Speed Line

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Controlled or just letting them zip down without a tag line? Uncontrolled is easy peasy, the other entails more work. Watch August Hunicke’s videos on YouTube.
Thank you very much... I'm sure it will have to be controlled it is over a house and limbs are very rotten.
 
Be careful with what you put on the speedline. You can generate way mote force than you can imagine by loading a tensioned rope like that. If you have enough line, got through a block or a ring or over a limb in the tree you're working on and tie back to a nearby tree down low as to work the spar in compression. As was mentioned earlier, go small. And have fun!
 
Try speedlining on small stuff first. Have lots of slings and carabiners. Run the rope down to a block or lowering device so you aren't in the glide path if the branch runs too fast. Do not anchor to a truck unless the block is 20' or so away on a separate sling anchor, you don't want the branch to hit the tailgate, ahem. Your speedline rope should be an all polyester rope like Stable Braid and not a nylon-polyester like Nystron. Too much stretch from the nylon. Have the ground crew clipping the used slings back onto the climber's utility line as quickly as possible so he doesn't have to call for them. (A 16oz water bottle clipped there is a nice gesture and makes the climber more productive).
 
Controlled or just letting them zip down without a tag line? Uncontrolled is easy peasy, the other entails more work. Watch August Hunicke’s videos on YouTube.
Thank you for turning me on to August Hunicke’s videos.
I really like those guys approach to climbing and cutting. I like his mentality the way he explains how focusing and foreseeing the weakest aspect of the job is important it's not just the practicality of hooking up the limbs and lowering them
 
Speedlining can create a ton of forces on the trunk. When taking bigger pieces or even tops on certain species you need to play it very safe. Either almost no tension on a very vertical line or use a guyline on the opposite side of speedline pull. Especially when you need alot of tension to make up a big difference.
I prefer a ring on a deadeyes near where I'm going to take the top so the guy line gets tensioned as the speedline does and loads the spar in compression as much as possible. That and leaving a few limbs for Mass dampening and you can take a really nice little top with practically no ride at all.
Wrap you mind around deflection forces and how to mitigate them to speedline with success safely. There's a bit more to it than clipping some limbs on and letting em fly
 

Latest posts

Back
Top