EVERYTHING You Need To Know About Tree Climbing Spurs! A Complete Guide to Choosing and Using Spurs!

all right everybody welcome back to another episode of guilty of treason i'm excited to do this episode i've been thinking about doing it for a long time in this episode we're going to be talking about tree climbing spurs what they are how to pick out which ones you need and most importantly how to use the things so i think it should be a pretty good video and i really hope that you find this video you know maybe in the beginning of your career or maybe you send this to somebody who's thinking about becoming a tree climber my goal for this video is by the end of it you'll know everything that you need to know about spurs and how to use them because it can be kind of a lot you know getting involved in the industry there's kind of a lot to these contraptions so all right well let's talk about them what are tree climbing spurs well tree climbing spurs are these things that you put on your legs and your feet and they help you climb a tree let's talk about the individual parts of the spur okay so let's just talk about the spark the parts of the spur real quick these are buckingham aluminum spurs they just got a few parts this is the upper pad this is the shank here lower straps most importantly this pokey part right here this is the gaff this is just a magnetic gaff guard this part is the gap right here so those are basically all of the parts that at least that i can think of and so depending where you live regionally these go by a thousand different names spurs hooks gaffs climbers spikes all kinds of things i live in washington state and where i live pretty much everybody they just call these spurs so when in this video when i say spur i'm talking about the whole thing um if i say gaff i'm talking specifically about this pointy part right here i was amazed the first time i saw anybody use these things i could not believe that somebody i didn't know they existed until i was about 18 and i started doing tree work and i could not believe that these guys put these things on and they just went way up in the sky and they were trusting these things and they were working i blew my mind i'm really curious maybe you know maybe you can leave in the comment section i don't know how long or when these were invented buckingham make really good products they've been around since the late 1800s i believe so you know well over 100 years that just that company has been making spurs so i'm curious i haven't been able to find it out by looking up online maybe you know when and where did spurs originate how long have people been using them so let me know in the comments if you do know but those are the the basic parts of the spur and so now let's address the question of you know shopping and picking out the spurs what spurs should i buy so well let's let's show you some other spurs okay so you can see these are just four this is just an example of the four sets of spurs that i own three of them are from buckingham one is from gekko you can buy these at online i use a site called wesper.com they're local they're in washington state and i'll just i'll put a link in the description you can click that they do a pretty good job of making it easy to figure out what to buy so when you're looking at spurs the first thing that you might notice is it's going to ask you if you want a climbing gaff or a tree climbing gap or spike it's going to say something like that so when we're talking about that you know remember this is the gaff part right here so everything that all all the ones i have these are all tree climbing spikes this one's quite a bit shorter because it's worn down it's been filed a bunch of times but basically the tree gaps are about four inches long the pole gaps are a bit shorter and pole gaps are typically used by linemen people that aren't dealing with bark or people who are dealing with really thin barked trees here where i live we've got really thick bark so pretty much everybody everybody that i know runs tree gaffs and not pole gaps i've used pole gaps a couple times and they worked really well on some really thin bark trees but for the most part you have to make sure that you're you're penetrating through the bark and you're getting into the wood itself because the spikes aren't going to hold you just grabbing onto the bark so you know the lime and they don't they don't need to worry about that so having the shorter the shorter gaff helps to get your feet a little closer to the trunk so it's more stable so depending on where you live if you're climbing like eucalyptus trees and stuff or if you're going to be a lineman then you might want to get a pole gaff uh probably you're going to just want to get a tree gaff because you can do all they you can do all the same stuff with the tree gaff it's just not quite as stable but so that's the difference between tree gaps and pole gaps another thing you're going to notice you're going to be looking at different pads and you're going to be looking at different shanks or spurs now basically the way it's going to work when you're shopping for them it's going to start off with steel and as you spend more money the materials are going to get lighter and lighter so you're going to have steel at first and then you're going to have aluminum so it's going to be a bit lighter than steel a bit more expensive not quite as strong more likely to break and then you'll have carbs some people make carbon fiber spurs these are going to be really light quite a bit flimsier than the metal ones and then you're going to have titanium which is going to be super light and also super strong and they're going to kind of work up in price in that order if you're new to this i highly suggest just sticking getting the buckingham steel spurs with these cast aluminum pads i rocked these for about like seven years before i even experimented with anything else you know i as after a few years i started trying to find ways to trim down some you know pounds of my climbing gear you know and just getting interested in the gear i started getting some other spurs but i had these for a long time and they all do the same thing these work great about a year into climbing my boss ran over these spurs with the chip truck like a really big chip truck and just shattered the pad it was the same kind of pad i replaced the pads and i they worked they're fine they're super durable i've never replaced a single nutter bolt or rivet on these things they're um they're they're the cheaper ones and they're heavy and they're sturdy and you know you're you're probably not really going to even know when when you're new and you're on the spurs the last thing you're going to be thinking about is the weight of them you're just going to be like freaked out that you're hoping you're not falling out of the tree so i highly suggest these spurs um jed in red jed he climbs on these i'm pretty sure buck and billy ray and august hunnicky climb on these too um steel spurs with the castleman pads they're great they're really heavy um but that's they still do the same thing and then as you go basically you're going to be looking at different types of pads generally the more surface area you have the more comfortable the pads are going to be and you're going to want to adjust those you're going to want to adjust them so that they sit high on your shins but just below where the knee bends if you get this where the knee bends these are going to dig into your kneecaps you know as you move your legs up and down and it's going to be really uncomfortable you're not going to like to deal with that and then you know there are different there are different contraptions you can buy too you know you can get different like gaff guards like this one's cool this has a retractable gaff guard and that's kind of nice because i can walk around on pavement without worrying about dulling my my spur right here you really don't want to walk on pavement with like the carbon fiber ones because these can splinter and they're they're flimsy and then you can change the lower and upper straps and stuff so there are minor minor things that you can uh you can change but basically they're all going to do the same thing but yeah don't forget you can just use the link is right in my description wesper does a good job explaining explaining all that so that's about the gist of it that's what you're going to be looking at with when you're shopping for tree climbing spurs so now you might be wondering well what kind of boots should i wear with my spurs well i wear two different types of boots um i i don't expect you to own or to buy two types of boots if you're just starting out i'm not telling you that you should i'm just telling you what i do and i'll try to explain why so this is a lineman boot you know it's characterized by tall leather it's got a really big heel right here and it's got an extra patch of leather right there to help you know the boot wear down more slowly because it rubs against the trunk right there the the the the nice thing about the lyman boots is it has a steel shank that runs in it which is really nice um for standing on the spurs and the nice thing too is you can see the spur fits really snugly you know it fits really well where that heel is see the heel really grabs it and it keeps it from sliding around so you don't have to get them as tight these are kind of worn down but you don't have to get them as tight yeah these things are getting old so you don't need to get them as tight and they're more stable so i these are carolinas i've had a few different brands of these i had a pair of west coast and i really didn't think they were that great man these look really bad on camera these are pretty those are kind of seen the end of their days i got to get some more um but the they're nice for those reasons you've got the hard steel shank the tall leather is just more padding more support and then the heel really is the big the big thing that i really like about wearing linemen boots but i only wear those in the summer they're also not insulated they don't have gore-tex or anything so they're really cold in the summer because it's just leather i wear these in the winter these are a solo hiking boots you can get these at like rei or on amazon and i like these because they're waterproof and they're they're comfortable this has a composite shank that runs on the bottom so it gives you some support there but you know it's not that high on the leg you know i if i'm gonna be in a tree for a long time like many hours even in the winter i'll usually wear these because they're they're really nice to stand on but these aren't bad i can stay in a tree for a while on these and they're waterproof so my feet will stay dry the problem the thing that drives me nuts about these like if you're looking at this you know the the heel is very small so the the spur tends to want to slide around a bit more now the biggest thing you can do to help that is you get the velcro lower straps these are i think 50 bucks or something and these will help you get a really custom snug fit on something with a small heel it's super frustrating having the the spurs slide all around over here and it will if you've got a small heel it's really irritating but the i only just got the started using these a couple years ago the velcro lower straps just night and day difference i just couldn't believe how much it makes a serious difference they're really nice so like i said i i don't expect you to have two pairs of boots but those are the pros and cons i haven't found the perfect um the perfect boot for wearing spurs there are pros and cons to all of them it drives me nuts that the the people that make boots for tree climbing they don't make boots typically with a large heel i just can't wrap my mind around it because i don't know why it has to be this way why i can't find a good lineman boot that's nice and waterproof and i can't find a nice you know hiking style boot that just has a bigger heel the heel makes it really nice for having the spurs but the most important thing by far you just have to have something that's stiff on the bottom that's what's going to be important if you you know climb in your nikes even once you're going to be like holy crap i'm not doing that again i mean it these things are seriously painful on your feet and you're going to see i mean it's it's not natural to be standing on these contraptions so there you know it bends your foot in the middle and anything that's stiff will help no matter what boot you're wearing if you're standing in one spot for a long time your feet are going to hurt wearing spurs you want to keep your your feet moving you know uh consistently and you want to keep the circulation going because they will hurt after a while but you'll get mostly you'll get mostly used to it but yeah that's the biggest thing with the boots is you just you want to have a really you know solid you want it to be stiff on the bottom so i think that's about it for all i can think of in regards to talking about this in the shop let's go out into my yard and i'll show you how to use these things and i think we're going to continue to have a lot of fun all right everybody so we're in my backyard i've got this cottonwood right here i'll climb up this and demonstrate how to use the spurs in case anybody's wondering this is a buckingham agility saddle i like this saddle a lot and we're going to use the buckingham aluminum spurs i haven't used these yet so they're still nice and shiny these are like the quick buckle lower straps i think they work just as fine as just the regular velcro they seem to do the same thing but see the the velcro straps are really nice because you can get a really you know custom fit to your boot you don't have to go with preset holes just take these gaff guards off and one thing i forgot to mention um you'll notice on the spur itself the gaff is going to be very slightly angled forward and that's so it's going to be facing the tree when i first got my spurs i put the pads on the wrong part of the spur so i had the left spur on my right foot and it made the spur sit a little backwards and i had lots of problems gaffing out for a while until you know my boss pointed out to me that my gaff was pointing in the wrong direction so make sure that the gaff is pointing slightly towards the tree that's how you know you have them on the right feet okay so i've got the tree here all you're going to do is you're going to throw the flip line around it and these things are really pretty simple to use i'm clipped in i'm secured and you're just going to stand into the tree and you know if you've got like a big trunk you're you're going to get used to you know rolling the flip line like that that's going to be the easiest way for you to do it but yeah using the spurs so the the biggest thing that i can say if you take nothing away from this video when you want to be stable it's all about getting close to the tree the closer you stand to the tree the more stable you're going to be so you can see the cloak so if you're slacked way out your spurs going to be like that and you see it's just going in and the tip is just kind of holding me in right here this is pretty unstable you've got all the weight just resting on that point to get really stable you want to get really close and that way it's really digging into the tree and all the pressure is going into the thicker part of the trunk so when i first started climbing i thought you know if i were like at a 45 angle like this i would that would be my best posture but what i learned over time was that it's really all about getting close ideally you want to get just close enough where you know you can still move around comfortably and do your working but typically when i'm going up the tree i'll have it a little bit loose and then you know when i get to where i want to work i'll get really close and that way i have really good you know power and posture right here so you know the spurs really are pretty simple devices they work just that easily but really that's the biggest thing i can say is the the more upright your body is the more that they're going to be pushing down into the tree and you know you can do a few things a lot of guys will you know you'll take uh you know left foot right foot in the same spot and then we'll go up like that as you get used to it you won't really even think of it so much and you'll get really used to using these things and you can go as high as you want like this and you know that's really all there is to using these things so yeah and it's all about just spending time in the spurs the more time you spend in the spurs the more you're going to get used to them and you're going to see over time you're going to get super used to these things and it'll just be no big deal going up and down these trees another thing too um this tree slightly leans in this direction that actually helps my spurs sink in better too if the tree is upright that's fine what happens is you know because the tree is leaning in this direction my spur is pushing down and if i go on the back side down here you know my spurs are kind of holding me in like a hook and this is also less stable so ideally you want to you know you can actually see like i'm kind of leaning down ideally if it's leaning you want to be on top of the tree that's not always an option um a lot of times they're just straight up and down it doesn't really matter but yeah try to work with the lean of the tree and that's that's about it for standing another thing that you want to keep in mind as you're going up your spurs well i don't know if i have a good example so see right here like on the side of the trunk i can get my spur in there really well but right here where it's cut it's very hard to get a good grip with your spurs on that exposed wood because the grain is running because the grain is running in a different direction so try to gaff into this part or if it's really thick furrowed bark try to stick your gaffs in between the furrows but be cautious when you're standing on this stuff because your spur is not going to want to catch in there as easily as the rest of the trunk that's about all i can think of for going up and down the tree so now the question what kind of flip line should i use well you have basically two options let's see here so i keep my flip line on my right side these are also called so these are also called a bunch of different things these are called lanyards flip lines buck straps they're called all sorts of things i call them flip lines and i keep the adjustable part on my right side just because that's what i've gotten used to doing you can keep that on your left side it tangles up with my chainsaw sometimes being over here it'd probably be better on my left side but i learned it this way and i have a hard time running it the other direction but when you're looking at flip lines now you can click the link in the description and search flip line as well and you'll see they'll have options you're basically going to have two options for flip lines you're going to have softcore and steel core and they come in all sorts of different rope adjusters you know this is a gibbs climber this is a art positioner too these you got a bunch of different options but really what you're looking at is you can run a steel core so this is a rope that has a steel line through it this is nice because it makes it really rigid so it's easier to flip and it's also cut resistant because there's that steel core in there you can see the steel right there it's crimped in there this is a soft core lanyard this is just a piece of rope and you know depending on where you're working lots of guys like running these um the advantage to running a soft core flip line like this or a lanyard is that it's more malleable and you're gonna have more positioning options you know so if i need to use it like as a secondary rope and i wouldn't unclip it like this but i'm one foot off the ground you know i can you know i can do stuff like that if i want so but the the downside is that it's not cut resistant and it's not as stiff so they both have pros and cons so the pros to this it's more malleable more flexible you have more positioning options and it's safer around power lines it doesn't conduct electricity the benefit to this it's stiffer it's easier to use but it's heavier it conducts electricity so really dangerous around power lines to have these swinging around um but it's also it's cut resistant so usually on big straight trees um i'll run this flip line and if i'm doing small trees you know little prunes and i'm moving around and stuff like that then typically i'll use this one but more often than not i'm using this it's it's a you see if it's quite a bit easier to flip these things around than the than just the rope ones so those are the those are going to be your flip line options now this is the part that we need to have a talk about we need to talk about a little thing called gaffing out now gaffing out is what you're going to immediately feel the sensation when you start doing this when you're standing there like this and you move the flip line up you're going to feel the sensation that your feet are going to kick out that your spurs are going to fall out of the tree and they're probably not going to do that your spurs are going to kick out of the tree when you least expect it now gaffing out is just kind of a way of life that you're going to have to get used to it doesn't happen that often but it happens sometimes you know when you don't get a good grip and the spurs kick out sometimes you know it happens with one foot sometimes it happens with both feet and you know it's not going to be the end of the world when you gaff out the the thing that's going to make a gaffing out dangerous because your feet are going to kick out and you're going to fall into the trunk there are three different scenarios where that's dangerous one is if you have a branch on this side and you leave a stub and your spurs kick out you can seriously impale and hurt yourself on that stab so make sure that you always have clean stubs between you and the trunk you don't want anything like that there the second thing that could happen is if you don't have good footing and you're using the chainsaw and you gaff out you can cut yourself with the saw so make sure you know you really you know get your spurs in there deep and get positioned well before you start running the chainsaw another you know use another point of attachment too in case you cut one line you'll be okay and the third thing that's going to hurt you if you gaff out is if you have a really snotty slippery like skinny trunk you can slide down the trunk aways you're not going to slide down like super far but it's going to be pretty unpleasant when you gaff out you're not going to fall all the way down the tree also leaning trees if you gap out you can swing to the underside and it might be really hard to get back on top so it's a pretty unpleasant phenomenon but it's a part of climbing and you know as far as gaffing out goes you'll see it's not that bad um i think i'm gonna attempt to do it here just so that you can see that yeah it's painful and it sucks but it's not the end of the world so hopefully i've never i've never tried to do it on purpose but hopefully i can do it myself and show you that it's really nothing to really be afraid of it's going to suck when it happens it's not going to happen that often but it's just going to be a part of life so um let's see how would i do this on purpose so all right so i'm right here and i'm more nervous than i thought i'd be so i'm just going to try to kick both my feet out and it's going to look clumsy and awkward but you'll you'll see it's not the end of the world and then you'll know exactly what to expect okay i don't know what to do on purpose i guess i'll try to just jump and get my spurs out okay very compact in the harness it's good my spurs actually dug into the tree so that wasn't actually that bad i'm gonna try it one more time so this is what to expect when you are gaffing out it's gotta look so dumb this is really not that bad when you're expecting it it's especially not that bad um so yeah go go go go go go go go go go yeah there's a stub there what i talked about little tiny little tiny okay come down a bit so that's how you gaff out of a tree and as you can see i survived that and if i would have been 100 feet in the air it would have hurt equally bad it would have been more scary but nothing else would have changed so when you get spurs and you start climbing up just remember i just jumped out of my spurs and smacked the tree on purpose and i'm still here and i'm just fine so that's good so if you're gonna be a tree climber you're gonna encounter that and it's gonna suck the the thing that you might do if you're worried about sliding on the trunk you've got really smooth bark the thing you can do it's really simple is you can just wrap your flip line around the trunk like this and that's going to make it awkward to adjust but what's going to happen is if you run your flip line wrapped once around the trunk see it's not that it's not as easy to adjust it's still not that bad but if you do it like this when you gap out you won't slide down the trunk because you're going to be choked off in this configuration this tree is not that slippery sometimes you get super smooth bark and if i'm doing like a really smooth bark tree like an alder or something or madrona and it's raining and it's slippery then i'll double wrap my flip on like that's a really easy way to just ensure that ensure that uh you know you don't slide down the trunk any more than you need to so yeah so that's uh that's really all i can think of and you'll be amazed you know once you get used to these things you know you're you're gonna be amazed at how comfortable you are on them but it's going to be awkward for a while you're going to feel you're going to feel really nervous i was super nervous when i first got these especially when you start getting really high it's not natural to stand on these things but you'll get used to it you'll see it's fine every once in a while just the circle of life you're gonna gaff out not that often and the sharper your spurs are the less likely that should happen and uh you know as long as you're on the back side of the tree if it's leaning shouldn't happen that often but it's gonna happen you're gonna be fine you're gonna live i just did it three times i'm i'm fine no big deal and yeah that's really all there is to it and then you're just gonna get super comfortable you know and it's going to be just like walking on the ground you're not even going to think of it so i think i think that's about it for the spur climbing tutorial all right so here we are the next day and we're just climbing removing this hemlock there's just a branch or two left and you can see you're gonna get used to these spurs real quick and then eventually you're not even gonna think twice about it but you see i'm nice and close to the trunk this is pretty skinny up here i shouldn't go any higher than that but yeah the sticks will wobble a little bit you'll get used to it here i'll just cut this top off dick all right all right throwing this over by the holly [Applause] all right so yeah that's it for the how to use climbing spurs tutorial hopefully you like that don't forget to like and subscribe and climb safe and enjoy your spurs hey

Channel: Guilty of Treeson @ Eastside Tree Works

Views: 115,483

Rating: 4.9618216 out of 5

Keywords: spurs, spikes, tree climbing spurs, how to climb a tree, arborist, tree hooks, gaffs, how to use spurs, tree climbing techniques, Jacob rogers, logger, high climber, tree climbing, chainsaws, saws, old growth, logging, Arboriculture, tall trees, how to cut trees, idiots with chainsaws, tall tree, wesspur, how to chose spurs, climbing a tree, homesteading, manly, construction, demolition, blue collar, dirty jobs, stihl, Husqvrana, tree topping, how to top a tree

Id: Z6JG9pfylxQ

Length: 30min 36sec (1836 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 02 2021