Tree guys, Arborists and Riggers… I have questions …

[lil_Blue_Ford]

@4x4prepper

I was considering making an all metal throw ball launcher like that, but the local price for parts put it close to $100 or more. I can build a PVC one for maybe $30 or so. I was kicking around an idea I had heard of from Pumpkin Chucking. Guys usually are in one of two camps, high pressure/low volume or low pressure/high volume. All of these bag launchers seem to be geared towards high pressure/low volume. So my thought was to maybe try low pressure/high volume. Do a 36” or maybe 48” ”barrel” of 1.5” and same size valve, the do a 2’ long chamber of 4” and see what pressure it takes. Might try building two. Might finally build a potato gun. We shall see where it goes. Also thought about using 2” for the “barrel” and a rag “wad” to ensure the best fit.

I keep looking at the big Hickory that dad wants down and all the little branches and my sawzall seems like the ticket. I don’t want to leave a saw running between cuts and I want to limb as I climb because I don’t want the limbs in the way when I top it and rig the tops down.

My goal is to use friction savers and SRT as much as possible. I’m not trying to do production work so a little extra setup is fine by me. I also want to minimize heat and wear on my Akimbo, so with SRT it would be no big deal to do a figure 8 and drop when it comes time to exit the canopy with no risk of friction on a branch.

The big hurdle is rope. I need something that will run well on the Akimbo and SRT, but also be capable of handling DRT and things like a figure 8.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So, I built a PVC bag cannon. Put a lot of thought into it and how to make it modular so I could experiment and find what worked well. So I did a 2’ chamber of 4” down to a 2” PVC ball valve, then down to a 1.5” barrel 4’ long. Barrels thread on so I also made a 2” barrel 4’ long. This monster is near 8’ overall. Chamber held 125 psi and I decided to first try a 12 ounce bag on 100’ of throw line at 90 psi. It made a satisfying thud but I quickly realized that pressure was considerably excessive as I watched the bag head for orbit trailing the 100’ of bright yellow line like a rocket plume… As it turns out, 20 psi will lob it a gentle 40’ up… I’m going to leave this one as-is and build a smaller one, because, well, science, lol…

 

[planeflyer21]

Accidental artillery helps make life worth remembering.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

A friend just informed me that he made one once that would lob empty caulking tubes a half mile. I feel like I need to experiment more now…

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So I found a handy branch (surprisingly hard around here, most are not anywhere near horizontal unless they are way up), and decided to do some testing/experimenting of my gear and the two known ropes that I have (Sterling Scion and Notch Banshee). Took a couple tries to get my throw line where I wanted it (didn’t drag out my cannon for the throw line), then tried installing one of my home made friction savers (bought rated rings and used some 16 strand braided climbing line, made one fixed and one adjustable, I tested the fixed). Friction saver went in nice and neat and I had to stand there and admire it for a minute. It was only up about 25’, but good enough for testing.

Started with the Scion and my Akimbo, used the Notch Jet Step. Liked the feel of the Scion in my hand and it climbed pretty nice. Not overly happy with how it knots or coils up but it works. And it’s the most expensive, of course. Ran through my gear nicely though. Didn’t think to try it with my Prussic cords though before I pulled it down. Went all the way up to the top and hung out a bit.

Swapped that out for the Banshee and it definitely seemed more stretchy and a little less for the hand even though it’s less than a millimeter difference (11.7mm vs 12.5mm for the Scion). Climbed well, knots well, and coils well, just kinda springy. Went all the way up, hung out a bit and came back down. Did try my Prussic cords and found that they didn’t seem to want to work as advertised. Once I weighted them, I couldn’t get them to slide (three wraps up and three down) and two wraps wouldn’t hold. Tried both the 8mm X 28” and the 10mm X 30”, so I’m not entirely sure what went wrong there.

A couple side notes… I need to set up a clip for making the Akimbo self-tending. It quickly became vastly annoying to have to hand tend it. That said, it may have been more self tending had I attached it to my chest harness (I have the Petzl Sequoia SRT with the correct chest harness that converts it to a fall arrest rated harness so I can use the chest ring) as opposed to having it attached to the rope bridge which made things rather floppy.

The other side note was that I found the Notch Jet Step foot ascender to be a slick bit of hardware. Easy to kick out of, easy to hook back into, doesn’t seem to easily slip out of unless you are trying to though. Most importantly, it became self tending instantly with no weight on the tail of the line.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So I did a little more experimenting with climbing and got up in the one hickory in the back yard. It was a really slow process because of my dizzy issues and exertion induced issues from my concussions. But I went up about 50’ and back down and kind of tested things out. The harness was rather comfortable and I found I really liked the Scion rope and that I needed to make some gear changes. Well, adjustments mostly. I also learned that hickory trees suck. At one point I had a friction saver and both throw lines stuck in the tree… had to use the big ladder and some bull float handles to poke things free from the shagbark. Well, the whole process was a few day affair since I can still only do so much. But this gear will probably be pretty fun when I’m back to normal.

So I picked up some more gear to make adjustments to my setup and finally got a length of rope, I broke down and just bought the Scion. Interesting enough, most of the gear I have was made in USA, Italy, Switzerland, etc. Still waiting on the wire eye carabiner, should be here today, but the rest was here yesterday. I also learned that Prusik cords don’t really work climbing SRT with the exception of making a McGovern hitch with them, so I was trying to use them incorrectly. Oh, and the TriRig plate is going on my rope bridge for climbing DRT with the Akimbo or for if I need to do something other than just the ring that I have now.

 

[4x4prepper]

> I also learned that hickory trees suck

Why?

Pine is worse, imho, it gums up your rope and gears. I keep orange go-jo in my equipment trailer to clean me and the saws up after cutting pine down or milling it. I use to buy waterless hand cleaner at NAPA that worked well on most things.

> with the exception of making a McGovern hitch with them

I have no idea what that is, I will have to look that up.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

> I also learned that hickory trees suck

Why?

Pine is worse, imho, it gums up your rope and gears. I keep orange go-jo in my equipment trailer to clean me and the saws up after cutting pine down or milling it. I use to buy waterless hand cleaner at NAPA that worked well on most things.

> with the exception of making a McGovern hitch with them

I have no idea what that is, I will have to look that up.

Yeah, I hate cutting pine. I was getting throw lines stuck on branches and the shaggy bark and it made things rather annoying. This is after I had already climbed and limbed most of the big tree and ripped off a lot of the loose bark that it still gave me fits. Most trees if you get stuck on a small branch you can pop it free or break the branch. That didn’t seem to work at all on this hickory. And it’s a bit tough to cut. We always keep orange go-jo around, lol.

McGovern Hitch Link… enjoy.