rigging and falling three 100' tulip trees

murphy4trees

OK,
Here's the latest video project. Pat Epps climbing and rigging out three 100'+ tulip trees. Had a bunch of help editing from a friend's son, and actually bought a new imac for this and future projects.. Put some music over the action shots. The dialogue was all ad libbed and flowed pretty well. Camera was in a bucket truck for most of the day, so there are some nice camera angles.

I was trying to show what a good climber can accomplish with proper understanding of good cutting techniques, to steer large pieces to swing smoothly into the rigging, proper tying off at a point slightly under the center of gravity to aid in directing the piece to swing smoothly into the rigging and have it rotate slowly after seperatioin, rather than slamming down into the rigging, while keeping the piecee tip heavy to minimizing the risk of them coming back at the climber. Combining that with a groundman that can be trusted to let the pieces run, and we were able to rope out some large pieces safely while minimizing shock loads.

This is part one of two, both 10 minutes long. Part two is up on youtube already.
Also have another edit nearly complete of just the action without dialogue.

Reg, Ace, G.B., the master, and others have been cranking out some great videos. I hope you all enjoy this one as well... There is over 40 hours of post production in the three ten minute pieces...

stirmantrees

Part 1

Excellent job on Daniel and Patrick. Wow, liked that big stinkin log that swung right by him. Perfectly executed removal. Good comunication, good riggin, nice.
watchen part 2 a little later.
I like using bowline with a bite as well. I tie everything with a bowline now that i think about it.

Eric Frei

Nice video's.

Only negative comment is you titled it efficiency in rigging yet was tying knots ... knotless rigging is way faster.

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kiwi_tree_steve

hmmm couple of things i seen that i definatly would not do.......

1. in vid 2 i clearly saw a rigging point placed below the climbing point, and knowing that your taking large pieces on a tree species that is known to crack.......in my opinion thats Crazy

2. constant one handed use, cum on this guy dosent even try to used his saw with 2 handed, asking for trouble too

also, i sure i was taught to Scarf / face cut 50 % on a standing spar. this is to safely direct the tree in the aimed direction WTF is up with no more than 15% scarf IMO its just luck that the poles landed safely.

ok you might be able to rig big pieces but certainly i see some safety issues

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"You have to feel and touch a tree" Shigo

TrevMcRev

Thanks for taking the time to put that together Daniel.

Whoever ran the rigging ropes did a good job with flow & timing, no hangin stuff up, nice n smooth.

I agree with ekka though on rigging terminations.

All those knots tied & untied over & over throughout the day costs a lot of time. You could cut the time taken at both ends by 75% using choked rigging slings with a biner on a splice.

Nothing wrong with the way you did it though, just slow, and the emphasis is on efficiency in this clip.

Ace Master

Daniel and Patrick

Good to see you having a go
I tie everything with a hitch or a bowline and i've had those biners twist off like licorice sticks before. You also could run 2-3 rigging lines, different colours are the best so the ground crew know which one is up next. Friction drums are great ,especially for lifting those hanging branches up. A well oiled crew makes the hard jobs quick and simple.Your friend's son done a great job of editing too, well done all.

Speed will come with experience

Ace

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Website: The Mt Dandenong Ranges Tree Specialists

YouTube: Ace Tree Master

murphy4trees

Thanks all... It was a lot of fun..

And Steve... I agree about the one hand usage to a point. He doesn't even try to set it up for a two hand cut. I've talked to him about it before, and requested that he uses two hands for the videos.. we'll see..It doesn't look good, especially for newbies that are trying to imitate. I have to pick my battles though, and to be honest, I think his one handing is very safe. He's a highly experienced climber, very strong, using a saw that is sharp as a tack, with relatively good body and arm positioning. That is a lot different than a novice climber swinging a saw over his head like he's waiving a flag. There was no one handing rule back when we all learned to climb. So its hard to stop once you've been doing it for years and years.

The one issue that bears emphasis is that he tends to bypass the face cuts on the big wood, which causes the hinge to sieze. SO you can see in one of the cuts that he has to keep pushing pressure on the piece with one hand while he cuts with the other, until the hinge breaks. If he cut a proper face and backcut, he wouldn't need to one hand. I'll talk to him about it when we review the tape. And we did actually tape a discussion of his bypass cuts on the wood, which may be used in another piece.

As far as your other comments... you are young and you've got a lot to learn. How much are you going to learn if you think you know better already?

And for everyone else.. there's a good discussion on balance point rigging at ????????..

The term balance point rigging was just used by Cory in the video thread: http://www.????????.com/forum/showfl...vc=&PHPSESSID=

This is concept that Mark Chisholm teaches in his rigging seminars, and was used extensively to safely manage monster pieces by my teacher, Big Jon Grier. Its an advacned technique with many applications. Allowing a lot more control of movement thus reducing shock loads, and improving control for ground men. There has been some good discussion at the above thread. Worth reading if you have an interest.

The basic idea is to tie off a piece getting lowered, at or near its balance point (center of gravity), steer it to 4 or 5 o'clock with the notch, and let is swing smoothly into rope until nearly all the weight of the limb is on the rope before the hinge tears, thus greatly reducing shock loads. Real pretty and fun for both climber and ground crew, though both have to work together to keep it safe.

I used the same concept today in two different jobs, not to control shock loads, but to make the pieces easier to handle on the gound.

First job was a dry 21" dbh, 60-65' white pine, backyard on the low side of a 4' retaining wall from the driveway. Rigging the trunk off itself, tied the pieces a little high above the notch so they came down balanced, allowed for easier control and more ground clearance when using the chipper's winch to pull the pieces onto the driveway.

Second job was a broken hanging 35' maple lead, maybe 12-14". Customer had cut all the brush off. It was hung up on the ground at nearly a 45º angle. Tied it off a good ways down from the break. Cut the tips back to where it was floating balanced which made it easier to handle, to pull out away from the bushes under the tree, onto the lawn.

Not rocket science, but did make the jobs a little easier.