Accessory straps on a Buck Pinnacle

A climber buddy of mine picked up a new Buckingham Pinnacle a while ago but hated it and went back to the Glide. He knows I climb with a Pinnacle so gave me a good deal on it as a backup saddle. But I got it home and noticed something odd-the accessory straps are sewed right into the belt. (I'm used to the Sherrill Pinnacle with the gaps in the belt through which you can put carabiners or accessory straps.) Not a huge deal but I have broken the little spring loaded gates on the accessory snaps before on other saddles. So my question is, how do you replace the snaps when they wear out or break-no place to run the straps over the belt.
Thanks

Hey Beo, is your question about accessory straps or accessory snaps (or both)? I have a suggestion for either, but I need to be more clear which is your main concern. My vacation saddle is a Buck Pinnacle, and my home saddle is a Bucknham Versatile. I've modified both, maybe akin to what you need.

Do you have a pic to go on?

I climb on a traverse, and I imagine the tool snaps are set up the same.
If you were to break the gate on the snap, I would suggest cutting the snap off, don't cut the strap. You could use a small screw link to attach another similar snap, or just clip a biner on the strap.
Just a thought.

Replacing the snap with a small biner, a small biner would lie parallel to your hips. The snap sticks out perpendicular which makes it nice. I use the snap to clip on.... small biners , as well as folding Silkys. The screw link, and then something on it, I think, would be sorta floppy. The snap is nice because it can't turn left / right. It's more or less stationary. That allows you to clip on and off quick and precise without looking.

I agree, if you hang a handsaw from it, it would be a bit more floppy, but it's the best idea I can come up with short of cutting the stitches and sewing a new snap on.

Here's a question.... what's the heaviest thing you're likly to hang on it?

I just came across a pic of one of those snaps whose spring blew out. I removed the snap from the saddle and applied the snap directly to a folding Silky. The folding saw then had a fixed ring that could quickly and easily be clipped onto a saddlized biner, whether the saw was open or closed. This is sort of still on topic but doesn't answer Beowolf's question even remotely.

Tree Machine said:

Hey Beo, is your question about accessory straps or accessory snaps (or both)? I have a suggestion for either, but I need to be more clear which is your main concern. My vacation saddle is a Buck Pinnacle, and my home saddle is a Bucknham Versatile. I've modified both, maybe akin to what you need.

Do you have a pic to go on?

Click to expand...

Sorry TM, don't have a camera but if you have the Buck Pinnacle, then you can see what I mean. The "belt" is sewed right to the back brace and the accessory straps are sewed between the belt and backbrace (one on the left and one on the right.) Any suggestions you have about either the strap or snap would be appreciated. On the old buttstrap saddles the belt was seperate from the backbrace so you could run any number of straps over the belt. And on the Sherrill Pinnacle this isn't as big a problem because they left gaps between the belt and backbrace. I've thought of maybe modifying a loop runner to go around the whole backbrace then cinch it down and attach a snap but it doesn't look very promising.
Your thoughts on the snap lying perpendicular and thus making it easy to snap and unsnap is right on-makes it easy to hook and unhook my 200t. However, it's not overly important to me since i usually climb with a 357-I attach a ladder snap to the accessory snap (after taping the gate on the accessory snap closed) and then just attach the rear handle of any saw I'm using to the ladder snap. So when the accessory snap wears out, I'll probably just cut it out and attach a screw link or carabiner-should still do what I need it to do. However, I am interested in any modifications you have made to your saddles!
Thanks for the replies.

Here is your Pinnacle, yes?

I haven't had a camera for about 6 months, so I too can't just go out and snap a shot (moral here, don't climb with your camera). I checked the attachments, images I've put up here at Arboristsite to see if I could find an old pic of saddle mods and I've got 59 pages of them totalling 1,172 attachments, HOLY CRAP. On my computer it's worse, over 12,000 images, mostly tree stuff.

It may take me awhile to find a picture of the modifications, gotta hunt one down. Your patience is appreciated, Beo.

Buckingham Master II

With all this talk, I have a question about my saddle. Currently I am using a carabiner (for my chainsaw lanyard ring) through the waiststrap on my master where it is not sewn. However, I can feel the carabiner through the padding, and I have to run my strap (waist) through the carabiner everytime I put my saddle on, thus adding another step.

My question, is there any other way to hang my saw from my saddle that is more user friendly and if so what is the best way when using the buckingham master II?

Machines and Bears and Wulfs, oh my! I found a few pics, this is like a trip down memory lane. Here's one I posted at AS in 2002. Wow, the Kong duals are still shiny. I can tell by the background, the oil jug, that I was still using petro bar oil. I remember that jug as I used to change the oil on my chipper and then use that for bar lube, thinking I was being smart or something. I'd come home reeking of this stanky stank stank and Elizabeth heart would get her undies bunched, "Get out, get out, you stink!" That was the era I built the outdoor shower and also when she asked me the question, "Why don't you just use vegetable oil in your saws?" (shameless veggie plug )

Back to the saddle mods. Ok, you guys, I started modding my saddle years before arboristsite ever existed. It was one of the earliest threads I contributed to (I found this in the AS attachments library, page 58 of 59). I remember getting flamed to the point of extra well-done. But back then it was a really tough crowd. Still, I will intro this set of images with a disclaimer:

I am not suggesting you mod your saddles like I do. These are personal preferences of my own liking, based on my own style of climbing. Your personal mods should be of your individual decision and thusly heretofor and therewith and blah, blah, blah, and etcetera. OK?

OOOh, here's a gem. I remember, I was just learning how to use Photoshop. This was my first image ever where I learned how to put text onto a picture. I didn't know how to make arrows to point to the things being described:

But now I do....
Digest this for now. I have a major backside mod, but I gotta go to work right now. Two-hugger dead elm over top of a house, mmmmmmm.

Thanks TM-good stuff!! I think I see what you did! Did you run that green wire biner on the right side through that little hole where the upper-d connects to the saddle? So you actually don't run your biner between the red belt and the blue back pad-it just actually sits in the little spot where the attachment for that d-ring splits and attaches to the front of the belt and to the back of the belt? In that little hollow I guess you could call it. I saw that little hole and thought about running a biner through there but wasn't sure how much weight it could hold. See, on my Sherrill Pinnacle, there is a gap in the stiching of the belt to run carabiners through-guess I just didn't now what to look for on the Buck.:blush: Of course if I'm wrong in my assumptions, feel free to correct me.
I see in the first picture of your Versatile you have nothing attached to your right accessory snap. However, in the next picture, may I assume that that is where the saddle end of your saw lanyard is attached? What do you do when the gate on that snap breaks or wears out (I've actually had that happen twice on me before the saddle is even close to wearing out!) Thanks for your time!

Tree Machine said:

I have a major backside mod, but I gotta go to work right now. Two-hugger dead elm over top of a house, mmmmmmm.

Click to expand...

Ha Ha. How'd the job go? Sounds about like my day only replace two-hugger dead elm with multi-lead dying silver maple. Gotta love our job!!

beowulf343 said:

Ha Ha. How'd the job go? Sounds about like my day only replace two-hugger dead elm with multi-lead dying silver maple. Gotta love our job!!

Click to expand...

I got a 'go' on a cherry doublet takedown and decided to do that instead. Each stem was ~30" (76 cm). The stems paired off at thigh height so the trunk, though short and squat, was a fat mambo. One stem was leaning toward, and towering over the neighborhood's distribution lines and a transformer. All went well, but I probably should have had some help during the dismantle.

Tomorrow's elm is one I climbed years and years ago. The tips all over had died back then and I deadwooded it. The tree looked great until last Summer when its leaves came out in the Spring, we got this wicked hail storm, and it died shortly thereafter. I doubt the hail had anything to do with it, we just get a lot of elms dying every year. This one's just bigger than most and 1/3 is over top of the house. Tomorrow will be a most excellent climbing and rigging day. Takedowns like this make us feel most alive, right Beo?

Thanks for askin.

Bearclaw said:

With all this talk, I have a question about my saddle. Currently I am using a carabiner (for my chainsaw lanyard ring) through the waiststrap on my master where it is not sewn. However, I can feel the carabiner through the padding, and I have to run my strap (waist) through the carabiner everytime I put my saddle on, thus adding another step.

My question, is there any other way to hang my saw from my saddle that is more user friendly and if so what is the best way when using the buckingham master II?

Click to expand...

Good question, Bear. Though the thread is not about chainsaw lanyards, the lanyard and how it interfaces with the saw and your saddle is one of those universal issues 100% unique to arborists. No other profession or climbing discipline could ask such a question.

It took me years of trying different things before I pulled together a system that just thrills me to no end. To thrill me, the system has to perform perfectly and flawlssly every time, that's all I ask. I'll be happy to share what I've got going, but it, too, may be preceeded with a disclaimer.

BeoWulf said:

Did you run that green wire biner on the right side through that little hole where the upper-d connects to the saddle? So you actually don't run your biner between the red belt and the blue back pad-it just actually sits in the little spot where the attachment for that d-ring splits and attaches to the front of the belt and to the back of the belt? In that little hollow I guess you could call it.

Click to expand...

BINGO! You can slide one in the little vertical tunnel on each side of the saddle, just behind the D-rings. It's a tight fit, but once you feed a biner in there, it really becomes a permanent part of the saddle, removable, but not without force. To get it in there you need to bend that part of the belt, giving it enough curve so that the biner's curve will follow through there. good luck. You really gotta get pretty manly with it.

See, bearclaw is already doing that, at least on the right side, but he hangs his saw from it, which causes the spine of the biner to twank his right hip. The answer is obvious, have your right side hip bone surgically removed (heh, heh.) OK, scratch that. The answer goes back to Bear's question about if the chainsaw can be hung in a more user-friendly manner, and I promise, I'll share one way to approach that. There are many, I'm sure, but I'll show you my spin, then the whys and the benefits (the madness behind the method.)

Beo said:

I see in the first picture of your Versatile you have nothing attached to your right accessory snap. However, in the next picture, may I assume that that is where the saddle end of your saw lanyard is attached? What do you do when the gate on that snap breaks or wears out (I've actually had that happen twice on me before the saddle is even close to wearing out!)

Click to expand...

Ahh, you are very observant. I normally use that brass snap, on the left side, to hold a Silky ( scabbarded Sugoi these days). I like to keep the right side open, or holding a small accessory biner (a black diamond aluminum hotwire, called a micron). Most anywhere else, that biner is so small I can't locate it. If I find a different use for that snap, I can put the micron elsewhere, but honestly, the right side snap gets very little action.
The brass snap, in answering the other part of that question, is NOT where the saddle end of the saw lanyard is attached. In answering Bear's question about the user-friendly place to hang the saddle end of the saw lanyard, both of your questions are the same. This is officially the $64,000 question, so I will first need $32,000 from each of you, in small, unmarked bills :jawdrop:
Just joking. I need 64,000 from each of you because the question was asked differently :biggrinbounce2:

I joke, but this is a really, really good question.

right side saw lanyard

Here's where the saddle side of the chainsaw lanyard goes. It's another one of those little known nooks and crannies. This space needs a small locking biner if it is to fit in there. I say locking because you don't want THIS end of the lanyard failing, ever. I put thread lock on mine, so you would need vise grips, or channel locks to get it off. I don't think I've ever removed it. That particular biner (Spirit spin lock) was discontinued by Petzl about 6 years ago. You will have to find a small locker of your personal choosing. I really like this spot, it keeps the lanyard off my D ring. That ring can get pretty clustered. This picture shows a delta-link which is where I clip the biner AND saw when I want the saw hanging off my hip, rather than hanging from the lanyard itself (walking a roof, limbwalking through branchy areas and footlocking up the rope). These days I have removed the delta and opted for a small Kong steel non-locker (9kN). The madness behind this is that if I want to clip or unclip the saw-attachmet biner (the Petzl William), you can either open the William and clip on, or open the little Kong gate and clip on. It just gives that little extra level of option and versatility. With the Delta link, you can only clip your saw and saw lanyard on there by opening the biner on the saw end of the saw lanyard, possibly dumping your saw off. This regular exercise needs to be fool-proof and you should be able to do it easily with one hand.

This picture shows no flipline on that right side D, why not, I'm wondering....OH, there was an era where I was running a double-snap steel core flipline. I just unsnapped it for the pic, the lanyard being the focus if this image.

Here's the dual-ended steelcore. I miss this sucker. I donated it to my vacation saddle, so I only get to use it when I'm taking it easy in Florida.

I don't have a picture of how I'm currently using the Kong mini steel biner as a chainsaw/lanyard hip hanger, like I say, Im lacking a camera these days and this is a more recent improvement on the whole system. Here is a pic of the biner itself, so you know what it looks like. In this pic it is being used as a bar to keep the rope captive within the ascender shell when ascending SRT, and to it you would attach your prussik or whatever backup hitch. I'm using a Tibloc these days for backup.

Anyway, that little steel biner would hang off the right side D and to it I would clip the saw-end of the lanyard, along with the saw. I used some brass wire to wrap the small end, just under the gate hinge. This keeps that biner captive, preventing it from flipping upside down.


Here is the last pic you'll ever see of the right side D with a Delta. The dual-ended was too much for the D, it hogged up too much space, which is why a put a delta there. The delta offered ample space for the right side snap and created more space to hang more things. The whole thing, as you can imagine, was not without weight.

On the flipline shown in this pic, it has a single snap, like a normal steelcore, safety snap left and the thimble end attached to the delta link. I won't attach the flipline thimble to a biner as I never really remove the flipline from the right side (that's just me) so I attached it so it could only be removed by tools. Actually, I welded a 'seperation wing' inside that delta to keep things seperated. That mod to the delta allowed it to be opened without tools, but with deliberate, non-instant effort.

Right now, I am testing 11 mm rope for my flipline and it works much smoother with the mechanical adjuster (micrograb) than with the full half inch. I attach the rope directly to the D with a tight eye termination, with the mini steel captive Kong situated right beneath it. To remove the flipline, it has to be cut off. I actually did that today, in preparation for tomorrow's big elm takedown. The one I destroyed today was 11 mm Velocity (got a full year out of it!) and the one I replaced it with is 11 mm Blaze, shortened a few inches from the previous one which hung into my frontware when it was wrapped twice around the waist and clipped to the left side. Now it wraps around the midsection twice perfectly, clips left and then stays up and out of the way of everything. I am fully dialled in now, except for the chainsaw lanyard, my old friend, who at 9 years old finally needs to be replaced. It was looking rough in this Winter pic of two years ago, but I nicked just a bit of the webbing, and not the inner bungee itself so it is still living on, even today.

I think the bungee lanyard is the #1 most important accessory on the saddle, by far the most-used in the tree.