the lump, this way you can get the felling lever into the cut once the weight of the log has sat down. Then its just a case of prying the log forwards until it over balances and falls off the opposite side.

14mm Sirius Dead eye sling

Spliced this from the other end of the 10m rope I used to splice a spider leg

Should come in handy for redirects and as a top anchor for the rigging pulley on smaller rigging jobs. 

Pulling over a stem/mini MA system in action

Couple of pictures of my Mini MA system in action this week pulling over a large diameter stem from a big poplar fell

3:1 below on the ISC and the mini MA on top on the pinto

Not abundantly clear from the pictures but basically I set up a standard 3:1 MA on the rigging line using a large lowering block anchored to the cherry tree, this then went back to a Pinto rig attached to the rigging line via a 14mm sirius split tail blake hitched to the line. I then attached My mini MA to the pulling end of this line. This basically meant I had a 3:1 advantage pulling on a 3:1 system, now I'm not sure what this means mathematically speaking (maybe 7:1?) but all I do know is the two guys pulling the stem over had no trouble at all.

I'm sure this is nothing new to a lot of you and setting up mechanical advantage to pull a stem over is fairly standard practice. However I know in the past setting up anything more than a 3:1 just with a rigging line and pulleys uses up a lot of rope very quickly, even with a 60m rope you quite quickly run out of rope unless your anchor is very close to the tree your pulling over.

So by being able to use the Mini MA system on the end of the rigging line this issue was negated as well as considerably cuting down on the setup time. 

I have a video of the stem coming down I will upload at some point. 

'Discing it down'

This is the term I use when you've rigged a stem down to a point where its either to big to effectively lower or low enough that you can get away without rigging but theres still no room to fell. So you do the only thing you can, cut it into discs that are small enough to push off to top of the stem.

When there is still the potential to cause damage or the ground needs protecting (patio or tidy lawn) we have found the following to be fairly effective

The double layer of logs helps to decrease the distance of fall and spread the force of impact, and the tyres are obviously there to take the brunt of the impact. You have to be accurate with discs and it works best when they land flat on the tyres. The tyres need replacing each time but it still works out much quicker than any other method I've tried. 

Once you've got lower still you can condense the tyres at the base of the tree and start to take some bigger lumps. Keeping the other blocks in place helps to contain the lumps as they come down and deflect them into the base of the tree. You'd be amazed at how well this works and how much energy the tyres will absorb. 

Certainly worked well on this Swamp cypress fell 

Another splice

Might be getting slightly addicted to this, here is another Sirius bull rope splice, this time in in 12mm. 

Kept the eye nice and tight on this one with the idea of it holding a carabina captive 

Not the neatest, but I'm still quite pleased with how it came out. The process is definitely getting easier, no youtube tutorial or anything this time!

This was spliced on the end of a 22m rope that I got from Honey Brothers (see post) for the princely sum of £13.50. I've been using it for a tag/pull line mostly, especially useful this week as we've been blocking down a big swamp cypress, it makes life much easier when you have a pull line on the top of the blocks. 

The idea with the crab on the end is to save tying a knot every time, and to make it easier to clip out of the way whilst rigging up the next section as I usually put the pull line in last to save it getting in the way.  

Also quite often with a tag line you need to pull the rope up in one go, attach it to the branch and then throw the rest of the rope out to where you want it, this way it makes it slightly easier for the groundies to send it up in one go. 

I'm also planning on using this line for minor rigging jobs, e.g. on crown reductions and prune aways when you just want to rig a couple of bits from the periphery of the crown. So I can either use slings and clip to the crab or just choke it round the branch (not best practice I know but a 30kn steel carabina can take a small amount of side loading lowering small branches)

Anyone else use a splice eye on rigging ropes?

Spliced spider leg

Spliced up this spider leg today

Those of you not familiar with a spider leg it's basically a dead eye sling with a much larger spliced eye, meaning it can be attached to the rigging line via a prussic and used to cradle branches.

But can still be used as a normal dead eye, this one is tied out of 14mm sirius bull rope and is about 5m long 

Locking stitch and whipping 

Hanked up for storage. 

This is definitely a cheaper way of getting rigging gear. Brought a 10m length for about £10 (Honey Brothers end of real deals) and have ended up with a 5m spider leg (retails about £50) and will make a 4m dead eye out of the other length (retails for around £40)

Thats assuming I'm doing them correctly and their not going to fail as soon as I use them, best test them out on something fairly straightforward with a clear drop zone I think!

Mini MA system: more pics

Just some better pics of the mini MA system I've been playing around

Set up in situ as the stein block goes on

Here you can see I've tied a small loop on the tail of the cord that attaches the pinto to the  rope grab

then its fairly straight forward to clip the rope grab to the rope and unclip from the mounting strap

Here I've hoisted up a pretty hefty lump of eucalyptus

Tying off the rigging line on the stein block in order to advance or remove the rope grab

Hope these pictures help to explain the system slightly better, will try and get a video up soon 

Mini mechanical advantage system

Can you guess what it is yet?

 



I've mentioned in previous posts how I've been playing around with a few ideas for tensioning the rigging line. I was looking for several things: something simple that could be taught in a few minutes that was also fairly idiot proof, something that was easily installed and not too gear intensive, I wanted at least a 3:1 mechanical advantage (MA) and I wanted to avoid having to use knots to attach it to the rigging line.

This has yet to be used in anger and only played about with in my workshop so you'll have to excuse the pictures.

So if you assume the rigging line has been set as normal and the end your looking at here is coming down from the tree to the protawrap/bollard.

 

The rope grab is attached to the line with the MA system already in place

 

 

The other end of the MA systems clips into the top of the porty/bollard

 

Then by pulling on the working end of the MA system tension is applied to the rigging line, with progress being captured on the porty/bollard

 

Once the MA system is out of room the rigging line can be tied off

 

 

A few wraps and a couple of half hitches usually does the trick

 

And if needed the MA system can be advanced up the line again to add more tension/pull the line further.

 

When not needed or once the line has been tensioned sufficiently the rope grab is removed from the rigging line and clips into a stein mounting strap installed well above the bollard, the other end of the MA system can be left in place for the duration and everything is ready for when MA is needed again.

 

 

So this is by no means the best explanation but I hope you get the general idea. everything is pre tied and set and gets put away as in the top picture. So when your setting up first thing all you need to do is install the stein mounting strap, clip the rope grab end to it, and the other end clips into the bollard and then its all ready to be used as and when needed.

 

I'm going to try and get a video of it in use as I feel this will help a lot with the explanation!

 

Any thoughts or queries?