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 

Couple more videos

Just a couple more videos following on from the last couple of posts

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. 

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 

Stein RC-3001 - Notched in

I talked about the Stein RC-3001 a while back and mentioned how we had never notched it into the tree

Well the oak we did this week definitely called for it. It made a huge difference, we were dropping some huge loads on it and it never moved an inch. for the extra few minutes in set up time it was definitely worth it.

Blocking down

Everyone seems to have a different term for this; Blocking, chogging, negative rigging, dynamic rigging etc...

Basically when the piece of timber is directly above the rigging point and is then inverted 180 degrees and lowered down I call it blocking down or dynamic blocking.

This is one of the bigger lumps we did, the rope should have been allowed to run a lot more to minimise the shock load, but we were a bit over cautious and put one too many wraps on the lowering bollard, which in turn led to too much friction on the bollard and the shock load on the system you see here. 

As a side note if the stem is to be dismantled in sections but not rigged, I call it chogging down. Don't ask me why, just always have. The guys on the ground always seem to know what I'm on about anyway.

Rigging line redirect

The anchor point I was using in the oak yesterday was slightly stepped out from the main stem meaning  that the rigging line wouldn't of entered the lowering bollard at the correct angle. So to rectify this I installed a second Pulley block at the top of the stem, at the crown break.

This ensured that the line ran plum with the stem and entered the Lowering bollard at a right angle to the stem. 

The large ISC pulley block might be a bit overkill for using as a redirect but it was the only pulley I had with us that would fit both the 16mm line you see hear and the 19mm we switched too when we moved onto rigging some bigger lumps. 

Working a Spar SRT

I dismantled a large oak earlier this week, the crown came out easily enough and we were down to the stem by lunch time(ish)

Call me a cheat for using ladders but It's still the quickest way into a crown!

The stem was obviously slightly more time consuming, especially as it was up to a metre in diameter in places and due to a fragile patio underneath everything had to be lowered. Now I quite enjoy blocking down big lumps of wood but they can be pretty time consuming to set up, which is why I frequently work them SRT.

I simply choke my line at the top of the last cut, descend to where I want to cut next (with rope wrench attached) I have the pulley block, dead eye and rigging line clipped into my anchor ring, so they are out of the way and not hanging off my hips, I am then easily able to make the face cut without any danger of cutting anything. 

The stem after 3 or 4 large lumps had been rigged down, you can see the largest still at the base of the tree, to big to be moved we had to cut it up where it sat.

Once I've made the face cut, the pulley is attached as close to the face cut as is practical. The rigging line and pull line (if applicable) are next to be attached before I strop in, move my SRT anchor to just above the pulley, make my cut and hold on! Then its a case of un-tieing the dead eye, clipping it to my anchor ring (pulley/rigging line still in place) descend and get ready to start all over again!

When it comes to either descending to a point where I can't reach my anchor to retie it (or coming down at the end of the day) its a good idea to make the anchor retrievable, in which case I use an Alpine Butterfly. 

First enough rope is pulled round the stem to reach the next point/ground, then I tie the alpine butterfly into this long end, then simply clip a karabina through the loop and onto the other part of the rope (closest to harness/hitch) making sure the gate is facing up, this is then synched up tight to the stem.

Now I wouldn't recommend this as a permanent anchor to work an entire tree, but for working on a large diameter spar like this I think its fine; its always in sight so you can see its not cross loaded or coming undone, and the stem is large enough that the krab is being weighted along its correct axis.  

Coming down at the end of the first day

Retrieving the anchor 

Then when it comes to retrieving the anchor you just pull down on the knot side of the rope until it gets to you, unclip, untie the butterfly and pull the rope down. 

Nice bit of Rigging - Stein RC-3001

Had this Eucalyptus to fell today, nothing too serious, but quite a tidy lawn so we rigged everything down.

Multi-stemmed with a reasonable spread, managed to select a decent stem to have both my anchor point and a rigging point, from which we were able to rig everything down safely. Had 3 groundies on this so we were taking it in some pretty big lumps, 1 guy working the ropes and 2 clearing the drop zone.  

As I knew there was going to be a fair bit of rigging we brought the Stein RC-3001 along with us (where as we often make do with the humble portawrap)

Works exactly the same, with wraps being added as the lumps get heavier

Although being a fixed bollard its a bit more fool proof and much easier to remove slack from the system; I've seen guys get in some horrendous states with portawraps before now. 

When its notched into the tree its rated at 3 tons, and at 500kg when mounted just on the rubbers. But to be honest we rarely notch it and have dropped some big lumps with out it moving an inch. This is in part due to its bomb proof construction and the heavy duty ratchet strap that securely fixes it to the tree, (This can be done with one person but is much easier with two) 

Having used a fix bollard lowering device quite a lot in the last 12 months I would find it hard to go back to using a portawrap for big trees. If the Stein block (as we call it) wasn't such a heavy thing to carry round we'd no doubt use it for every rigging job large or small. But as it stands it is a big thing to take to every job, so we often just take the portawrap, which does the same thing, just not quite as user friendly and harder for inexperienced ground staff to become proficient at.