Watch your ropes - shortcuts are expensive

[gwiley]

Re-posting from firewood to get some advice....

A friend asked me to take down 5 large white oaks and 2 pines near his rental house. Last weekend I went to take down the last 3 oaks and the pines - all within 20' of the house and all around 70' tall.

I rigged each one with a bull rope (200' black max 9/16") at about 40-50' up using a throw line, set a redirect and had one son in the skid steer to put tension on the line.

The fourth tree (pine) came down and tangled up the rope a bit - I was tired from having already felled and bucked the other trees so I figured I'd just be careful around the rope rather than take the time to remove it.

Did you know that IF you tangle an expensive rope you will damage at within 10' of its center. My 372 gobbled up about 2 feet of rope before it stalled.

I am kicking myself - $160 hank of rope which is now useless for tree pulling which is the only reason I own the dang stuff! All because I didn't want to take 10 minutes to clear it from the cutting area.

I was already doing him a favor - he would have had to pay a few grand to have these darn trees taken out and I am doing it for free (keeping the wood).

Protect your equipment - cutting corners is a good way to spend money.

Now the question...what is the best way to deal with this? The sheath is gone and part of the core is damaged. I am guessing that I need to just cut that damage out and knot it together - the trick will be that I can't use it with a pully as a redirect now

What about splicing? I don't know how - is that something a novice should try? I need this thing to bear the stress of pulling down large trees safely.

 

[treemandan]

It gets the rope out.

 

[gwiley]

It gets the rope out.

Heh - helpful advice. True. I was able to pull the rope back out of the saw without tools - probably did more damage doing that unfortunately.

I feel as though 200' is really the minimum for taking down these large trees so I am planning on biting the bullet and buying another 200' hank.

 

[Nailsbeats]

That's classic free treework.

 

[arborjockey]

Everytime you either donate or cut a deal beware!!! If you do tie a not in it tie tails to gether as wel.l if you have to block down some big rounds. When i use to stack cell towers my oss would tie a knot in the rigging rope. with a capsten head below we used it more like a belt then a single up and down. The second advantage of putting your rope toward the top(other then being easy to acces) is that if your putting the rope slightly higher then half way your horizontally loading your trunk. leave lots of hinge wood. sorry about your rope

 

[tree MDS]

wat

Ha, ha, classic first post! love it.

 

[arborjockey]

thank you thank you Im finally posting it only took 2 days to get on mmmmmmmwatch out:monkey:

 

[Grace Tree]

Everytime you either donate or cut a deal beware!!! If you do tie a not in it tie tails to gether as wel.l if you have to block down some big rounds. When i use to stack cell towers my oss would tie a knot in the rigging rope. with a capsten head below we used it more like a belt then a single up and down. The second advantage of putting your rope toward the top(other then being easy to acces) is that if your putting the rope slightly higher then half way your horizontally loading your trunk. leave lots of hinge wood. sorry about your rope

'Hard to argue with any of the good points you made!
Phil

 

[pdqdl]

I don't know about BlackMax, but I have spliced my 9/16" stable braid bull rope back together two different times.

These are the only end-to-end splices I have ever done in a double braid rope, and it was well worth the effort. Strong once again, it saved the usefulness of the rope.

They do get a bit fatter, which will be a problem going through pulleys.

 

[lone wolf]

Re-posting from firewood to get some advice....

A friend asked me to take down 5 large white oaks and 2 pines near his rental house. Last weekend I went to take down the last 3 oaks and the pines - all within 20' of the house and all around 70' tall.

I rigged each one with a bull rope (200' black max 9/16") at about 40-50' up using a throw line, set a redirect and had one son in the skid steer to put tension on the line.

The fourth tree (pine) came down and tangled up the rope a bit - I was tired from having already felled and bucked the other trees so I figured I'd just be careful around the rope rather than take the time to remove it.

Did you know that IF you tangle an expensive rope you will damage at within 10' of its center. My 372 gobbled up about 2 feet of rope before it stalled.

I am kicking myself - $160 hank of rope which is now useless for tree pulling which is the only reason I own the dang stuff! All because I didn't want to take 10 minutes to clear it from the cutting area.

I was already doing him a favor - he would have had to pay a few grand to have these darn trees taken out and I am doing it for free (keeping the wood).

Protect your equipment - cutting corners is a good way to spend money.

Now the question...what is the best way to deal with this? The sheath is gone and part of the core is damaged. I am guessing that I need to just cut that damage out and knot it together - the trick will be that I can't use it with a pully as a redirect now

What about splicing? I don't know how - is that something a novice should try? I need this thing to bear the stress of pulling down large trees safely.

Did you see the rope right before you cut it ?

 

[beowulf343]

Watching your climbing rope go through the chipper while it's still attached to you is worse.

Too bad gwiley. Bet you'll "take the time" next time.

 

[lone wolf]

Watching your climbing rope go through the chipper while it's still attached to you is worse.

Too bad gwiley. Bet you'll "take the time" next time.

seen that happen

 

[lone wolf]

Watching your climbing rope go through the chipper while it's still attached to you is worse.

Too bad gwiley. Bet you'll "take the time" next time.

Hey how did that end?

 

[DK_stihl]

Watching your climbing rope go through the chipper while it's still attached to you is worse.

Too bad gwiley. Bet you'll "take the time" next time.

Had that happen with a 1/2" rigging line two weeks ago. It was wrapped around my leg, dragging towards the chipper feet first. The drum got the rope and acted like a winch on steroids!

 

[gwiley]

Did you see the rope right before you cut it ?

Yeah, that's the sad part - I saw it and thought "I can just avoid touching it". I would feel less stupid if it was hidden under the brush.

 

[gwiley]

Had that happen with a 1/2" rigging line two weeks ago. It was wrapped around my leg, dragging towards the chipper feet first. The drum got the rope and acted like a winch on steroids!

How did you escape? That sounds like it would rank near the top of the "scariest things I don't want to do again" list.

 

[lone wolf]

Had that happen with a 1/2" rigging line two weeks ago. It was wrapped around my leg, dragging towards the chipper feet first. The drum got the rope and acted like a winch on steroids!

I think 2 men should operate a chipper not one many times these things happen and it only takes a couple seconds to get killed not only what you say is a problem but branches going in tend to grab gloves .

 

[BC WetCoast]

Heh - helpful advice. True. I was able to pull the rope back out of the saw without tools - probably did more damage doing that unfortunately.

I feel as though 200' is really the minimum for taking down these large trees so I am planning on biting the bullet and buying another 200' hank.

I can't remember the last time we've used a full 200' to take down a tree. If your knot is more than about 20' from the redirect, you should be ok, as once the top of the tree moves that far, it's on its way.

 

[DK_stihl]

Escape

How did you escape? That sounds like it would rank near the top of the "scariest things I don't want to do again" list.

The rope snapped, either that or my guardian angel cut it! If the rope had not been severed I wouldn't be posting right now!