Spar removal basics | SRT tree climbing tutorial | Arborist How-to

all right welcome to strider tree gear today in this uh tips and tricks video i just want to demonstrate the basic formula for removing trees sort of single spar trees a lot of conifers when you've got a little bit of space but you can't follow it all the way whole kind of the standard appropriately double tied in all the way up cutting branches as you go taking a little top rigging it out and then chunking down from there and hopefully you'll find this useful and interesting and you guys can climb safe do good tree work out there thanks for joining me here we go so this is the basic setup if you're going to do a spar you need two things you need your work positioning lanyard i highly recommend a steel core lanyard if you're starting off this tends to be in closest proximity to any cutting that's being done i've been doing this a long time gone years without hitting my lanyard i like the ropes next you also need a choked off secondary tying point if you guys are using a double rope system then you need something like the buckingham tree squeeze which i hope to demonstrate at a later date but if you're using single rope here i've got the akimbo if you've got a rope runner if you've got the chicane and petzl zigzag any of those will work and inappropriately choked off to the tree so that if i were to fall or if this were to drop and i were to gaff out this is still going to catch me at no point am i in any point in danger of actually falling any distance as long as i maintain these two tying points so that's the main thing i'm going to maintain these as i go up which means i have to flip my rope i got to take a little bit of time bring some slack into this and advance it as well as i'm climbing so i'll show you a little bit of my routine right now i'm going to gaff in gonna flip up i'm gonna advance that and i keep this underneath my other climb line or my uh my positioning line i'm gonna go up and i'll choke that off make sure my slack is good up a little bit more and now i'm at my first branches so i'll leave this a little bit lower when i when i pull out the saw for cutting but when you're doing a spar this is the next step two hands safety got my ears here we go [Applause] and i'm gonna come around here so i don't risk hitting my lanyard now i left a little bit of a nub right there because i didn't want to get too close to my lanyard which is right underneath it you really don't want to leave big nubs because they get in the way of any rigging that you're going to do they get they catch pieces as they fall it's very annoying and i've got this choked off time point anyway so i don't need to worry about having a branch for my line to be over if you're double roping then you do want to leave more a lot of times you'll want to leave a branch so that you can have your rope around it unless you're using a tree squeeze so here we go upwards we go more cutting to come still just working our way up this tree sometimes i'll advance my flip line over a couple of branches and then i'll cut them below i'm not obviously i'm trying really hard not to hit this line and i'll cut very carefully with my chainsaw and control it very precisely two hands um in order to avoid that but i know i've still got this as a backup and that's why i feel okay cutting like this [Music] a lot of times i'll do that i'll cut most of the way through and then i'll toss it i can do the same thing over here most the way through and now if i'm trying to avoid hitting something i can toss it [Applause] i'll cut everything i can reach before i go to move again [Applause] notice when i follow through i move the saw away from me and away from my climb gear away from the tree sometimes branches will tend to push it back in and that's where you end up nicking things [Applause] all right up we go if you look and listen carefully you'll be able to see that i'm actually hitting the chain break chain break in between every time i move positions so i'll make a cut and then i'll hit that and and put it away before i start moving again just in case something gets bumped you know if you don't have an electric saw you got a gas side sits there and idles if you don't hit that chain break a branch can catch that trigger down in there and get it to go off and end up cutting something so it's a good habit to get into use that chain break so now that i've made it to the top of the height that i need to take a top at a lot of times if i can climb high enough to where i could just take a small top as long as i've got a little bit of space below me even if i can't follow the whole tree usually there's enough space around to just take it in this case i've got a trailer down there we've got a little car i don't want to hit so we're going to actually negatively rig the top out to avoid any issues hey josh you don't need to put tension on that just yet i'm actually not tied on so once i'm at the height i want to be i pick there's a variety of methods you can use and we'll have some videos on that later but for this one i'm just going to use a rigging ring and i'm going to route my rope through the rigging ring above my tie-in point i mean above into the into the wood that i'm going to try and catch but i'm going to cut a face cut first so that i don't accidentally nick the rope while i'm cutting so that's gonna what's gonna happen next cut a little face cut i'll route the rope tie it off and then we'll be ready to take the top so here we go face cut here [Music] perfect that we got slack on this rope i'm gonna make sure it's routed in such a way that it's not going to interfere with my climb line because that's a good way to melt right through your climb line is if your rigging line has to rub along it while it's under tension so you don't want that route it through the ring gonna go up tie a quick run and bowling there is much debate about what's the best knot to use for this scenario i sure like the running bowling 90 of the time that's what i'm gonna use all right so now the rope is right there where the hinge is so i'm not going to be worried about cutting it i've got one more little branch i'm going to cut out of the way and i'll make my back cut and first i'm going to talk to the groundy all right josh we're hooked up that looks like a one wrapper it's important to know roughly how much weight you're taking versus how many wraps on the porter wrap the more wraps obviously the more friction the harder it's going to catch a rope like on a top like this i want it to catch slowly the faster this thing stops the more shock i experience in the tree experiences and the rope and the gear and all of it so the more gradually we can slow it down the better and that's a matter of having a good groundie down there if you see josh is pulling out some slack behind him so that he doesn't have to worry it's going to make a little easier on his hands to have the slack behind him he's setting himself up so he's out of the way of the top coming down but he's still visible i'm gonna give him the signal josh are you ready yeah all righty and we'll be set up all right we're gonna let this one run and catch it nice and slow here we go get that out of the way here it goes beautiful nice and slow if you look here this tree is hardly shaking it was a very gradual comfortable catch of what is actually a fairly significantly sized top i'd like to point out we also cleared the trailer and josh is doing a great job down there dragging it out while still supporting some of the weight on the rope that's what it's like to have a good groundy so um after i've got the top of this tree out now i realize i've got enough space below me to be able to push chunks and to cut small branches so the way i'm gonna finish this tree is just chunking it in either doubles or triples which is sort of tree guys speak for two or three firewood lengths roughly 36 inches or so give or take basically they're small enough pieces that i can control them and pick where they're going to land but big enough that i can get down you know sometime in the next hour i'd also like to point out that the way i have my rope set up right now is kind of the ideal setup for when you're taking the top i should have explained this before you want your lanyard over the top of the rigging so this starts out up here and drops down but with the lanyards over the top of the rigging there is some risk of things getting whipped around and my lanyard getting flicked over the top of the tree which obviously you don't want so i have my secondary choked off timeline below the rigging so even if something goes wrong and things get stuck and trapped i can still belay out on this rope and i'll have some safety factor i'm not i'm not worried about getting trapped at all because once the top falls out i can undo my lanyard and i will be able to belay no matter how things land so it's the best of both worlds so after we've taken the top out of this thing whether you rig it out or drop it most of the time what i'm going to do at this point on a vertical spa is take chunks like i was talking before doubles triples whatever i can comfortably control and land in the spot that's designated so i'm going to demonstrate here is a couple of snap cuts where i overlap my cuts and then i put the saw away and break it another cut i want to show you is where as long as you're nice and vertical i can actually cut push the saw straight through the cut saddle it and generally this will stay right on top so we're going to go with one of those here first get myself positioned once again my two tying points here and eye protection i've got my 550 here which is [Music] hit come over here pop that free i got my little spot right there drop it easy next one okay so i overlapped each of those about an inch and that's usually about right a little snappy snap and away we go let's get one more there drop this down keeping both my ties nice and secure generally i try and stay on the back side of a leaning spar a little more comfortable but this will work snap snap boom same spot now i want to demonstrate a little bit of a different technique that involves it's a little bit simpler a little bit faster when i'm not as worried about having to have perfect control i'll just push the saw straight through saddle it throw the piece off can we do that with our next one here [Music] as long as the spar is nice and vertical that's an easy way to go now so long as the spar is fairly vertical that works really well and then you will have completed your first basic spa removal that'll get you a long way hopefully you found that interesting and informative if there's any other tutorials and things you want to see let me know in the comments i'm happy to check those out and i usually get back to folks if they've got questions thanks for joining me here on strider tree gear and i'll catch you next time

Channel: Strider Trees

Views: 4,570

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: 9SZD3ZOowOg

Length: 13min 53sec (833 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 10 2021