Tree Machine ... Jim Clark, inventor and ahead of his time

Ekka

I know you're lurking so time to register and participate.

I know how much you cant stay away from tree stuff so why not have a bragging opening with ya new dump truck? And the special one of unloader you could manufacture.

I still got ya T-Shirt ya know.

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TreeCo

If he signs on Ekka make him tell what his climbing system is.

Ekka

And he can say all he wants about solo climbing and lowering.

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TrevMcRev

TM TM TM
Bring it on We want the Tree Machine on board.
Love his well written informative posts and inventive techniques.

C'mon Jim, you know you want to.

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Tree Machine

Wow..... I just got done registering and hit the last OK button and , KaZamm! The room started spinnin' , the earth shook, lights dimmed and I was sucked through this cyberportal, kicking and screaming . The experience was HORRIFYING . I'm not kidding!:

Tree Machine

But since I'm here, Hello . My Name is Jim , pleased to meet you. I love trees like all of you.
That's our common connection.

Well, Thanks for petitioning me forth. Rather flattered that you would think of me, and TreeCo Dan Nelson for immediately calling me out on the friction control. Interesting new stuff.


So to all the Aussies, and the Kiwi's and the Swedes and the Norwegians and the Dutch and the Ticos and the Japanese and Lithuanians and the Brits and the Poles and the Russians and the Chinese and the Isrealis and the Palestenians.... and all the Iraqui and Iranian and Saudi tree climbers, even tree guys from the United States, and many dozens of other countries that I had wanted to, but did not mention,

a

great big

world-size
HUG!


Great lookin site you have here, Mr and Mrs Ekka.

Attached Images

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jim1nz

Haha hows it goin TM, whats that friction hitch all about then...

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a_lopa

Hey T/M good to see you here!

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Brother Colin

Woo Hoo.

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Tree Machine

I'm in good company. For the readers who don't quite know what McRev and TreeCo and Ekka and Lopa are talkin about is that there are a number of secrets I've been sorta waiting to share. On other forums, I dunno, I guess it didn't feel approriate to spill all the beans.

Other stuff, like solo equipment and prototype tree gear, I just haven't discussed much as it could be viewed as encouraging men to work alone, or for guys to test out their own test-gear. Unheard-of friction control methods and 1:1 climbing systems. The climbing systems, I have been 'sort of' sharing on other forums, but I use simple mechanical devices for friction control, and ascenders which means I have no need for friction hitches, ever. My posting of this has always come up to a lukewarm audience and questions have always stopped before I fully divulged the systems. Maybe TreeWorld is a better place for this. TreeCo is open, maybe if three or four other guys on planet earth had an interest, we could get a thread going.

The Tree Truck system, my pride and joy. A S.W.A.T. system for high-efficiency, small team tree care. 7 years testing this idea. Three prototypes and the fourth and final is merely weeks away, it will have all the bells and whistles. This is a highly advanced beginner's system, allowing a small company to do full-size commercial work. It is small and economical, versatile, efficient and surprisingly affordable. I would very much enjoy sharing all the details of this.


Just having revamped the tool stowage this past week, and installed air shocks today, I am at an all-time high of excitement. Anything in our tool collection that makes us money and makes our jobs easier, those are good tools. This system makes EVERYTHING easier, while organizing and housing all your arbo tools, it takes chips and dumps them off a raised, powered conveyor belt floor.

You really shouldn't get me started. I have video and lots of pictures. But this should be in the gear and machinery section.

Attached Images

frozen-maple.jpg (109.4 KB, 517 views)

Tree Machine

Can I post video, Ekka?

jim1nz

Well ya got me interested TM!!!

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Ekka

Post what ya like and if you need a hand you know where to find it.

Jim from NZ is a young highly efficient climber and top rung in competition. He would be foaming at the mouth to see some footage, especially if it gave him an advantage in the field over his competitors ... in either comps or everyday work.

So, dont hold back. And for your info I work on my own too, often. I have also used some of your ideas for lowering on my own.

Break her open Jim, get the champagne fellas and lets Christen the mother of all solo working threads. As long as your tied in, safe aint no law against it (here atleast but I do know some parts of the planet insist on two climbers every job ... too bad for you guys then. )

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TreeCo

Yes Jim has had my attention for a couple of years with his srt system. I've considered volunteering to work for him just for a peek!

Here is a link to an interesting ascender/friction device.
http://www.thompsontreetools.com/

Ekka

Jim

I dont want to sound like a smart azz here but there's no glory in taking secrets to the grave is there?

Dan, has there ever been a Unicender come off or slip off the climbing line? Any feedback on them and their performance vs Lockjack?

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TreeCo

I've only read a little on the Unicender and have never used a lockjack. SRT for trimming a whole tree does sound interesting to me. It does seem our industry is lacking is devices for srt climbing and hopefully that will change in the future.

Tree Machine

That's a hardcore question, Ekka, "Is there any glory to taking a secret to the grave?" The clear and obvious question is 'No', however secrets divulged before may have repercussions after. There can be ripple effects through the industry.

I have been seeking tree gear across the planet, purchasing what is available, creating what is not. I use a good number of efficiency devices that no other arborists on the planet are using. Of course, this isn't to say there aren't other innovative Arborists who can claim the same thing. I'm sure we all have a secret or two. Ekka and TreeCo and Lopa and all the community have been sharing online for years now and there have been a lot of innovations for the climbing Arborist and lots of equipment specifically designed for our tree duties, lots of industries who see us as a market.

Undoubtedly, there are a lot of great gear ideas floating around. I have a number of unique things that work really well, a couple things that need to go from idea and be built into a tangible tool, a friction device that we all need to collaborate on and design and develop, and of course devices we have not even conceived of.

As long as every one benefits from the information, I say, "Sounds fun!"
Let's dig in.

Tree Machine

In the spirit of TreeWorld.info, I would like to propose a rather unique idea to the working order of a forum. Ekka summoned The Tree Machine into this thread and the council is asking TM to throw down, to spill the beans, to tell the secrets and share amongst both peers and onlookers.

This method worked, has it not? I am here, you are here and we're gonna get to the meat of it. TreeWorld has that ability, to go into a company and summon forth a representative.

An example of this was at AS, there was a thread about using peanut butter on a Silky Blade. I wrote Hiroshi at Silky in Japan and had him join the thread. It was a remarkable exchange. It was an isolated case, but the result was, both sides were all the better for it, which brings me to a topic that has nothing to do with trees, but everything to do with tree people.

Are you ready?

I may spiel on for a moment, but I was summoned forth to share what works well, so here goes.

All throughout our lives we are taught the value of competition, and it's place in our lives is undeniable. Competition classically pits one against another, and for every winner, there is a loser. For you to be right, someone needs to be wrong. Tree Machine was a wrestler in grade school, middle school, high school and college. Pounding your opponent was good. Getting pounded, not so good.

But while in college, though I partied and chased girls far too much to actually be a good student, I did pick out a few nuggets of knowledge that have served me well in life. This one came second semester of my freshman year. The fog had cleared, the first term was now behind and I was actually beginning to realize fully that I was in college. It was plant biology 102, a course that changed my life forever and into what it is now. Now frickin' pay attention. You're gonna be tested on this:

The discussion that day was symbiosis, how organisms interact, be they alike or different, but both organisms are alive, and their relationship with one another can be 1) Bad for both. 2) Good for one, bad for the other. Good for one, indifferent to the other or 4) Good for both.

1) Bad for both, the organisms will repel each other. There really is no relationship except clash or bad outcome. These relationships don't work. Asymbiotic.

2) Good for one, bad for the other. This is the classic win/lose we are programmed into. In nature this is called a parasitic relationship. Beneficial to one, the other suffers as a result. This is what we're raised to think, winning is good. Being right is good, clobbering your opponent is good. We are all products of this.

3) Good for one, indifferent to the other. This is a beneficial symbiotic relationship that is is driven by what one has to offer vs what the other one needs. This relationship can carry on, but there is still one side that's not getting anything out of it, no driving force to it except that one side gets because the other side has.

4) Symbiosis in a form that is beneficially mutualistic results in a relationship that will last. One hand washes the other, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. A relationship where both sides benefit. The classic win-win.

The point I'm driving at is, all relationships, personal and business, fall into one of the four categories above. These are choices we make, whether we realize it or not.

If we choose to create win-wins, then that is what we will manifest. It is a conscious effort, sometimes a shift in the way we think, but easily attainable. You don't want to lose, but you don't want to win at someone else's expense. If you choose, in advance, that your intent is for both sides to truly benefit, then they both will, and you have a relationship that is sustainable.

OK, I only say this because nothing gets done on this planet without human -to-human interaction, not a single tree job, or a deal or even a chance encounter.


Tying this all together, if we are to summon forth a representative of industry or education or service, we are asking OF them FOR ourselves. OUR benefit is clear, getting the information we want. But what's in it for them? To keep the exchange beneficially mutualistic we can't invite em in and beat em up, I mean, criticize and insult. We don't invite them in to roast em on a spit. We invite them in to share from the inside of what it is they are offering us here on the outside. Increased exposure, visibility, promotion, endorsement, testimonial and sales; these are the possible benefits to the summoned, as well as their now having a closer working relationship with this market and immediate feedback.

Inclusion is the key word. There is always distance between buyer and seller. These threads can close that gap and take us right inside their company. We just sort of have to ask for an invite. I think this would lend a uniqueness to the site, keeping in the TreeWorld forum spirit and making for some dang good thread content.

Good threads are da golden egg, mon.

TrevMcRev

Tm, think youve scared the bejeezuz outta everyone with that post.

But i dig it. 2 way street.

I hope you find the time and inclination to share some of your ways with us here. From what Ive seen from you on AS im impressed with your passion for what you do and your ingenuity.

Hope myself & others can offer something in return that benefits you too.

Now lets hear about your new truck set up, funky friction techniques aloft, etc.

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a_lopa

Well put T/M

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jim1nz

Tm, now days for me its hard to find a post on any form thats worth while reading but when you have something to say its most certainly worth reading. You have such passion and meaning behind what you say and thats a quality you need to improve in any aspect of arboriculture. Development. Just like evolution develop and change for the better.

My congrats, hope to share some secrets some day. James

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Tree Machine

Here I feel I can share without being an outlaw. Other places, some of the methods I put out there I have to sorta force feed it into a thread. Here, it's more of an invitation, so the dynamics are much different.

In that long-winded spiel, I wasn't encouraging benefits to myself, but rather to manufacturers or company reps. Like the Harrison Rocket thread, for instance. Instead of just discussing the product, lets invite the actual maker, the person who developed the idea and create benefit for them.

My benefit is inclusion here in the mix. I'm rather honored that you think enough of my stuff to squeeze it out of me.

Tree Machine

You guys flatter the crap out of me.

Let me brief you on why the Tree Machine has a little different take on things, not claiming better, but different.

My first job as an Arborist was for a landscape company who wanted to start a tree care division. Bossman wanted someone who could do estimates, do the work and come home unbattered-and do it all alone. I stretched a lot of truth in that interview, but I owned one chainsaw and a real intense desire to do this work.

So, the fool hired me. All I knew about trees was the biology (my formal training), and I had done Bonsai work as a hobby for a few years. I could climb a tree from having done so most of my life and having built a couple tree houses in my teen years, but had never climbed one with a chainsaw and had never worked pole pruners and thought handsaws were for gardeners. I didn't know jack. A couple months in and Boss handed me a pair of spikes, I could only guess what to do with them, used them twice that Summer, for blocking down spars.

I climbed SRT because I came from a rock climbing background and I didn't know any better. I was doing tree work on 10 mm dynamic rock rope (because I didn't know any better) and soon found that I could treat a doubled rope the same as the single line and skip anchoring the one end. I refined this method over time and it wasn't until a year later that I met another climber. He showed me the latest greatest, which at the time was the split tail system. He was telling me how much faster it was than whatever else he had been using. I watched and wondered why he was ascending so slowly, air humping and pulling rope with both hands. It looked like so much more effort than I was used to. It just didn't click with me.

Years later I learned that in treework, the friction hitch is King and 2:1 systems are standard. Even to that point I had never used a 2:1 system or a friction hitch. When I finally did, it was a major step backwards in swiftness. I had to learn all the friction hitches as I was invited to give a climbing demo at an ESPN extreme games thing, showing the differences between rock climbing, caving and tree climbing systems. That forced me into a better overall understanding of the varied methods. Still, the 1:1 techniques I was employing were the fastest in setup and execution so although I was willing to try anything that came along, I would default back to the method that was the most boiled-down and fast. That was ascent up a doubled, parallel line with both ends on the ground (DbRT), and descent down the dual lines. If I couldn't trace the throwline back down, I'd set the rope, anchor one end to the trunk and go SRT. It didn't much matter. It was the same exact method either way, just a matter of handling a single or doubled rope.

So there's a history brief. The techniques I use are a result of early ingornance ( ) and never having had a mentor. No one ever taught me to climb and my ropework was basically what I stumbled on to intuitively.

These days I climb very much the same, all 1:1, except I'll drop into a 2:1 sometimes while doing little descents. I back up my ascenders, which I didn't used to do. For working the crown I use simple, inexpensive hardware and I have tried all kinds of commercially available pieces now that we have excellent 11 mm arbo ropes to accomodate them. Still, I feel that the best piece of hardware still is yet to be developed, and should be built for 13 mm lines. Having tried so many different devices, I have a solid feel for what an exceptional descent/work positioning piece would look like. I've skirted the edges of sharing this at AS for years now, but the the time or place never felt right. There's no glory or benefit or profit motive, so no real incentive to share, especially when no one really seems to care much.

My benefit is in being a tree technician and actually doing the work, which at the moment I need to go and do. Spring has arrived in Indiana and it's the season to dodge thunderstorms. We have tornado watches today. Yummmm.

TREE-SURFER

TM. you truly are admirable. A good history, and great advice.
Just one thing: I didn't get the bit about peanut butter on your Silkey.

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Tree Machine

Try this, Tree Surfer:
Peanut butter to clean a Silky Blade