Is it the concept of the floppy cap that gives it a bad rap, or is it that it can fool you into thinking it's rotated and seated then you flip it down and -crunch-. ? Or it fools you into thinking it's seated just long enough to pop out and douse your leg with gas or oil?
CurSedVoyce
California Hillbilly
I've had one basically disintegrate in my fingers checking fuel and oil status before taking a top at 100 feet up. Doused me proper. Had to call for another saw. New guy always buggers it. Doused again. Started carrying a couple spares with me just in case. Irritating. Constantly having to check what the ground guys did before the saw get started after it comes back up.
Screw caps happen too. Guys that gorrilla tighten them or whimpy twist.
Screw caps happen too. Guys that gorrilla tighten them or whimpy twist.
I had one time with a flippy cap that made me say "WTF?!" trying to get it on, and it didn't want to drop in the spot. Thinking back on it, I probably overfilled the oil, but I dunno. Might not have even been the oil cap. My most difficult saw is the 2511. It's a fine line between too tight and leaky, and the gasket gets crudded up fast.
Marc-Antoine
TreeHouser
When there's too much oil in the tank, you just make a mess putting the cap on, but that doesn't prevent you to properly clamp it. If it doesn't want to sit correctly to be closed, it's usually because the black plastic washer has turned a tad and doesn't allow the clamping bits to find their way.
Mesquite
Treehouser
this video is part of the reason why i have migrated to using the VT friction hitch. the other reason is that no matter how much i have put on it, it always has a smooth action. i havent tried it on srt or rigging/ mechanical advantage but in the video the guy releases the load with the vt hitch around 2 kn or 450lb plus or minus a few
Marc-Antoine
TreeHouser
He did release the hitch, but in his setup, the load goes down to zero when the hitch moves "by itself" (not by the hydraulic pulling on it).
If you try to slide the hitch with your weight on it, the load is constant and that makes a big difference. Basically, when you makes the hitch slides, that means that you deform the hitch's shape and put some play in it. It becomes less tight and slips. But if the load is still here, it tends to eat the introduced play, part of it at least, and tighten the hitch further more. So, at the next attempt to slide the hitch, you try to deform again the shape but, one, it needs more force to do so, two, the tighter shape allows less play when deformed. Finally, the hitch needs more and more force to slip and doesn't move as much, if at all. You just get deadly stuck. All you can do is take your weight off of the rope, work the hitch to release the cinching force by putting some slack in it again, akka, you reset the hitch's shape.
Plus, you definitively can't climb pratically if you have to put so much force than he did on his hitch.
On average, the sweet spot to keep an hitch working (grabing and releasing at will) is around half your weight. Actually, you fine tune it for a good match.
That's the main problem if you want to go srt with this setup : too much force on it to go back and forth. You can make it slides one time or two, but that's it, locked hard. Hence the development of the alternative solutions by our fellow genious climbers : adding more friction into the system to take part of the load off the hitch and makes it works again. Et voila, there are the HitchHiker and the Ropewrench. Added benefit, the suplement fricton is self adaptative to the load and allows a much wider range of workload. Genious as I said.
If you try to slide the hitch with your weight on it, the load is constant and that makes a big difference. Basically, when you makes the hitch slides, that means that you deform the hitch's shape and put some play in it. It becomes less tight and slips. But if the load is still here, it tends to eat the introduced play, part of it at least, and tighten the hitch further more. So, at the next attempt to slide the hitch, you try to deform again the shape but, one, it needs more force to do so, two, the tighter shape allows less play when deformed. Finally, the hitch needs more and more force to slip and doesn't move as much, if at all. You just get deadly stuck. All you can do is take your weight off of the rope, work the hitch to release the cinching force by putting some slack in it again, akka, you reset the hitch's shape.
Plus, you definitively can't climb pratically if you have to put so much force than he did on his hitch.
On average, the sweet spot to keep an hitch working (grabing and releasing at will) is around half your weight. Actually, you fine tune it for a good match.
That's the main problem if you want to go srt with this setup : too much force on it to go back and forth. You can make it slides one time or two, but that's it, locked hard. Hence the development of the alternative solutions by our fellow genious climbers : adding more friction into the system to take part of the load off the hitch and makes it works again. Et voila, there are the HitchHiker and the Ropewrench. Added benefit, the suplement fricton is self adaptative to the load and allows a much wider range of workload. Genious as I said.
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