quercus

something for you guys to think about when constructing your own chainsaw lanyard.
You gotta incorporate a large heavy key-ring somewhere, just to make sure the saw will break away from the lanyard when for instance, it gets stuck in a cut when trying to cut a large limb. If you don't, chances are that you'll be pulled down along with a falling limb if the lanyard doesn't have a breaking device. A large and heavy key-ring should have a breaking strength of about 15 to 30 pounds. That'll hold the weight of the chainsaw real good under normal use, but when pulled down, it'll break and therefore is safer.Imagine that you construct a lanyard out of 8mm climbing line and 2 biners. That'll hold 500 kg's easily without a breaking ring somewhere. You may think that's not a problem, but do you think that your tie-in point will hold that kind of dynamic loading all the time?

Don't rely on manufacturer's guidelines when they say that gear loops are breaking at a certain load. I know this because a few years back, we pulled apart a petzl harness. Petzl claimed the breaking strength of the gear loops was about 5 kg's, but after testing it has shown that they can easily hold 50 kg's wich is a lot more.One of them broke at 61 kg's.... The main reason for those specs is so you wouldn't use them for hauling heavy things, but stitches and used materials are usually much stronger than they claim they are. Also sometimes I clip in the lanyard on a d-ring for better access. Without a breaking device incorporated, that could result in a fatality.