How'd it go today?

Samson produced their first production nylon double braid in 1957, but the Arborplex wasn't in our area arborist supply until about the early to mid1980s. Bought my first and last length of it in 1987 iirc.
 
I bought a 200 foot piece in 1988, I think...give or take a year at most. I loved it, compared to all the previous ropes I had climbed on.

I'm sure I was not at the front of the line in adopting it. I think it was at the very first of my USFS Region 6 instructor's workshops where I was serving as a facilitator/certifier, that a candidate from back East brought a hank with him. He had some experience in the arb trade before hiring on with the Forest Service.

I picked his brain all day, all 5 days of the workshop...and bought beer after beer in the hotel bar after work, just learning all I could of arborist climbing and rigging techniques.

He taught me far more than he learned from me, for the most part. He did rather suck at spur climbing, coming in, but I fixed that easily enough :D.
 
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I'm super impressed with my treemaster line. I've beat the hell out of it, and it just keeps on going. I've broken it twice, fused prusiks to it a half dozen times, and dragged it across the ground for probably miles by now. It's at the point I wouldn't trust it for a critical pull, but it would probably be alright.
 
Went on a job so far out in the country, they had to pipe sunlight in. Really pretty hardwood forest. The walk out was up a ~1.5:1 slope that seemed to go forever. My calves were burning by the time I hit the top.

Made some progress on the cleanup job at work. Still looks like shit, but if I raked the pile of wood I moved out, it would look a lot better. Not gonna do fine work til I get the heavy stuff done. My goal is to have it done to my satisfaction before hot weather next year.
 
Well, I guess I jumped in the deep end today. The end result is, I can still swim.

First day back at work (climbing) since my accident. Just over 7 months I’ve been off work.

Been snowing the last couple of days and cold. I picked the chipper up at the yard at 7.20 this morning. Temp gauge on the truck said -13c. Brrrrrrr!

Had a couple of jobs to get done. Birch to dismantle, maybe 15 m tall. Branches chipped and wood cut into logs. Back to the yard by 9.45 ish to drop the chipper off and then on to a Horse Chestnut Prune. Every thing left on site.

It was manageable with my hand but the cold did add an added dimension of numbness to my already numb fingers. They did hurt like mad though when the blood started to get back to them.

I could have picked an easier day to start work LOL.
 
Do your saws have heated handles?

No mate. Mostly climbing today. They haven’t made a climbing saw with heated handles.

Saying that, none of my saws have heated handles.

I put a heat pad in my glove which worked for a bit, but then they cool so you have to reactivate it in the air. This roughly translates to taking your glove off and getting cold fingers. So I just left it be till I was finished.

I am British though, so I had a good old moan about how cold it was “freeze the balls of a Brass Monkey” weather.

Pop quiz: Does anyone know the origin of “it is cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey”.

No cheating now! No google or DuckDuckGo!
 
I do not. I feel like I've seen the origin stated before, but damned if I can remember what. Could be confused too. That happens sometimes :^D
 
The brass monkey is the thing they stacked the cannonballs on, innit?

I grew up hearing the phrase and always thought it originates from Naval terminology. Cannonballs stacking etc.

Yet I googled it and apparently it has been called out as bollocks as the US Navy said cannonballs were never stored like that in those times.

I think that is crap as the US didn’t have a Navy at that time, it was British.

Taken from Wikipedia.

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By the way, it could be nice, good and dog happyly, it's way too cold for me.

"Struggling with the snow-blowing this year" ?
Well, here, many are panicking on the roads when they see a snow flake and on average we are lost with 2" of snow (excepted all the mountainers of course). Even the trains have to stop, maybe at a little more than 2" but not much more.
 
I had our new apprentice doing a trim and crown lift on my chestnut today.
I had told him, if he'd spend half a saturday doing it for free, I'd be on hand to teach him how.

It is way easier to learn climbing outside a regular work situation, because there is no stress.
But having to do an actual job forces one out in positioning that one would avoid on a rec climb.

So as he was making his merry way around in the tree, I brought firewood in and did other small tasks, always within sight of him.

Since we want them to be really well versed in DRT, before teaching SRT, I showed him Jerry's rope walker tecnique on double rope.
He really liked that.

So he had a good time and learned a lot, and I got a job done that I would otherwise have had to do myself.

Win-win :)
 
Heja Sverige!

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Went grocery shopping, and the liquor store this morning. Spent $350 at the liquor store. Got a bunch of Belgian ale as a jul gift for the boss, and got myself some whisky and beer. An odd one I got was Guinness chocolate mint stout. I saw that and thought "WTF!?". Walked away, then went back and got it. Ya never know. I'm not expecting much, but it might be amazing. It was certainly expensive.
 
Saturday, I brough the engine of my little chipper to a mechanic, to have a look at it and get an idea about the repair/replacement. He said the timing wasn't involved. The lifter rod got bent because the bolt holding the rocker unscrewed, the rocker shifted and the rod pushed sideway. "It's nothing !". He straightened gently the rod with a hammer and put it back in place. We found again the hard spot in the rotation like I did (leading me to the possible timing issue) but it disappeared. He drained the oil to see if there's something abnormal. "Oil's level way too low and oil too dirty". I have to disaggry with the last one, only brownish, far from the black I use to take out of my other engines. But beside that, nothing bad in the oil but 2 small strips of silicon rubber. "That should be good, put it back in place and try it at iddle only first".
So I went home, but before bolting the engine on the chipper, I opened the crankcase, as I was really worried by the disapearing hard spot and a sqwicky sound. Nice and clean inside, no metal shaving, just again some thin strips of silicon rubber from the case's etancheity but nothing about a hard spot. One central cameshaft for the both cylinders, good position. I thought of a chunk of wood against the flyweel for the hard spot, but nothing on this side either. Should be good, but I don't like the unanswered questions.
I closed the crankcase, filled it with oil. Good rotation, still sqwicky. I put it back on the chipper with the bare minimum to test it. The starter didn't want to work properly but eventually started the engine. Not at iddle but with a little throttle because it wanted to stall. I didn't bolt the exkaust can, so I saw the problem(s) : the good cylinder was blowing hard and hot, but the "bad" one's blow ( the one with the bent rod) was weak and cold. Then after a moment, the bad cylinder began to work, but erraticly, with a lot of misfires and flames rushing out loudly by the exhaust. After thoughts; that's consistent with the exhaust can becoming dark red hot on this side at the night fall, which I spoted during the last weeks. There's an issue here running since some times. Maybe not the timing, but certainly from the valves on this side.
And still sqwicky. Not good, as there's no roller bearing holding the crankshaft,
I can't run like that, it will die on me. I have to take it apart, but not much time or place to do it properly, so I'd better order a new engine.
 
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