First Aid Kit - in vehicle

The first aid kit in my truck lives behind the passenger seat, its clearly labelled and I make a point of making sure everyone knows where it is

 

The contents consist mostly of large wound dressings, large sterile dressings and assorted tape/gauze.

 

It all just about squeezes into the case

 

which is a Peli case I originally brought to house my SLR camera, but decided after countless other first aid boxes had fallen to pieces that it would see more action and be better suited to living in my truck.

 

 

Peli are renown for there quality and robust build, they are completely water and dust proof and will take a serious amount of abuse.

 

 

This helps keep the contents clean and dry and all in one place, what's the first aid kit like in your truck

Retrievable Top tie for SRT

I've always favoured a top tie for SRT, I find it cleaner and neater and don't need to worry about someone (or me!) cutting my base tie. I tie a figure 8 around a dmm anchor ring which has been preinstalled on the other side of the line. This way there is less friction/ware on the point at which it cinches on the line/tree.

The main flaw with this system being that I always need to climb back to the top to remove the tie in and then usually have to switch back to double rope to descend.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with this it can be quite time consuming, So I have been experimenting with using a 5mm cord and a small DMM snap to retrieve the line

I clip this into the figure 8 not the dmm anchor ring, as then when you pull the cord the ring stays in the right orientation and does not add friction to the system, it seems to retrieve the tie in quite well, the cord is just thick enough to get a good purchase on it to give it a good pull. It has worked on a 2ft ivy clad stem so I'm hoping it will retrieve from most anchors. the only issue so far is when to clip the line in and how much would it get in the way if installed at the beginning?

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. 

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 

Stein Arbor trolley

Been used a bit more in anger this week.

Was actually a bit of a life saver as we turned up to do a job that had been booked in a while, with parking permits sorted and everything, only to discover that the road was closed and the closest we could park was about 200m away!

Fortunately it wasn't a huge job, just a smallish cherry to fell and a fig to reduce, and with the aid of the arbor trolley we managed to get it all to the truck in 4 trips, 3 for brash and one for logs. 

This is fast becoming one of my favourite tools, I just wish all garden gates were a bit wider!…

Side on chipping

Think I've mentioned this in a previous post but feel its definitely worthy of a couple more photos

We use this when ever we can, without making life difficult for ourselves, saves at least 10 minutes sweeping/clearing up at the end of the job. Especially if we have the TW150 and are chipping conifer or something very leafy like lime as it always seems to get a bit bogged down and not have the power to fire it right to the back of the truck 

DMM tool bag

As anyone who has been following this blog will probably gather I'm a bit of a bag fiend, especially when it comes to organising my climbing gear.

I keep this one in my main climbing bag to keep all my SRT stuff separate 

Saves everything getting caked in sawdust or lost/damaged, also makes finding stuff much easier. 

Not a huge amount of point in saying too much more about this bag as I think Dmm have done a bit of a redesign and discontinued this model. 

Throw line set up

Trying out a few things with my throw line set up lately

Been using this DMM tool bag for a while, but its not really big enough to loosely spool the throw line into it, 

So rather than splash out on a cube for £25 I've brought a couple of pop up laundry bags for £1.25 each

Line spooled inside and tied onto one of the handles to keep from loosing it

Folded up with line inside

Then fits nicely inside the DMM bag, along with:

A 14oz weight (for those thick barked trees) and an 8oz (for those long shots)

I also keep a cheep reel of cord in there as well (£1.50 from Lidl) I have this if i want to leave a line up in a tree over night or over the weekend, or if I'm not sure when I'll be back to finish up, as its so cheep I'm not too worried if its gets lost or pinched 

Stihl MS150t - mod

 

Got this little saw a few weeks ago and I've been pretty impressed with it so far.

 

However I've heard of quite a few people loosing the saw out of the tree, due the the attachment ring on the back giving way.

 

So with this weighing on my mind I decided to back it up, I'd read of a few different ways over on arbtalk but decided instead to use some 6mm accessory cord and make use of a small hole/recess at the back of the saw

The cord is poked through and tied off with a fig 8 stopper knot and pulled tight

 

The other end is then tied into a double fishermans

 

Tied nice and short it lines up nicely with the original attachment point

 



So the saw strop can then just be clipped through both

How to make chainsaw trousers last longer

Whats the best way to get a normal pair of chainsaw trouser to last longer?

For years I did what most tree guys do, I brought a pair of trousers and wore them until they fell to pieces, maybe sewing up some of the big rips but for the most part I was doing well to get 12 - 18 months out of a pair. 

I then decided to be more proactive in the repair of my trousers, sewing up even the tiniest of rips before they got any bigger. This made a huge difference, but it takes quite a lot of discipline to wash them on a friday and have them sewed up ready to go on a monday. The simplest solution to this problem: 

Buy a second pair! Sounds obvious and it does require you to fork out another £150 on a pair that you don't necessarily need. But now with the second pair as soon as I get a little nick or tare I can wear the other pair until I get around to fixing them. It also allows me to always have a dry pair as with all the wet weather we've had this winter its not always possible to dry them overnight and nobody likes putting damp trousers on!

A 1" cut

All sewn up 

I tend to sew over the cut with a standard overhand stitch at least 3 times with doubled up strong thread, I then add a couple of applications of fabric glue as this strengthens the join and stops the thread from fraying so quickly. Does require a bit more discipline but hopefully will pay out in the long run. 

Especially as the zip has just given way on the older of the two pairs! not such a quick fix...

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 shot trigger video

Follow up video from a previous post

Not a huge tree, but with the 6ft pole and a 12oz weight I get the fork I wanted first shot, base tied and SRT up the other side to remove/reduce a few lower branches overhanging a golf green. Definitely saved a few minutes.

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.

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 

Rock Exotica RockO (Non locker)

Got this a few weeks ago after getting fed up with the small conventional style accessory carabinas that didn't seem big enough to hold both of the rings on my cambium saver and still function properly, making it tricky to retrieve from the back of my harness. 

Only a silly little thing but over time annoying enough for me to want to find a solution. 

This fits the bill nicely. Feels solid and well made, no sideways play in the gate and the little groves in the gate definitely aid grip. I'm a big fan of the oval carabina, they just seem to make much more sense to me, any one else agree? 

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?