I currently use a ½” newengland rope wirecore with a ropeman ascender. Works pretty well, much more positive than an Idaho cam, and releases under tension easily.
However, I am thinking about switching to 5/8” Kevlar 3 strand with a swedged cable core, attached with a becket bend or cats paw. All this talk of cut safeties and tying in twice has me thinking, and I’ve always had this setup on the back burner.
I think you're talking about a "catspaw". Old school, I climbed on it with spurs exactly ONCE. Safe and reliable, but a rank biatch to adjust.
Jepson shows a diagram, good to know if you get caught without gear or have a failure, but other than that, it's historic.
RedlineIt
I don’t think it’s historical, or maybe it is and we are fooling ourselves about how the convenience of ascenders doesn’t have a negative impact on safety. I have used ¾” manila with a wire core and becket bend and found that it worked well enough. One handed operation, you can let out slack while under a load, and it is really nice to hold on to. The down side is that if you need to change the length of your safety by a few feet, it takes a lot longer than with a Gibbs.
But your query seemed to be more about prussic style adjustment knots. I can’t work with one. Every time I look down and see that flimsy little, undersized line I’m sure that my saw will one day be pulled into it and send me plummeting to my doom; it wouldn’t take much to cut through 8 or 9 mm line and then it doesn’t matter how robust your flip line is. This has always been the part of Beranek’s Fundamentals that I most disagree with.
30 years ago treemen around here did a little bit of everything; pruning, cabling, firewood, lot clearing, fences, xmas trees, et cetera. In the past 20 years that has changed; work is done by companies or sole proprietors who are very specialized; firewood is done by processor or in dedicated firewood yards, single house lots by sheer and tractor and 18” chipper, heavy clearing involves big Treelan chippers and excavator chassis, xmas trees are sold by boy scouts. I wonder if that trend toward specialization is going to separate pruning and tree maintenance from removal work.
Lots of the questions coming up over the past couple of years seem to revolve around adapting light weight equipment, which is more desirable and suitable for pruning, to function in the more abusive environment of heavy removal work.
Years ago I tried having 2 different saddles, one heavy set up and one light, it didn’t work out well because I couldn’t switch back and forth and maintain a level of familiarity which allowed for automatic operation of each setup, I quickly went back to a hybrid climbing system.
As time goes on Rope & Saddle climbing becomes more and more distinct from Spur & Safety; perhaps it is time to revisit the idea of having two different set ups. Perhaps in time they will be two different occupations.