Hi, George here, I had a limb from a big pin oak that had cracked and come to rest on the ridge of my friends house. This limb was about fifty feet long and started out about 18" in diameter. It was almost horizontal and about 25 feet off the ground. The break was not quite complete and could fail at any time. Working alone, I rigged this in suspension from two other huge trees nearby and from the next huge limb on this old plantation age tree. The base of the trunk was an oval seven feet wide, co-dominant trunks. I managed to eventually lift the weight from the house and cut this monster free from the broken end. Man what an exhausting day. Hot weather too. I came down after multiple ascents and lowered the limb, cutting it to size as it came near the ground. While I was working on the other dead oaks that threatened to hit her house, a copperhead snake struck my right leg above my logging boot. I wear Pfanner Gladiator chainsaw pants and the snake could not get through to my flesh. I stomped it to grease with my logging boot. dont bring your little fangs to a boot fight. Once I had bucked all the firewood over the next few days I returned to the cabin I stay at up in the mountains of North Carolina and enjoyed a really bad case of poison ivy/oak. Oh, and I got stung my hornets on that job. Main thing is, my friends house is safe again... : )
Haha, wow! You sound like a top of the line friend! That sounds like a crazy job to tackle alone. I'm you the sounds of it, I think I certainly would have declined the job without another helper or something! Good work George! Glad to survived all the tribulations that came with the job. Keep uo the good work!
@@zaccheus Thank you. This friend of mine has had a rough go of it. I always try to help when she needs it. Her house was flooded twice, this last time she had seven feet of hurricane floodwater in her house for two weeks before it went down. That is what killed the oaks around the house. I am a benevolent man. I do not usually have help in her area. I do not know who I would ask. she has very little money. So thank you for your kind words too. Right on, George.
@@zaccheus what sucks is that as I was belaying back to the ground, my climbing line rubbed against the edge of her tin roof metal and got cut and I had to make two rigging lines out of my beautiful teufleberger line. I kind of flinch each time I use them. Oh well, they are great for rigging now.
You definitely have something I don’t have. Proper articulation. When you work alone as long as I have you forget how to communicate. Well done. Another great video.
Just a couple tips when using this method. Don’t use a face cut, just use a back cut, and cut towards the pulley. This will give you more control and the piece won’t prematurely pop off before you or the ground guys are ready. Also try and leave you’re last bit of holding wood, or fibers on the side you want the piece to pop off and drop (opposite of you). This way it won’t get hung up like it did for you. Lastly you can also use a tag on the butt so the ground guys can guide it down, and also act as a brake so it doesn’t pop off towards you (I think you mentioned this in the video after it got hung up). All in all great job. I don’t see a lot of guys using the stand up method but I love it, especially for right drop zones, or large sections overhanging structures.
Thanks for sharing. I'll peel them out occasionally, but I often prefer the face cut because it offers a little more directional control. You can also get the piece to break off with less force if you get your face cut angles right. It's also a little less likely to fail when the branch gets closer to vertical and all of the limb weight is sitting on the butt of the limb.
@@zaccheus as long as you have enough pulling power (which you do with the GRCS) the wood or branch should have no problem going towards the pulley regardless of a face cut. But fair enough every climber has preferences that work better for them. I’m not sure if it was on this video or another but I noticed you were having issues getting your saw pinched on some bigger pieces of wood when it was directly below the pulley. If you put a good bit of pre tension prior to the cut the saw shouldn’t get pinched. Or try a slightly slanted cut/or mini climbing wedge. Great work, Cheers!
@jodypaul1950 Thank you for sharing your thoughts! It really does help my think about my methods and whether they are the best practice or not. I have maxed the GRCS out before. Thankfuly nothing that couldn't be finished with a hard-working man on the crank though 😅 I definitely have pinched the saw under some big wood, too. I've also over pretensioned pieces and had them leap off of the stub, which doesn't sound terrible, but it does negate the interest in keeping loads from being too dynamic. I have a video where we took some 1,700lb chunks, and there wasn't a lot of room for extra force on things.
Those little holes in the bark are from what are called sap suckers. It’s a bird that finds its food and pokes its beak into the bark finding it forming a damn near close to perfect line of holes. From what I was told.
@@zaccheusI’ve definitely come across the term sap suckers in ISA publications from what I can tell it is the following Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) Red-naped Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus nuchalis) Red-breasted Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus ruber) Williamson's Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus thyroideus)
Thanks Matt, all the credit is due to my friend, Bo, who was running the ropes. It was his job and he hired me to help for a couple days. He runs a tight ship and does quality work for sure. I always enjoy working with him.
Thanks Matt, all the credit is due to my friend, Bo, who was running the ropes. It was his job and he hired me to help for a couple days. He runs a tight ship and does quality work for sure. I always enjoy working with him.
It's nice to see you have your life line separate from the rigging line pulling you up in the beginning. One guy I worked for used to have a ground guy in a pickup truck pull him into the tree with no life line. Then he'd tie in once he got up there. When they talk about how dangerous this job is, half of it are people with thoughts like that.
Wow, sounds like there are a number of things that could go wrong with that 😳 based in videos I've seen and my own experiences, I've determined that I never want to be in a tree without a climbing specific system with a captive/cinched anchor point somewhere. There just doesn't seem to be any amount of time saving that makes skipping that worth it to me.
@@ryanarborist yea grew up with guys like that .kinda Mads get out of production. I work for myself now and can't stand rushing or ignorance..especially in tree work .but applies to all fields with risk.what scares me most in 2023 is GOD AND these people driving. I drive all over I have Commercial landscaping mowing? +tree service. Long story but trying phase back into full time tree service as I was before and do all winter it's buisy est time of year fir me.summer it's just so hot down here .but I see the most dangerous people on earth daily driving the roads. They shouldn't be allowed any where near a vehicle..the guys riding motorcycle s all over mountains here as well. Last year seen at least 3 of them a day accidents. That's scary..trees are more of calculated risk .no way would ride a motorcycle like I used to on these streets.
Sounds like your old boss is similar to my first boss 30+ years ago….the company didn’t have climbing ropes, lowering ropes, bull ropes etc….we just had “ropes”. So, the rope you were climbing on today might have be used to block out big wood yesterday or pull a truck out of a ditch last week. I wasted no time in acquiring my own climbing line and making sure nobody else touched it!
I wish buddy you would have recorded this job from start to finish out of love to watch it still excites me man and I've been doing it for so long it's crazy just learning s*** from other people still after all these years
Haha, that's awesome! It takes a level of humility to continue to learn in an industry where you have been working for a long time. I'm sorry I didn't film the whole thing. Most of it was just the chipper roaring away and it would have made poor footage 😔
@houndsong That's awesome! I have a customer like that up in Minnesota. I did the same thing kind of. I started a business with no formal training 😅 in hindsight it was a poor idea, but I was too excited to climb trees to see it in the moment.
Watching that limb come down and snag in the lower branches made me think that one needs a well rounded skill set to get out of trouble. Not everything happens exactly according to plan, and an ability to extract yourself from difficulty is key. It would have been interesting to see how you would have to manage if it got truly stuck half way down.
That's certainly true. I imagine it's a trial by fire kind of thing in general. Whenever we use the GRCS, we always have the option of wrapping the rope back up on the winch drum and lifting a piece if we let it down too far in a bad way. When we don't have it on the winch, cutting stuff off is about the only option I know of.
Thats sweet! I'm suprised you don't already have one. If you're looking to get a drill too, I've had good success with the Makita 36v angle drill. As I recall it's geared a little lower than the milwaukee hole hawg. Also if you're aiming to rig big, the visor plate becomes a necessary to preserve the rubber pads on the back of the unit.
those horizontal holes are from a small bird called a yellow bellied sapsucker..i get asked alot about them being in the pest control business by customers all the time..
Pretty sure those horizontal holes at around 3 minutes in are sapsucker damage. I've had an experience where a branch with such damage that i was rigging off of broke after being loaded a few times. Something to be aware of when a rigging point is above those holes, even if it's a pretty stout branch...
Absolutely, they're nice on big jobs, but there are ways to do the same thing on smaller jobs. Stay safe out there, I think we got a taste of your weather here recently and it's pretty intense!
@@zaccheus Yes there is many ways to skin a cat... Haha! Tree work especially climbing is a bit different in winter time indeed! Feet and fingers are the worst to keep warm in climbing...coldest i been climbing was -27degrees celsius, now its only -10 at this time. december is been snowing maybe 60cm in total but there was couple days of little +degrees and snow compressed down a bit...
@Servicestar Wow that is mighty cold! I've never been up in a tree in much colder than -15°C and I really don't think I want to. It very rarely stays below -20°C around here and tree work mostly stops for the few weeks a year that it's that cold. It's just too hard to be productive when everything is that frozen 😅
We call that folding umbrella limbing. Then you chunk off the bottom as it is lowered. Great tight space method. Also usually use a tag line on the bottom to keep it from swinging and pull it into the trunk.
Ha! Thats a great name for it. I definitely should have put a tag like on it before we cut it. I'm sure you know, but I'll add for anyone watching that you just gotta be careful when cutting chunks off of the bottom. There will be a point where the limb will try to flip.
My guy!! First off loved the video. Second off you just liked my instagram post and i've never fangirled so hard😅. Needless to say you're one of my favorites on youtube keeo up the great work and stay safe brother!
I'm just a novice and self taught, so I appreciate any feedback on this: when I was watching that 50 ft branch, after the GRCS stood it up, it looked like about 6ft of rope at I'm guessing a 70-degree angle. Therefore, I'd EXPECT a 6 ft+ dynamic loading situation... "+" because or rope stretch on a heavy branch. instead, the branch dropped ONLY 2-3 ft toward you. I can't figure out why. same question from a different direction is why you said you expected it to be fairly static loading. thanks a million
Excellent question, Rory! This rig was less than perfect for a variety of reasons, but I think what you're describing had a few factors that primarily contributed to it working out the way it did. The biggest one is the brush engagement at the top. The brush on the rigged limb was pushing on the tree top and preventing us from getting it to stand up straight and also preventing gravity from letting it hang plumb once it was cut. If we could have gotten it to stand up straight it would have had even less drop. I described the rig as static in a manner of relativity to traditional dynamic rigging where we drop or swing pieces into the rope. It certainly wasn't perfectly static because it still moved around a bunch when I finished the cut. We want to try and make big GRCS rigs like that as static as possible becaise there is no way to let a branch run and soften the shock (or dynamic) loading when the GRCS is in its lifting configuration. Does that makes sense and answer your question?
i appreciate the response. perhaps the best answer is that I haven't ever used a GRCS, which apparently can put an literal ton of tension into the rope. I've tip tied into nearly vertical stems like that using a standard port a wrap and a strong groundie, and on branches half that size had them drop 10 feet due to rope stretch. on an upright maple I was working I was spending half my time getting myself positioned behind the trunk and cutting with my silky because those branches were coming down like missiles. again, appreciate the feedback. I'll need to spend the $3k on the GRCS
@Rory McVay Haha, no problem! It is an amazing device amd I pretty much get it out anytime I have an opportunity to tip tie anything. I can do so much more just because I can pretension the rope and nearly eliminate shock loading. I believe the GRCS is the best lifting unit it out there, but there are other, more cost effective devices out there that do similar things. The hobbs is probably the most popular.
@Dr.H They are super nice folks. I hang out down there occasionally on bad weather days 😅 I've most certainly heard of BTS. I've dumped chips at the yard a couple of times. I used to run a small single crew service out of Copley and we would see their trucks almost every morning on our way out. Do you work there?
@@zaccheus I worked there for 5 years started on the ground then learned to climb. I don’t do tree work full time but stay busy just about every weekend with side work. I just came across your video researching some gear and heard the Endors shoutout. Small world!
Thanks Eric! I've certainly learned some hard lessons with risk taking. Something I often do to minimize risk of failure is to work up to bugger thing with smaller ones. It gives everyone a little practice and also give me an opportunity to see how things go. Once something is hanging on the GRCS, a good groundie can kind of get and ides of how much capacity it has.
All in all good work..That was a big tree... Hey so I was thinking may be good to just treat this scenario as a crane pic and see the cut through. While you communicate with gcrs. I feel that would take alot of unnecessary force out of the equation.. Do you kind of see what I mean?
@Eric Lopez I might understand what you're saying. The hinge is super important to keep the butt on the cut while the GRCS stands the piece up. That's the only reason I don't cut it all the way off at the beginning. If thay butt falls off of the cut early, the whole thing gets dropped onto the rigging system and that's more dynamic loading that I'd prefer to see 😬😅
My man, that was some excellent work, and great articulation and explanation. But, I gotta ask, what did you think was gonna happen when you did the tip tie with the rope essentially horizontal up top. I guess you figured it out, lol. Keep up the good work. Nice to see someone thinking this stuff through. You'll make a lot of customers happy I'm sure. JS, Certified Arborist
Thanks! Maybe I don't quite understand you question there. It did exactly what we wanted it to do. It was a little tight and so we struggled to get the butt out, but it worked better once we got the hang of things and move on to the next limbs.
@@SC-by6bv yes and no. Some stubs are super important to remove and some are a little less important. If you cut all your stubs off, it will double or triple your cutting time, fuel/batter use, make more things for the groundies to pick up and produce more falling hazards.
Would it have been more efficient to fold it out in 2 pieces rather than crank/drill in 1? I love the drill on my GRCS but not sure that’s the best use case.
Yeah, there is a chance it would have been faster if we had flipped the tip out and then reeled in the lower piece. We just didn't have room to do that with the primary lines there. Once we got things opened up a little more, it went much smoother.
@@RenoMakani I use the original GRCS and I use a makita 36v angle drill. I made a comparison video with it here: Milwaukee Drill Vs Makita Drill on the GRCS th-cam.com/video/LOp-iATox24/w-d-xo.html
I have an idea on the markings you asked about in the bark or the tree.....from my own experience, wondering if the marks have anything to do with the tree having some kind of item tied around it for a long period of time as it was growing, even when it was very young? Maybe something was tied up around the tree to support something else for a long time? Wonder about barbed wire around or next to tree at some point in it's younger days?
That's a good thought! However tree only add to their hight by growing vertically at the branch tips. So if someone else made a scar by tying something around near the bottom of the tree, the scar would always be at the bottom of the tree. Thabks for sharing your thoughts!
I was thinking about the marks (in the center main portion of the tree) that I have higher up in a smaller tree than the one you are working on (and also marks from past trees) that I planted in 2018 that has grown up and much wider but a tree that I was constantly tying cables around different areas and branches of the tree to support it in strong winds and also to direct and redirect it's growth in or away from certain directions...(and sadly some of the ties I forgot about and discovered later when I got a ladder out and started trimming higher branches but for some reason the areas where I first made the ties that I forgot about, grew up higher than when I first tied them at a lower level, which per your information does not make sense, that the tie area ended up going up with the tree as it grew up? I don't know, it just does not make sense, what you say, in a way....I mean at some point a tree starts out shorter and grows taller....so just saying maybe at some point in far long ago history, that area with the marks was not so high up in the sky and maybe it was used to hold or support something with some weird kind of something??? wire or metal or ??? I was not completely clear on everything, sorry....but I meant to say I also had used barbed wire in the past on trees (because that was all I had available that was strong enough and I didn't have money for proper cables)....but sometimes if the wire was on for a length of time and then taken off (if the tree did not grow around the wire if left on too long) there would eventually be marks with time where the wire was originally placed. My other though was some kind of wide metal band with a pattern or holes was placed around the tree that left marks? Maybe just stupid ideas....but ideas anyway. One idea might lead to another and maybe a better one???
@slc6900 Anything is possible, I suppose. I have not been around long enough to have observed the entire life cycle of larger trees. Literature on the matter suggests that trees grow longer and taller only at the branch tips. Then those branches can only get bigger around with the addition of annular rings every year. So if a tree has a branch that is 5 feet off of the ground, that branch will always be 5 feet of of the ground. However, if the tree is 3 feet in diameter at chest height one year, it might be 3ft 1 inch in diameter at chest height the next year.
@@MrBaastardo It's just strapped on top of them. It gets in the way down there every now and then, but it's easier to grab and put away than when I have it dangling from my harness.
I got it on black Friday from my local dealer here. It's a nice unit for sure, but it has a few things about it that leave me liking my Akimbo a little more. It's definitely cheaper to rebuild though. That's why I got it.
@@zaccheus what you like about the akimbo more? And I wonder if it’s some of the things that they switched in the pro. I do like how small the akimbo is tho. I used one before and idk it had its things that were cool but this one kinda sketched me out lol
@Opie Taylor Seems like a lot of people have had a hard time getting the akimbo adjusted for their rope and weight and such. I really like its compactness, lack of sit back and the simple fact that there will almost never be anything easier to put on the middle of the rope. With mine adjusted the way I like and feel safe on, it does have a little drag when sliding up rope and that's not my favorite, but it's a small price to pay in my mind. The RRP does seem like an improvement over the RR in a few ways, but I don't like the spring failure issue much and I'm no longer interested in giving money to Notch.
You're spot on! I like it a lot. It's nice and light and doesn't have a ton of massive padding to hold heat in. I do think I might get some suspenders, but I love it all around.
Cool man. I really rate mine too so far. Occasionally I find the lower ‘Ds’ a bit small but that’s my only criticism. Keep the great content coming. Merry Christmas 🎄
Probably late to the show here but those holes are due to sapsucker damage. If they're in concentric rings it's sapsuckers, if not, probably a borer of some sort.
@@jeffprice8595 lol, good eye! Yeah, I learned a lot from it. I love doing experiments and stuff like that. If you ever have any ideas, throw them in the comments. I'm always looking for new things to try.
It's a harken capstan winch that's it sold with some specific bracketry for mounting it to trees and using it as a friction brake for tree work. It's also what we used to lift the limbs up in the tree. Goes by the name "GRCS" if you want to research and learn more about it.
Pretty much just like when you're tip time something you want the butt to come down and if it stays straight up and down man that grcs is awesome I seen the tension it put on that limb right away unbelievable
Okay cool, thanks! Thays mighty interesting. I've never heard of that before. I run my hero 7 black on 1440 and 24fps and I think those are the only settings I changed when it came out of the box
How do you decide the thickness of the rope, i was thinking 2 kits with required friction device for each 16mm for branches and smaller trees and 20mm for trunk rigging big trees
In short, I do my best to match SWL with the loads I need to rig. I have a smaller half inch (13mm) setup that I used for most stuff, and then when I get into bigger stuff like this I use a 5/8" (16mm) rope. I've never really needed anything bigger and I've never broken a rope. My current 5/8" rope has a tensile strength of 19,500lb and a SWL of 1,950lb
Thank you so much for replying, love your channel. Ah i see really interesting and h3lpful to know what you use. so I have a 16mm kit I've bought but if it's heavy rope I'm sure I can put a 12 or 14mm rope through the system if it's easier at least i can go up if needed. In my area we have a lot of pine, oak and redwood etc so I wanted to get a 20mm system block and friction device for negative rigging/blocking down for big diameter trees to be on the safe side.
@@zaccheusI have a technical guide for rigg8ng so I understand the load limit and SWL on kit and rigging, what the weight of the species will be x10 for negative rigging my 20mm system should withstand 30,000kg. Is is fine if I'm going to block down/negative rig 10,000kg-16,000kg?
@boomtaylor8297 Sure thing! There are 101 ways to take a tree down, the most important thing is that you do your best to stay within SWL and manufacturer intended use. I'm not a real big fell so I prefer to use smaller equipment whenever I can and just double block the rare occasions I have really big wood to get down. If you're not familiar with that technique, I have a video here: th-cam.com/video/_5b9JjbX0G4/w-d-xo.html
@boomtaylor8297 I'm not sure I really understand what exactly you're asking with those numbers, but if I am rigging wood in a scenario where big numbers matter, I try to calculated the approximate weight of the wood based on species. I aim to not exceed more than 10% of the rope's tensile strength. A lot depends on how good your ground guy is at catching pieces gently.
Hahah that still happens every now and then! Thankfully I haven't done it bad this season I don't think. But now that I mentioned that I'll probably spike it at work tomorrow 😂
@williammccarty867 haha I don't actually believe the world works like that, so I'm sure it'll be fine 😅 Thats awesome man! Hope you have fun and stay safe!
@jack croucher It's fairly big for our area. We might have been able to get it on the ground in one long day in the summer. I'm sure it would have been an easy one day tree with a big crane and a bug chipper. A lot of the time it took depended on how fast the stuff could be dealt with on the ground. And being from AUS, you might find it mire handy to know that the felling cut was 122cm
You think Buddy if you would have cut the knob off you would have had to easier time pushing it out it looked like that knob was blocking it where you made your notch just curious awesome work though man beautiful f****** rigging love it
You know, that thought went through my mind. I think that definitely would have made it easier, but I just didn't feel great about cutting in there knowing that my cut would release something that would swing around in a way I couldn't predict. I certainly remember wishing that know wasn't there though 😅 Thanks! Definitely could not have done it without a good team below.
Hahaa, I don't really have a good method. It's pretty much just start small and keep going bigger until you don't think you can go any bigger 😅 it really helps to have a good ground guy who has a feel for how much of the GRCS capacity is being used. For logs we measure and then use a green log weight chart.
@@zaccheus I understand. Thanks for your response and just want to compliment your style of working and videos. For me it is very helpful to watch how other people are working.
Hey bud, I have always carried a green log weight chart in my truck. The species of tree plus its diameter, it’ll give you an idea of what a 12” piece of wood weighs. You just figure it out from there. Really nice on crane jobs too
It's an abnormal growth a lot of oaks have it I've seen over the years called gallls. But it really doesn't hurt the tree. Great work though buddy as always nice Rigging I would love to have a grcs maybe one day
Just a 3/4 block and sling up top, I think we used another one to redirect the rope on its way down to the GRCS. It's 5/8 stable braid, which has a tensile strength of 16,300, and limb weight was well under 2k maybe close to 1,500 lb, but not really sure of an exact figure. Brush is hard to guess and very inconsistent throughout the seasons.
At 12:45 the guy in blue is near the branch that gets lowered, and has to look upwards. I would go further away, for safety and for a more convenient viewing angle.
Good thought! I often struggle to convince groundies to stand far enough away. It was really wet out that day and I suspect he was on the sidewalk for sure footing. However, it looks like the driveway might have worked too.
Yeah, but instead of the butt dropping off of the cut, we use the GRCS to stand the limb up and take the weight off of the cut so there is little to no dynamic loading
Before the big branch was cut loose 10:33 I would have fixed it with a rope to the main trunk to prevent it from swinging around. You sure had a Oh! moment there.
Fair thought! I don't love the idea of spending a bunch of time around the butt while it's secured by an unknown amount of compromised wood fibers, but it would have eliminated that moment of suprise
Thanks, Don! I'm sure you're plenty familiar with the principles of what went on here. I'm quote interest to see the same thing applied with a crane some day.
Zacheas 1st half minute of watching this... preacher on my TV is Talking about a Sycamore tree climber ... Onw of my lifelong favorites... Zacheus is a great example of believer... showing true repentance!😅
Hahaa, thays awesome! It is an amazing example of so many things. One of the most huming things I take away from that story everytime I hear it is how much God loves every single person, no matter what their background is.
Yes, absolutely. We were pulling these leads away from some primary lines and so taking smaller pieces would have meant 4 or 5 pieces rather than two unfortunately. On the bright side though, many of the following rigs went much smoother as we opened uo more canopy space and had less tip entanglement. Thanks!
Ah, that can be true sometimes. This one didn't go super smooth, but most of them were real nice and we were able to stick big pieces in the chipper without a bunch of labor on the ground.
@@zaccheus that’a awesome, also I used to work in canton and I shop at Endor’s every now and again. Scott is a great guy. I watched your video before I saw that’s where you’re from! Stay safe I’ll have to pick your brain about contract climbing. I’ve been in business for a little over a year now. I’m located in lake Milton Ohio!
@Gauur Absolutely, Scott and Maria are great folks. I'm always happy to spend money there 😅 Feel free to ask any questions to have. My email address is on my channel page if you wanna send me an email.
May I make a piece of advice for your next time cutting a similar piece I do not cut that limb as you did, I'm self taught, and learned a good safety practice, I cut it so it so the top would twist outward and away from myself So the top swings away from me, The cut is angled down on the out side away from me and also I leave the inside cut a little on the thick side to the last, so it is hinged there, holding the limb, and once the limb is secured to be held by the tugger line, The rest can safely be cut off and the bottom slowly swings outward away from me, I hope you can comprehend what it is I'm am conveying to you. I do not claim to be a professional, but have lots of rigging experience in structural steel and learned to limb and cut trees ever since I can remember , now 81 and soon to be 82 while still climbing trees for my own self,
@CMAenergy Thanks sharing your thoughts! I think I know what you're saying. I believe you'd recommend angling the hinge away from you in an effort to keep the limb away from the climber as it comes off. That might be something to experiment with. Typically, I try to point the hinge toward the rigging point because thays direction the limb moves in when we pull on the rigging rope with the winch. If the limb is angled to one side of the rigging point or the other, the whole situation can be a little more dynamic when the hinge fibers are cut.
@@zaccheus I make the top of the cut a little thicker on the back cut so when it will swing it hinges at the top and the rest of the limb drifts away from you every time. Just remember to make sure the cut is angled down away from yourself And you should not have a problem Experiment with it to find out the best that suits you. When it is cut that way, the limb will also slide down away from you as the top will go in the direction of cut made. What 'i do works for me, and it is always drifts outward,
@@zaccheus That tall slender piece being cut as done, That piece needs to have the cut angled down away from oneself, Not at 90 degrees as horizontally done, Sorry I 'm not familiar with your terms, But as long as the cut is not flat as seen it being done, It needs to be sloped away from oneself. And if one can try to cut which I believe is called a humble cut slightly at an angle so the out cut is slightly not being at aa straight 90 degrees from oneself, but add a little more angle in a counter clock wise cut, and downward to oneself, The idea is to have the piece turn away and downward from ones self, I hope you get the idea, I'm sorry being self taught, I'm not familiar with all your terms,
Two days for that tree...well done. What was the DBH? I have to say it. Shame on the homeowner for taking that tree down if it had no serious issues. Can't really tell but those two leaders could have just been cabled if that was a bad bark inclusion union. I make it a point to do al I can to talk myself out of a job for the sake of a perfectly fine tree, especially oaks. They are so important to the ecosystem. I'll abide the peoples wishes but not before I give my opinion and facts. Seeing this come down hurt my heart. Ask Santa to bring you a HUSQVARNA T540i XP. You'll love it.
Haha, it was 48" exactly at the felling cut. I think the homeowner was concerned about foundation damage. I did not sell the job, I was just there on contract, but I'm totally with you on the matter of saving nice trees. This one was the right distance from the powerlines that it didn't have to be hacked to maintain clearance and it really had nice structure over all. These pin oak trees are fast grower around here. This one was on 60ish years old and I've cut down others in the 42" DBH range that were 35 years old. So in that regard, atleast we were losing and old growth white oak or anything. Haha, the fella I was working for actually has one. He's let me use it before. They are nice, but I just can't give up on my perfectly functional 201 for a $1,350 replacement. I think that's what they cost not with a charger and two batteries. They'll have my attention a little more when they can make them lighter.
Great job but It seems to me, you spend more time in gettin the big one Out and down instead of takin it down in three pieces ... Take Care ...Go big or Go Home 💯
Possibly. This particular one wasn't super smooth. We had a lot of other rigs thay day that were a lot better. We got the whole tree done in 2 days. I don't think we would have done that if we had pieced it out in smaller pieces.
Tag line should have been put above the cut originally to keep it from swinging back at you ( I know watching the video makes it easier to make these judgements as I’m not in the tree )
Or We could have cut above that notch 5 inches with a downward 45° or greater slash and she would have slipped off the front.😜 Possibly knocking the chain off the bar...so use a little beaver cut 😂
Haha, I have some scars too 😅 I actually have been trying to be more careful with that this year. I nailed a finger tip early in the trim season and that's kept me mindful.
@kennethkaszyk6684 Haha, it's definitely way cooler. A good grapple saw is $800,000.00 it's definitely an investment thay will pay for itself, but it's a big challenge to keep up on payments for a machine like that. Especially in a seasonal industry where there is little to no income in the winter.
Hi, George here, I had a limb from a big pin oak that had cracked and come to rest on the ridge of my friends house. This limb was about fifty feet long and started out about 18" in diameter. It was almost horizontal and about 25 feet off the ground. The break was not quite complete and could fail at any time. Working alone, I rigged this in suspension from two other huge trees nearby and from the next huge limb on this old plantation age tree. The base of the trunk was an oval seven feet wide, co-dominant trunks. I managed to eventually lift the weight from the house and cut this monster free from the broken end. Man what an exhausting day. Hot weather too. I came down after multiple ascents and lowered the limb, cutting it to size as it came near the ground. While I was working on the other dead oaks that threatened to hit her house, a copperhead snake struck my right leg above my logging boot. I wear Pfanner Gladiator chainsaw pants and the snake could not get through to my flesh. I stomped it to grease with my logging boot. dont bring your little fangs to a boot fight. Once I had bucked all the firewood over the next few days I returned to the cabin I stay at up in the mountains of North Carolina and enjoyed a really bad case of poison ivy/oak. Oh, and I got stung my hornets on that job. Main thing is, my friends house is safe again... : )
Haha, wow! You sound like a top of the line friend! That sounds like a crazy job to tackle alone. I'm you the sounds of it, I think I certainly would have declined the job without another helper or something! Good work George! Glad to survived all the tribulations that came with the job. Keep uo the good work!
@@zaccheus Thank you. This friend of mine has had a rough go of it. I always try to help when she needs it. Her house was flooded twice, this last time she had seven feet of hurricane floodwater in her house for two weeks before it went down. That is what killed the oaks around the house. I am a benevolent man. I do not usually have help in her area. I do not know who I would ask. she has very little money. So thank you for your kind words too. Right on, George.
@@zaccheus what sucks is that as I was belaying back to the ground, my climbing line rubbed against the edge of her tin roof metal and got cut and I had to make two rigging lines out of my beautiful teufleberger line. I kind of flinch each time I use them. Oh well, they are great for rigging now.
@Trimbaker haha, that the kid of stuff that happens to the best of us. Atleast they still have a use!
@@zaccheus yep, they have to be less than four feet to start looking like sling materials....
You definitely have something I don’t have. Proper articulation. When you work alone as long as I have you forget how to communicate. Well done. Another great video.
Thanks Geoffrey! I prefer working alone occasionally too. I'd say a mix of both is probably good for me
Thinking out loud is a crazy good skill.
@@peacemaker54 I do that a lot but I’m the only one that hears and understands.😂
What 🏀 balls
Just a couple tips when using this method. Don’t use a face cut, just use a back cut, and cut towards the pulley. This will give you more control and the piece won’t prematurely pop off before you or the ground guys are ready. Also try and leave you’re last bit of holding wood, or fibers on the side you want the piece to pop off and drop (opposite of you). This way it won’t get hung up like it did for you. Lastly you can also use a tag on the butt so the ground guys can guide it down, and also act as a brake so it doesn’t pop off towards you (I think you mentioned this in the video after it got hung up). All in all great job. I don’t see a lot of guys using the stand up method but I love it, especially for right drop zones, or large sections overhanging structures.
Thanks for sharing. I'll peel them out occasionally, but I often prefer the face cut because it offers a little more directional control. You can also get the piece to break off with less force if you get your face cut angles right. It's also a little less likely to fail when the branch gets closer to vertical and all of the limb weight is sitting on the butt of the limb.
@@zaccheus as long as you have enough pulling power (which you do with the GRCS) the wood or branch should have no problem going towards the pulley regardless of a face cut. But fair enough every climber has preferences that work better for them. I’m not sure if it was on this video or another but I noticed you were having issues getting your saw pinched on some bigger pieces of wood when it was directly below the pulley. If you put a good bit of pre tension prior to the cut the saw shouldn’t get pinched. Or try a slightly slanted cut/or mini climbing wedge. Great work, Cheers!
@jodypaul1950 Thank you for sharing your thoughts! It really does help my think about my methods and whether they are the best practice or not. I have maxed the GRCS out before. Thankfuly nothing that couldn't be finished with a hard-working man on the crank though 😅 I definitely have pinched the saw under some big wood, too. I've also over pretensioned pieces and had them leap off of the stub, which doesn't sound terrible, but it does negate the interest in keeping loads from being too dynamic. I have a video where we took some 1,700lb chunks, and there wasn't a lot of room for extra force on things.
You’re so right
Put the tag on before you finish the cut so ground crew can guide. Also mybe no face cut. Just backup it
Those little holes in the bark are from what are called sap suckers. It’s a bird that finds its food and pokes its beak into the bark finding it forming a damn near close to perfect line of holes. From what I was told.
I gotcha, thanks for sharing!
I think those holes you referenced are made by the zaccheus bird. It walks up and down tree limbs with sharp pointed spurs on it's feet.
@@zaccheusI’ve definitely come across the term sap suckers in ISA publications from what I can tell it is the following Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius)
Red-naped Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus nuchalis)
Red-breasted Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus ruber)
Williamson's Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus thyroideus)
Good teamwork and a tidy job site go a long way with word of mouth business. Glad you got this one uploaded.
Thanks Matt, all the credit is due to my friend, Bo, who was running the ropes. It was his job and he hired me to help for a couple days. He runs a tight ship and does quality work for sure. I always enjoy working with him.
Thanks Matt, all the credit is due to my friend, Bo, who was running the ropes. It was his job and he hired me to help for a couple days. He runs a tight ship and does quality work for sure. I always enjoy working with him.
Great job buddy. 36 yrs. in the business and that was the prettiest release of a giant I've ever seen. 👏👏👏 ✌😎❤🙏🌲🌴🌳
Thanks, man! That's mighty encouraging to hear from some who's been around!
It's nice to see you have your life line separate from the rigging line pulling you up in the beginning. One guy I worked for used to have a ground guy in a pickup truck pull him into the tree with no life line. Then he'd tie in once he got up there. When they talk about how dangerous this job is, half of it are people with thoughts like that.
Wow, sounds like there are a number of things that could go wrong with that 😳 based in videos I've seen and my own experiences, I've determined that I never want to be in a tree without a climbing specific system with a captive/cinched anchor point somewhere. There just doesn't seem to be any amount of time saving that makes skipping that worth it to me.
@@zaccheus my favorite response when I told him no was "I do it all the time!" No amount of explanation can stop that thought process.
@Ryan J.S. Ah yes, that is a logical fallacy of some kind, I'm sure. It's works until it doesn't 😬
@@ryanarborist yea grew up with guys like that .kinda Mads get out of production. I work for myself now and can't stand rushing or ignorance..especially in tree work .but applies to all fields with risk.what scares me most in 2023 is GOD AND these people driving. I drive all over I have Commercial landscaping mowing? +tree service. Long story but trying phase back into full time tree service as I was before and do all winter it's buisy est time of year fir me.summer it's just so hot down here .but I see the most dangerous people on earth daily driving the roads. They shouldn't be allowed any where near a vehicle..the guys riding motorcycle s all over mountains here as well. Last year seen at least 3 of them a day accidents. That's scary..trees are more of calculated risk .no way would ride a motorcycle like I used to on these streets.
Sounds like your old boss is similar to my first boss 30+ years ago….the company didn’t have climbing ropes, lowering ropes, bull ropes etc….we just had “ropes”. So, the rope you were climbing on today might have be used to block out big wood yesterday or pull a truck out of a ditch last week. I wasted no time in acquiring my own climbing line and making sure nobody else touched it!
I wish buddy you would have recorded this job from start to finish out of love to watch it still excites me man and I've been doing it for so long it's crazy just learning s*** from other people still after all these years
Haha, that's awesome! It takes a level of humility to continue to learn in an industry where you have been working for a long time. I'm sorry I didn't film the whole thing. Most of it was just the chipper roaring away and it would have made poor footage 😔
@@zaccheus yeah it's okay buddy I would love to sing the whole removal especially with that grcs God bless stay safe buddy see you on the next one
@@br-dj2ti ill keep that in mind for the next big tree!
@@zaccheus thanks buddy
So calm and collective, I love it
I like how you're wearing the silky holster on the shin. Smart idea.
Thanks man! It works good for me, but not everyone loves it 🤷♂️
@zaccheus I learned to climb to do my own suburban tree work during the lockdowns. Leaned on TH-cam arborists and books for mentors
@houndsong That's awesome! I have a customer like that up in Minnesota. I did the same thing kind of. I started a business with no formal training 😅 in hindsight it was a poor idea, but I was too excited to climb trees to see it in the moment.
Nice work, slick device. Thank you!
Thanks!
Watching that limb come down and snag in the lower branches made me think that one needs a well rounded skill set to get out of trouble. Not everything happens exactly according to plan, and an ability to extract yourself from difficulty is key. It would have been interesting to see how you would have to manage if it got truly stuck half way down.
That's certainly true. I imagine it's a trial by fire kind of thing in general. Whenever we use the GRCS, we always have the option of wrapping the rope back up on the winch drum and lifting a piece if we let it down too far in a bad way. When we don't have it on the winch, cutting stuff off is about the only option I know of.
Sap sucker holes.
Woodpecker that drills holes into cambium layer. Waits for insects to come to the holes, then comes back & eats the bugs.
Ohhh, very interesting. That makes more sense now. I was quite perplexed at why a wood pecker would poke holes in green wood. Thanks for sharing!
Nice job. I'm in the market for a GRCS at the moment, been watching lots of videos........, ✌️. - Patrick
Thats sweet! I'm suprised you don't already have one. If you're looking to get a drill too, I've had good success with the Makita 36v angle drill. As I recall it's geared a little lower than the milwaukee hole hawg. Also if you're aiming to rig big, the visor plate becomes a necessary to preserve the rubber pads on the back of the unit.
Nice, that's a perfect tree for the GRCS!
Absolutely! It was the star of the show for sure
those horizontal holes are from a small bird called a yellow bellied sapsucker..i get asked alot about them being in the pest control business by customers all the time..
Super cool, thanks for sharing!
I've been seeing them for years always assumed it was woodpeckers
Pretty sure those horizontal holes at around 3 minutes in are sapsucker damage. I've had an experience where a branch with such damage that i was rigging off of broke after being loaded a few times. Something to be aware of when a rigging point is above those holes, even if it's a pretty stout branch...
Oh wow, that is super interesting. Thank you for sharing
Definitely sap suckers
Nice work! Would be nice to have GRCS sometimes...Greetings from a climber in cold and snowy Finland!
Absolutely, they're nice on big jobs, but there are ways to do the same thing on smaller jobs. Stay safe out there, I think we got a taste of your weather here recently and it's pretty intense!
@@zaccheus Yes there is many ways to skin a cat... Haha! Tree work especially climbing is a bit different in winter time indeed! Feet and fingers are the worst to keep warm in climbing...coldest i been climbing was -27degrees celsius, now its only -10 at this time. december is been snowing maybe 60cm in total but there was couple days of little +degrees and snow compressed down a bit...
a good thing in winter is that there is no bugs,ants or bees stinging you!! 😂
@Servicestar Wow that is mighty cold! I've never been up in a tree in much colder than -15°C and I really don't think I want to. It very rarely stays below -20°C around here and tree work mostly stops for the few weeks a year that it's that cold. It's just too hard to be productive when everything is that frozen 😅
We call that folding umbrella limbing. Then you chunk off the bottom as it is lowered. Great tight space method. Also usually use a tag line on the bottom to keep it from swinging and pull it into the trunk.
Ha! Thats a great name for it. I definitely should have put a tag like on it before we cut it. I'm sure you know, but I'll add for anyone watching that you just gotta be careful when cutting chunks off of the bottom. There will be a point where the limb will try to flip.
My guy!! First off loved the video.
Second off you just liked my instagram post and i've never fangirled so hard😅.
Needless to say you're one of my favorites on youtube keeo up the great work and stay safe brother!
Hahaha! That's awesome 😂 thanks man, I'll do my best! Keep yourself safe out there too!
Heavy wood but it cuts so nice! I love em.
talk about an anxiety trip OMG LOL this work is definitely not for the faint of heart 🤯
I'm just a novice and self taught, so I appreciate any feedback on this:
when I was watching that 50 ft branch, after the GRCS stood it up, it looked like about 6ft of rope at I'm guessing a 70-degree angle. Therefore, I'd EXPECT a 6 ft+ dynamic loading situation... "+" because or rope stretch on a heavy branch.
instead, the branch dropped ONLY 2-3 ft toward you. I can't figure out why. same question from a different direction is why you said you expected it to be fairly static loading.
thanks a million
Excellent question, Rory! This rig was less than perfect for a variety of reasons, but I think what you're describing had a few factors that primarily contributed to it working out the way it did. The biggest one is the brush engagement at the top. The brush on the rigged limb was pushing on the tree top and preventing us from getting it to stand up straight and also preventing gravity from letting it hang plumb once it was cut. If we could have gotten it to stand up straight it would have had even less drop. I described the rig as static in a manner of relativity to traditional dynamic rigging where we drop or swing pieces into the rope. It certainly wasn't perfectly static because it still moved around a bunch when I finished the cut. We want to try and make big GRCS rigs like that as static as possible becaise there is no way to let a branch run and soften the shock (or dynamic) loading when the GRCS is in its lifting configuration. Does that makes sense and answer your question?
i appreciate the response.
perhaps the best answer is that I haven't ever used a GRCS, which apparently can put an literal ton of tension into the rope.
I've tip tied into nearly vertical stems like that using a standard port a wrap and a strong groundie, and on branches half that size had them drop 10 feet due to rope stretch. on an upright maple I was working I was spending half my time getting myself positioned behind the trunk and cutting with my silky because those branches were coming down like missiles.
again, appreciate the feedback. I'll need to spend the $3k on the GRCS
@Rory McVay Haha, no problem! It is an amazing device amd I pretty much get it out anytime I have an opportunity to tip tie anything. I can do so much more just because I can pretension the rope and nearly eliminate shock loading. I believe the GRCS is the best lifting unit it out there, but there are other, more cost effective devices out there that do similar things. The hobbs is probably the most popular.
Awesome job brother
Thanks Todd!
Endor’s!! You from OH bro?
Yessir! I'm about 25 minutes from them here in the Canton area
@@zaccheus nice bro! Scott and Maria are awesome. My family owns barberton tree if you’ve heard of them
@Dr.H They are super nice folks. I hang out down there occasionally on bad weather days 😅
I've most certainly heard of BTS. I've dumped chips at the yard a couple of times. I used to run a small single crew service out of Copley and we would see their trucks almost every morning on our way out. Do you work there?
@@zaccheus I worked there for 5 years started on the ground then learned to climb. I don’t do tree work full time but stay busy just about every weekend with side work. I just came across your video researching some gear and heard the Endors shoutout. Small world!
@Dr.H Haha, thats super cool man, thanks for dropping a comment. It was nice to hear from someone local!
I’ve always been told they are where birds peck the tree for the sap to attract insects so they can eat them. My pap calls it sap suckers
I think you're right, a lot of folks have commented similar things.
Never really had the mentality of risk it for the biscuit. Lol. Good work. Wouldn't of been doable without GCRS and comms. Good use of tools. 🤙
Thanks Eric! I've certainly learned some hard lessons with risk taking. Something I often do to minimize risk of failure is to work up to bugger thing with smaller ones. It gives everyone a little practice and also give me an opportunity to see how things go. Once something is hanging on the GRCS, a good groundie can kind of get and ides of how much capacity it has.
All in all good work..That was a big tree... Hey so I was thinking may be good to just treat this scenario as a crane pic and see the cut through. While you communicate with gcrs. I feel that would take alot of unnecessary force out of the equation.. Do you kind of see what I mean?
@Eric Lopez I might understand what you're saying. The hinge is super important to keep the butt on the cut while the GRCS stands the piece up. That's the only reason I don't cut it all the way off at the beginning. If thay butt falls off of the cut early, the whole thing gets dropped onto the rigging system and that's more dynamic loading that I'd prefer to see 😬😅
My man, that was some excellent work, and great articulation and explanation. But, I gotta ask, what did you think was gonna happen when you did the tip tie with the rope essentially horizontal up top. I guess you figured it out, lol. Keep up the good work. Nice to see someone thinking this stuff through. You'll make a lot of customers happy I'm sure.
JS, Certified Arborist
Thanks! Maybe I don't quite understand you question there. It did exactly what we wanted it to do. It was a little tight and so we struggled to get the butt out, but it worked better once we got the hang of things and move on to the next limbs.
couldn't quite see what you were pointing at, but were they holes from a sapsucker bird?
Yes, I now believe thats what those were, good eye!
Best advice ever, do not leave stubs unless needed for rigging and as soon as your done remove them. A stub can take you out several ways …
@@SC-by6bv yes and no. Some stubs are super important to remove and some are a little less important. If you cut all your stubs off, it will double or triple your cutting time, fuel/batter use, make more things for the groundies to pick up and produce more falling hazards.
Possibly Sap Sucker? What region are you working in?
Akron Ohio. Lots of folks have mentioned the sap suckered so I'm imagining that's what it is.
Would it have been more efficient to fold it out in 2 pieces rather than crank/drill in 1? I love the drill on my GRCS but not sure that’s the best use case.
Yeah, there is a chance it would have been faster if we had flipped the tip out and then reeled in the lower piece. We just didn't have room to do that with the primary lines there. Once we got things opened up a little more, it went much smoother.
Zaccheus, What GCRS and Drill combo do you have ? Aloha from Hawaii
@@RenoMakani I use the original GRCS and I use a makita 36v angle drill. I made a comparison video with it here: Milwaukee Drill Vs Makita Drill on the GRCS
th-cam.com/video/LOp-iATox24/w-d-xo.html
@ awesome thanks Free Surf lesson when you come and visit Hawaii 🤙🏽
@ haha mighty kind of you, if I ever make it out there I’ll have to take you up on it!
I have an idea on the markings you asked about in the bark or the tree.....from my own experience, wondering if the marks have anything to do with the tree having some kind of item tied around it for a long period of time as it was growing, even when it was very young? Maybe something was tied up around the tree to support something else for a long time? Wonder about barbed wire around or next to tree at some point in it's younger days?
That's a good thought! However tree only add to their hight by growing vertically at the branch tips. So if someone else made a scar by tying something around near the bottom of the tree, the scar would always be at the bottom of the tree. Thabks for sharing your thoughts!
I was thinking about the marks (in the center main portion of the tree) that I have higher up in a smaller tree than the one you are working on (and also marks from past trees) that I planted in 2018 that has grown up and much wider but a tree that I was constantly tying cables around different areas and branches of the tree to support it in strong winds and also to direct and redirect it's growth in or away from certain directions...(and sadly some of the ties I forgot about and discovered later when I got a ladder out and started trimming higher branches but for some reason the areas where I first made the ties that I forgot about, grew up higher than when I first tied them at a lower level, which per your information does not make sense, that the tie area ended up going up with the tree as it grew up? I don't know, it just does not make sense, what you say, in a way....I mean at some point a tree starts out shorter and grows taller....so just saying maybe at some point in far long ago history, that area with the marks was not so high up in the sky and maybe it was used to hold or support something with some weird kind of something??? wire or metal or ??? I was not completely clear on everything, sorry....but I meant to say I also had used barbed wire in the past on trees (because that was all I had available that was strong enough and I didn't have money for proper cables)....but sometimes if the wire was on for a length of time and then taken off (if the tree did not grow around the wire if left on too long) there would eventually be marks with time where the wire was originally placed. My other though was some kind of wide metal band with a pattern or holes was placed around the tree that left marks? Maybe just stupid ideas....but ideas anyway. One idea might lead to another and maybe a better one???
@slc6900 Anything is possible, I suppose. I have not been around long enough to have observed the entire life cycle of larger trees. Literature on the matter suggests that trees grow longer and taller only at the branch tips. Then those branches can only get bigger around with the addition of annular rings every year. So if a tree has a branch that is 5 feet off of the ground, that branch will always be 5 feet of of the ground. However, if the tree is 3 feet in diameter at chest height one year, it might be 3ft 1 inch in diameter at chest height the next year.
How much does a tree of this size in such close proximity to housing, where greater care is needed, generally cost to remove?
@@JP-vx2sr no idea man, I just climb them. Maybe $3k? 🤷♂️
Jeez ..trees are higher than they look
I like your lower leg mounted hand saw .. is it strapped into the spurs 🤔🤨👍
@@MrBaastardo It's just strapped on top of them. It gets in the way down there every now and then, but it's easier to grab and put away than when I have it dangling from my harness.
Great video! Love ones like this.
Thanks! Glad to hear it!
Watching from Satsuma Florida nice job !
Thanks for watching!
When you get the rope runner? You like it? I got the pro. I love it. Had it for over a year and it’s awesome.
I got it on black Friday from my local dealer here. It's a nice unit for sure, but it has a few things about it that leave me liking my Akimbo a little more. It's definitely cheaper to rebuild though. That's why I got it.
@@zaccheus what you like about the akimbo more? And I wonder if it’s some of the things that they switched in the pro. I do like how small the akimbo is tho. I used one before and idk it had its things that were cool but this one kinda sketched me out lol
@Opie Taylor Seems like a lot of people have had a hard time getting the akimbo adjusted for their rope and weight and such. I really like its compactness, lack of sit back and the simple fact that there will almost never be anything easier to put on the middle of the rope. With mine adjusted the way I like and feel safe on, it does have a little drag when sliding up rope and that's not my favorite, but it's a small price to pay in my mind. The RRP does seem like an improvement over the RR in a few ways, but I don't like the spring failure issue much and I'm no longer interested in giving money to Notch.
Was that sap sucker damage on the bark?
Thats what many folks have suggested.
High IQ stuff. Much respect!
Thanks man!
It's hard to tell on camera but it either from small bugs burrowing in or they are water sores.
How ya finding the Tree Rex harness dude? I think that’s what you use I may be wrong
You're spot on! I like it a lot. It's nice and light and doesn't have a ton of massive padding to hold heat in. I do think I might get some suspenders, but I love it all around.
Cool man. I really rate mine too so far. Occasionally I find the lower ‘Ds’ a bit small but that’s my only criticism. Keep the great content coming. Merry Christmas 🎄
Probably late to the show here but those holes are due to sapsucker damage. If they're in concentric rings it's sapsuckers, if not, probably a borer of some sort.
Better late than never! That's for the input. Folks have thrown out a number of ideas, but the popular answer seems to be sap suckers!
Greatjob!❤
Thanks Charles!
I heard those dots were from woodpeckers what did you and beau hear ?
Bo said wood peckers and I thought someone told me they were some kind of beetle. But the wood pecker make more sense to me when I think about it.
Is this the same tree you did your little experiment with rigging ring temps?
That's right! I was just more excited about the rigging ring video and got that one out first
Thought it looked familiar lol. That was definitely an interesting test
@@jeffprice8595 lol, good eye! Yeah, I learned a lot from it. I love doing experiments and stuff like that. If you ever have any ideas, throw them in the comments. I'm always looking for new things to try.
What rigging are you using to get up the tree so fast? What is it exactly called?
It's a harken capstan winch that's it sold with some specific bracketry for mounting it to trees and using it as a friction brake for tree work. It's also what we used to lift the limbs up in the tree. Goes by the name "GRCS" if you want to research and learn more about it.
@zaccheus Thank you.
Pretty much just like when you're tip time something you want the butt to come down and if it stays straight up and down man that grcs is awesome I seen the tension it put on that limb right away unbelievable
Yeah! That's pretty much the principle of it! Some folks do crane work that way too. I've never tried it but I've heard it's pretty fast!
Those holes are from sap sucker birds. Also what setting do you have your go pro video ING on. I have problems with mine not focusing where I look to
Okay cool, thanks!
Thays mighty interesting. I've never heard of that before. I run my hero 7 black on 1440 and 24fps and I think those are the only settings I changed when it came out of the box
@@zaccheus do you use super wide, wide, or linear
@Zaccheus the bradford pears here get heavily attacked by the birds and way up on pines I see where they hit the softer bark
@@evanweeks8492 I use wide most of the time. I don't think mine have a super wide option 🤔 I mostly set it and forget it 😅
@Evan Weeks mmm I think I've seen that too maybe, just never put a name to it
How do you decide the thickness of the rope, i was thinking 2 kits with required friction device for each 16mm for branches and smaller trees and 20mm for trunk rigging big trees
In short, I do my best to match SWL with the loads I need to rig. I have a smaller half inch (13mm) setup that I used for most stuff, and then when I get into bigger stuff like this I use a 5/8" (16mm) rope. I've never really needed anything bigger and I've never broken a rope. My current 5/8" rope has a tensile strength of 19,500lb and a SWL of 1,950lb
Thank you so much for replying, love your channel.
Ah i see really interesting and h3lpful to know what you use. so I have a 16mm kit I've bought but if it's heavy rope I'm sure I can put a 12 or 14mm rope through the system if it's easier at least i can go up if needed. In my area we have a lot of pine, oak and redwood etc so I wanted to get a 20mm system block and friction device for negative rigging/blocking down for big diameter trees to be on the safe side.
@@zaccheusI have a technical guide for rigg8ng so I understand the load limit and SWL on kit and rigging, what the weight of the species will be x10 for negative rigging my 20mm system should withstand 30,000kg. Is is fine if I'm going to block down/negative rig 10,000kg-16,000kg?
@boomtaylor8297 Sure thing!
There are 101 ways to take a tree down, the most important thing is that you do your best to stay within SWL and manufacturer intended use. I'm not a real big fell so I prefer to use smaller equipment whenever I can and just double block the rare occasions I have really big wood to get down. If you're not familiar with that technique, I have a video here: th-cam.com/video/_5b9JjbX0G4/w-d-xo.html
@boomtaylor8297 I'm not sure I really understand what exactly you're asking with those numbers, but if I am rigging wood in a scenario where big numbers matter, I try to calculated the approximate weight of the wood based on species. I aim to not exceed more than 10% of the rope's tensile strength. A lot depends on how good your ground guy is at catching pieces gently.
It was just the weird angle but I totally thought you spiked your climb line for a second. Haha
Hahah that still happens every now and then! Thankfully I haven't done it bad this season I don't think. But now that I mentioned that I'll probably spike it at work tomorrow 😂
@@zaccheus haha I hope I didn't jynx you. Stay safe out there! I have some fun climbs for a side job next weekend that I'm stoked for.
@williammccarty867 haha I don't actually believe the world works like that, so I'm sure it'll be fine 😅
Thats awesome man! Hope you have fun and stay safe!
Curious to how long it took you to do that whole tree?
Two days on that bad boy. The felling cut was 48" across and every pieced of wood and brush came down on a rope
@@zaccheus yeah nice dude. Curious as I am from AUS, is that a big job or something that you can just cruise through over 2 days ?
@jack croucher It's fairly big for our area. We might have been able to get it on the ground in one long day in the summer. I'm sure it would have been an easy one day tree with a big crane and a bug chipper. A lot of the time it took depended on how fast the stuff could be dealt with on the ground. And being from AUS, you might find it mire handy to know that the felling cut was 122cm
That was a proper sketchy manoeuvre at 10:35 minutes, you were lucky
Luck isn't real
You think Buddy if you would have cut the knob off you would have had to easier time pushing it out it looked like that knob was blocking it where you made your notch just curious awesome work though man beautiful f****** rigging love it
You know, that thought went through my mind. I think that definitely would have made it easier, but I just didn't feel great about cutting in there knowing that my cut would release something that would swing around in a way I couldn't predict. I certainly remember wishing that know wasn't there though 😅
Thanks! Definitely could not have done it without a good team below.
Hey man, how do you go about estimating weights of branches like this ?
Hahaa, I don't really have a good method. It's pretty much just start small and keep going bigger until you don't think you can go any bigger 😅 it really helps to have a good ground guy who has a feel for how much of the GRCS capacity is being used. For logs we measure and then use a green log weight chart.
@@zaccheus I understand. Thanks for your response and just want to compliment your style of working and videos. For me it is very helpful to watch how other people are working.
@SH dj Thanks man, that's mighty kind of you. I'm glad it's useful content for you!
Hey bud, I have always carried a green log weight chart in my truck. The species of tree plus its diameter, it’ll give you an idea of what a 12” piece of wood weighs. You just figure it out from there. Really nice on crane jobs too
It's an abnormal growth a lot of oaks have it I've seen over the years called gallls. But it really doesn't hurt the tree. Great work though buddy as always nice Rigging I would love to have a grcs maybe one day
Thanks Bill! They're expensive, but for big stuff like this, they make the money back pretty quick.
@@zaccheus oh I'm sure buddy man that thing's amazing one day I'll have one great work though buddy definitely you came so far man stay safe buddy
@b r Thanks Bill, that's might kind of you to say 😊
What is your groundie using to tension the rigging rope?
We have a GRCS mounted to the bottom of the tree and he is using a makita 36v angle drill to power it
@@zaccheus thanks
What gear did you use to rig that what's your rope strength. How much do you think that big limb weighed
Just a 3/4 block and sling up top, I think we used another one to redirect the rope on its way down to the GRCS. It's 5/8 stable braid, which has a tensile strength of 16,300, and limb weight was well under 2k maybe close to 1,500 lb, but not really sure of an exact figure. Brush is hard to guess and very inconsistent throughout the seasons.
At 12:45 the guy in blue is near the branch that gets lowered, and has to look upwards. I would go further away, for safety and for a more convenient viewing angle.
Good thought! I often struggle to convince groundies to stand far enough away. It was really wet out that day and I suspect he was on the sidewalk for sure footing. However, it looks like the driveway might have worked too.
Wait, was there a stick coming down at one point?
Lol, are you making fun of me announcing every twig I threw down?
So Zach when you tie them limbs on with the grcs your initial is you want the butt to drop down correct when it comes back if that makes sense
Yeah, but instead of the butt dropping off of the cut, we use the GRCS to stand the limb up and take the weight off of the cut so there is little to no dynamic loading
@@zaccheus yeah I see that buddy that's pretty nice I really like that grcs
What kinda winch you using?
@@tp8030 it's a capstan winch. There is a fella in Wisconsin who makes a bracket kit to attach it to a tree. It's super hand. It's called a GRCS.
@zaccheus thank you sir. Pretty cool
Before the big branch was cut loose 10:33 I would have fixed it with a rope to the main trunk to prevent it from swinging around. You sure had a Oh! moment there.
Fair thought! I don't love the idea of spending a bunch of time around the butt while it's secured by an unknown amount of compromised wood fibers, but it would have eliminated that moment of suprise
Great video.
Thanks, Don! I'm sure you're plenty familiar with the principles of what went on here. I'm quote interest to see the same thing applied with a crane some day.
Zacheas 1st half minute of watching this... preacher on my TV is Talking about a Sycamore tree climber ... Onw of my lifelong favorites... Zacheus is a great example of believer... showing true repentance!😅
Hahaa, thays awesome! It is an amazing example of so many things. One of the most huming things I take away from that story everytime I hear it is how much God loves every single person, no matter what their background is.
Good job .The little holes are from sapsuckers.
Thanks Steve!
I was told the little holes were insects. There mainly in poplar treed in our area
Well thays what I thought too, but many folks here are voting for it being sapsuckers which are a variety of wood pecker 🤷♂️
Wish I could’ve warned you about the but end coming back at you, also sometimes it’s more efficient to take it in two. Good job though
Yes, absolutely. We were pulling these leads away from some primary lines and so taking smaller pieces would have meant 4 or 5 pieces rather than two unfortunately. On the bright side though, many of the following rigs went much smoother as we opened uo more canopy space and had less tip entanglement. Thanks!
Looks like woodpecker activity?
That been the popular opnion. Someone mentioned a sap suck wood oecker that makes holes and then come back to eat bugs attracted to the sap
How much ut cost job like that ?
1.2 mil
Nice work
Thank you, Bill!
Kami naik pohon nya manual..
Ini enak banget yah gak kelelahan naik nya😅
3:25 What saw is this?
@@SYKOK1LLER Silky sugoi. It's bigger than most folks prefer, but I love it. I think there are two sizes. I have the smaller
Is it nice to be working in a strong oak tree instead of the dead stuff I get you involved in? As always nice job Zach.
Hahah, I'm always happy to climb for you. I know you won't ask me to do anything crazy 😊 Thanks Jon, have a Merry Christmas!
3:00, first guess is Wood Pecker injuries, but the view in a video is not quite enough to tell.
13:00 should have been pulling the tag line the opposite direction maybe.
Bigger isn't always better, spent more time pissing around with that than anything else, climb higher cut smaller. Smoother operation.
Ah, that can be true sometimes. This one didn't go super smooth, but most of them were real nice and we were able to stick big pieces in the chipper without a bunch of labor on the ground.
What was your estimate on this beast?
I didn't estimate it, I'm only a contract climber.
@@zaccheus that’a awesome, also I used to work in canton and I shop at Endor’s every now and again. Scott is a great guy. I watched your video before I saw that’s where you’re from! Stay safe I’ll have to pick your brain about contract climbing. I’ve been in business for a little over a year now. I’m located in lake Milton Ohio!
@Gauur Absolutely, Scott and Maria are great folks. I'm always happy to spend money there 😅 Feel free to ask any questions to have. My email address is on my channel page if you wanna send me an email.
woodpecker?
I believe thays correct. A lot of folks have commented suggesting a sap suckered which is a small wood pecker
Those are woodpecker holes in that tree bub.
The tiny in line holes are made by a yellow bellied sap sucker (bird) .. it extract the sap ✔️
Nice job
Thabks Rick!
May I make a piece of advice for your next time cutting a similar piece
I do not cut that limb as you did, I'm self taught, and learned a good safety practice,
I cut it so it so the top would twist outward and away from myself
So the top swings away from me,
The cut is angled down on the out side away from me and also I leave the inside cut a little on the thick side to the last, so it is hinged there, holding the limb, and once the limb is secured to be held by the tugger line,
The rest can safely be cut off and the bottom slowly swings outward away from me,
I hope you can comprehend what it is I'm am conveying to you.
I do not claim to be a professional, but have lots of rigging experience in structural steel and learned to limb and cut trees ever since I can remember , now 81 and soon to be 82 while still climbing trees for my own self,
@CMAenergy Thanks sharing your thoughts! I think I know what you're saying. I believe you'd recommend angling the hinge away from you in an effort to keep the limb away from the climber as it comes off. That might be something to experiment with.
Typically, I try to point the hinge toward the rigging point because thays direction the limb moves in when we pull on the rigging rope with the winch. If the limb is angled to one side of the rigging point or the other, the whole situation can be a little more dynamic when the hinge fibers are cut.
@@zaccheus I make the top of the cut a little thicker on the back cut so when it will swing it hinges at the top and the rest of the limb drifts away from you every time.
Just remember to make sure the cut is angled down away from yourself
And you should not have a problem
Experiment with it to find out the best that suits you.
When it is cut that way, the limb will also slide down away from you as the top will go in the direction of cut made.
What 'i do works for me, and it is always drifts outward,
@CMAenergy are you talking about butt tie, tip tie or mid tied branches? Gravity rigging or lifting?
@@zaccheus That tall slender piece being cut as done,
That piece needs to have the cut angled down away from oneself,
Not at 90 degrees as horizontally done,
Sorry I 'm not familiar with your terms,
But as long as the cut is not flat as seen it being done,
It needs to be sloped away from oneself.
And if one can try to cut which I believe is called a humble cut slightly at an angle so the out cut is slightly not being at aa straight 90 degrees from oneself, but add a little more angle in a counter clock wise cut, and downward to oneself,
The idea is to have the piece turn away and downward from ones self,
I hope you get the idea,
I'm sorry being self taught, I'm not familiar with all your terms,
@CMAenergy It's all good. I'm self taught too. Are you talking about the cut that I made at the top of the rigging spar?
They are lenticels for gaseous exchange
This the life of arborist things don't go as planned.
You get it. The only reason they ever do go as planned is because you've had the experience to know what to expect.
Nice 😊 👌👌🤙🤠
Thanks Leonard!
@@zaccheus 🤠👌👌🤙👍
Those holes you see is from a sapsucker bird. they poke holes to drink the sap
Cool thanks!
Those are woodpecker holes.
Thanks!
It's from a bird pecking the tree, looking for bugs.
I've been told it is from woodpeckers
Two days for that tree...well done. What was the DBH? I have to say it. Shame on the homeowner for taking that tree down if it had no serious issues. Can't really tell but those two leaders could have just been cabled if that was a bad bark inclusion union. I make it a point to do al I can to talk myself out of a job for the sake of a perfectly fine tree, especially oaks. They are so important to the ecosystem. I'll abide the peoples wishes but not before I give my opinion and facts. Seeing this come down hurt my heart. Ask Santa to bring you a HUSQVARNA T540i XP. You'll love it.
Haha, it was 48" exactly at the felling cut. I think the homeowner was concerned about foundation damage. I did not sell the job, I was just there on contract, but I'm totally with you on the matter of saving nice trees. This one was the right distance from the powerlines that it didn't have to be hacked to maintain clearance and it really had nice structure over all. These pin oak trees are fast grower around here. This one was on 60ish years old and I've cut down others in the 42" DBH range that were 35 years old. So in that regard, atleast we were losing and old growth white oak or anything. Haha, the fella I was working for actually has one. He's let me use it before. They are nice, but I just can't give up on my perfectly functional 201 for a $1,350 replacement. I think that's what they cost not with a charger and two batteries. They'll have my attention a little more when they can make them lighter.
Great job but It seems to me, you spend more time in gettin the big one Out and down instead of takin it down in three pieces ... Take Care ...Go big or Go Home 💯
Possibly. This particular one wasn't super smooth. We had a lot of other rigs thay day that were a lot better. We got the whole tree done in 2 days. I don't think we would have done that if we had pieced it out in smaller pieces.
Tag line should have been put above the cut originally to keep it from swinging back at you ( I know watching the video makes it easier to make these judgements as I’m not in the tree )
You're absolutely right. I thought the same thing when I was editing 😅
Or We could have cut above that notch 5 inches with a downward 45° or greater slash and she would have slipped off the front.😜
Possibly knocking the chain off the bar...so use a little beaver cut 😂
You know how many times I cut myself with the silky crossing my hands like that. Lol brave man
Haha, I have some scars too 😅 I actually have been trying to be more careful with that this year. I nailed a finger tip early in the trim season and that's kept me mindful.
Ottimo Lavoro ✔️
You definitely need a tagline to control the butt end of that tree
Yes
2 day tree? get a grapple saw truck and do 5 of those pon oaks in a day. Mass production make more money plus its way cooler
@kennethkaszyk6684 Haha, it's definitely way cooler. A good grapple saw is $800,000.00 it's definitely an investment thay will pay for itself, but it's a big challenge to keep up on payments for a machine like that. Especially in a seasonal industry where there is little to no income in the winter.
What a clueless comment. Tell that to the other 99.5% of tree care companies don't have a grapple saw.
They are from Ohio I get all my stuff from there. The xrings are amazing
That's super cool! I definitely get everything I can from them too