Span rigging advice needed

[Tree09]

That's flat out awesome Scott!!!

 

[Benjo75]

Good looking setup!

 

[frans]

I went back and edited to add a few details. As Charley Potorff once said...."It's amazing what you can do with this much rope!"

Very nice!
I have that same trolley from mr. poor dwarf he actually gave it to me if I remember correctly.

I used a CMI uplift pulley system. The toothed cam would bite into the rope and made it real hard to release. Used a throw line to release the little lever. Pain in the ass to do.
Also the load would spin and tangle up the ropes.
I used a rope come-along to tension the high-line. GRCS to lower the pieces.
Charly came and took pictures, but in typical Charly fashion I never got copies lol.
he is a good guy.
Harken Co. has a couple pulleys that are interesting. Grooved shivs that hold/ grab the rope and can be adjusted to only turn one way or the other, but to do that you have to be able to touch the pulley, hard to do with the high line 50’+ feet in the air.
Your system seems very clever. I also like how you can step it up by using much bigger ropes and a bigger Prussik cord.
👍

at the end of the day tho, it is a lot of rigging! 😅

 

[Altissimus]

I like that alot , I have everything except the cool double sheave "trolley" thing ... hmmm , now I want one of those

 

[Jonny]

That’s a pretty sweet price for the 22,000 lb one.

 

[lxskllr]

Why would you even want the aluminum one? It looks inferior in every measure aside from a slight weight savings, and costs $100 more.

 

[Benjo75]

I like the steel one. I think if you needed the 3/4 rope you might have to look into back guying the support trees. That would be a pretty good pull on them.

 

[flushcut]

Guy the support trees anyways.
For the CMI blocks I took mine apart and took a flap disc to them and put a nice radius on the inside edge for a friendlier rope inter face.

 

[frans]

Guy the support trees anyways.
For the CMI blocks I took mine apart and took a flap disc to them and put a nice radius on the inside edge for a friendlier rope inter face.

👍Say what you want, but tree people are surprisingly resourceful and inventive!
Our industry has had to scab and invent from the get go. The huge mature equipment supply companies have been geared toward rock climbing and rescue. Not tree work.

in the past 15 years or so, the tree gear has developed tree-mendously.

it is exciting to me and I am grateful to witness this

 

[pantheraba]

Too true. I remember in the 70's when I "snuck" my aluminum, non locking oval carabiners from my rudimentary rock climbing stock and used them in treework. It seemed like I was betraying tree climbing or cheating by trying to work in my rock climbing/rappelling experience. I would get several WTF looks from other climbers that were hard core old school.

 

[theTreeSpyder]

Generally hitched near CoG on long span and load rope before tearoff , to then be light on hinge (as rope is now pivot not hinge) and float around near level, but enough positive nose weight to predictably tip into hole at tearoff.
.
Pretighten rope and then cut weight down into rope hard knowing rope too tight so can't go down further, loads rope hard enough to take over as pivot gradually before tearoff(instead of hard slam after) Slant in rope gives side pull around @ ~11% 'per clock minute for first 5mins on clock thumbrule.
So that, if pressing downward with 400# weight into rope as input slanted from direct overhead/noon
Returns a side pull THRU ROPE of:
>>@1min. on clock slant = 44# sideways
>>@2min. on clock slant = 88# sideways
>>@3min. on clock slant = 132# sideways etc.
Then side force thru rope X distance to hinge, so if hitch point is 10' from hinge
>>gives 440ft#, 880ft#, 1320ft# etc. on hinge for the pull around force.
This is where small tweaks to accentuate slant , like pulling from right side of support to left side of load help!
.
i found some joy in taking normally weight and length as problems to deal with , to sweat over;
to then inverting problem to wishing had more of each as were now used these as more powerful solution to ushering movement, instead of problem against movement... Kinda like martial arts, of using weight and size of opponent to capitalize on, where the reverse was once the standard!
.
Of course openness of hinge must agree, not bind against motion. Tapered Hinge fat at high side if any.

 

[murphy4trees]

I like knowing how to do something even if I don't use it all the time.

That's the whole point of experience.. learn what w\orks and how and when to use it and keep lots of tools in the box to pull out when needed in specific scenarios.

 

[theTreeSpyder]

I usually go crazy working ' new' technique or tool, playing with it, exploiting own child like peak excitement to get correct feel and workflow polished, to then 'holster' , to quick draw out as needed; knowing attributes and deployment time.

 

[Eric H-L]

Anyone used these techniques in the 2-1/2 years since last reply? I am definitely putting Kyle’s drifting in mental toolbox for my industrial rigging.

 

[Eric H-L]

I'm not going to pretend I'm even an armchair expert on this type of rigging, but i am a pretty good industrial rigger and we drift loads sideways all the time. I feel the need to comment, because from my training, span rigging is awesome for some stuff, but less ideal for others. The scenario you mentioned involved what to me sounds like you would have needed to drop loads onto the skyline, which because of the force multipliers involved is pretty much a no no. Even with speedline use, they recommend catching heavier pieces first, and then gently easing them onto the skyline, especially if you are controlling their decent speed.

Here's a rigging situation similar to what you had to do, and they used another tree as a rigging point to drift the limbs to a suitable landing area. They caught the limbs first, and then just eased off the rigging line while keeping the drift line taut, which will swing the limb to the landing area. This would be very easy to setup from the ground as well.





This one they didn't have a sturdy enough tree to use to drift, so they caught the piece, then lowered it down a speedline towards the base of another tree. You could do this even with a truck as an anchor if needed. I personally would feel better blocking/ rigging and controlling the forces than using a skyline under what I'm rigging out.

I know you full time tree people probably use drifting a lot. I never really understood what Kyle was on about until this comment he posted with illustrative video. Now I think I understand conceptually, although I have a long way to go to master it in real life. I just watched a recent August Hunneke video where he is teaching Heather to drift pieces around 26 minutes into the video.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Finally, I see one example of how an adjustable bridge is advantageous. Easier to step into the saddle. Yet the extra rope leaves me wanting. Or not wanting. Lol