MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
It's never more than a 10 or 20 foot pull, no biggie.
K
Knotahippie
Guest
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #52
You can backup the BRD with an autoblock for hands free too.
sotc
Dormant hero!!
seems faster to tie it while on the ground than hang in the air and tie one handed. .02 
sawinredneck
Treehouser
Bringing up old stuff tonight.
As I said Ashplund was here the other day. The climber was pretty good, but you could tell he was trying something new, I didn't pester, offer advice or ask questions, just watched as he fumbled through it.
He was climbing on a Blakes and trying to use a micro pulley for a slack tender. What I found interesting was he put a VT on the oposite line of what his hitch was on. I watched a bit, the theory was sound. As he went up that line got shorter and should pull his hitch up as well. The problem was he was having to tend his hitch and the VT with the pulley to get anywhere.
My thought, again THOUGHT, is to keep my splittail as short as possible and my hitch as close as I can, then put the pulley on another biner under it. Climb a ways, then pull the slack out. Climb a bit more. pull the slack out. I don't have tha advantage of a groundie most times.
What flaws in this plan am I overlooking? I know I mised something
As I said Ashplund was here the other day. The climber was pretty good, but you could tell he was trying something new, I didn't pester, offer advice or ask questions, just watched as he fumbled through it.
He was climbing on a Blakes and trying to use a micro pulley for a slack tender. What I found interesting was he put a VT on the oposite line of what his hitch was on. I watched a bit, the theory was sound. As he went up that line got shorter and should pull his hitch up as well. The problem was he was having to tend his hitch and the VT with the pulley to get anywhere.
My thought, again THOUGHT, is to keep my splittail as short as possible and my hitch as close as I can, then put the pulley on another biner under it. Climb a ways, then pull the slack out. Climb a bit more. pull the slack out. I don't have tha advantage of a groundie most times.
What flaws in this plan am I overlooking? I know I mised something
SkwerI
Treehouser
Why do you want to add another carabiner for the tending pulley? 
Put it on the same carabiner as your VT.
Put it on the same carabiner as your VT.
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
seems faster to tie it while on the ground than hang in the air and tie one handed. .02
But then you can't pull up as far.
T
TheTreeSpyder
Guest
Extend the bridge, to get longer pull per pull cycle. Just don't extend it so far you can't reach it!
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
But I still can't pull with both hands.
sotc
Dormant hero!!
do you use a micro pulley butch? then you can pull long, hang by one hand for a second while you schuck slack with the other. micro pulley will work with your taught line
sawinredneck
Treehouser
Why do you want to add another carabiner for the tending pulley?
I use a Blakes, but I don't see why that won't work, thanks Brian!
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
I tried that yesterday experimenting in my old walnut tree out back and the pulley wouldn't slide the Blakes up the rope. Maybe I have the wrong kind of pulley. Sometimes it would even pull the prussik that is attaching the pulley to the rope down the rope.
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
Yup. That setup won't work for dinosaur hitches.
Ax-Man
Don't make me chop you
It doesn't work for VT's that well either. I have tried it. I have tried about all those tricks for advancing the hitch if you need it above your hands. Most don't work. About the only thing I have found to work is to put a slip hitch on the working side of the climb rope and then Marlin spike it with a biner with some kind of tender like another pulley or a dog snap. It works but gets involved and then you have to dissamble all that stuff. Another drawback if your using a VT is that you have to tie in another VT ahead of your main climbing hitch for it to work. It is just alot of fussing around for the gain you get from it. For a long ascent it is probaly worth it but would get tiring pulling all that much rope. For average stuff. Naw!
The only other option to advancing a hitch is the single line footlock of the tail end of the climb line. Works good for a VT but with a Blakes you settle back till the hitch grabs and you lose a foot or so of what you have gained.
The best way to advance an old school hitch to get up into a tree is the old fashioned bodythrust pushing your hitch ahead of you with one hand. Takes practice and arm strength to get a good rythme going. With the VT you can't do that you have to incorporate a split tail cord onto your attachment point on the saddle if you want to acsend with no slack tending. In other words you have got two hitches going. Advancing your splittail old school hitch like a Blakes or Tautline, then pull slack through your VT. Doing it this way your always secure. It works good for those few times when you are ascending on your VT but can't tend slack very well one-handed without jepordising (?) safety. When the safety concern is behind you can easily undo the the split tail cord. These situations do occur and not fun to have to deal with.
I was asked to try out one of those extended bridge systems that was over on the Buzz. The system was on loan from a local arborists supply seller and I was asked to offer some feedback. It basically does the same thing but I don't see the practicality to it not to mention more clutter on my saddle especially at the clip in point. I still haven't used the system in a tree but I have set it up and the part that detaches the hitch from the saddle is too far out of reach to suit me.
The only other option to advancing a hitch is the single line footlock of the tail end of the climb line. Works good for a VT but with a Blakes you settle back till the hitch grabs and you lose a foot or so of what you have gained.
The best way to advance an old school hitch to get up into a tree is the old fashioned bodythrust pushing your hitch ahead of you with one hand. Takes practice and arm strength to get a good rythme going. With the VT you can't do that you have to incorporate a split tail cord onto your attachment point on the saddle if you want to acsend with no slack tending. In other words you have got two hitches going. Advancing your splittail old school hitch like a Blakes or Tautline, then pull slack through your VT. Doing it this way your always secure. It works good for those few times when you are ascending on your VT but can't tend slack very well one-handed without jepordising (?) safety. When the safety concern is behind you can easily undo the the split tail cord. These situations do occur and not fun to have to deal with.
I was asked to try out one of those extended bridge systems that was over on the Buzz. The system was on loan from a local arborists supply seller and I was asked to offer some feedback. It basically does the same thing but I don't see the practicality to it not to mention more clutter on my saddle especially at the clip in point. I still haven't used the system in a tree but I have set it up and the part that detaches the hitch from the saddle is too far out of reach to suit me.
Look who's talkin'.
The guy who used to contract climb for me used a setup like Brian's and he would just pull himself up and let the slack gather and then hang on with one hand while he pulled the slack through the hitch with the other hand.
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
What? I know my tauntline hitch is old school, and I know it won't self-tend with a pulley.
H
Höllenreich
Guest
the only way for it to work is a dubble blake's hitch. You need a long tail off the snap, tie a blake's to your moving side, then with the rest of the tail you tie a blake's to your nonmoving side. Or you can tie a prusik to the nonmoving side and clip the tail this way you can undo the dubble hitch if need be.
Just let me be clear here, I'm not trying to convert anyone from their tried-and-true practices. I particularly try to not piss off guys with black hoods and sharp axes. But I would like to point out that as we get older, we may get wiser but our fast twitch muscles just suck. This translates into slower reaction times than we were used to.
I use pulleys for slack tending now on most everything. I have not had much problem getting a Blake's or Distil to advance. Both being four coil friction hitches, I would have to believe the Tautline and Prussik would advance just as well. I think the problem some might be having is that just as in footlocking or hip thrusting, when you are advancing the hitch it has to be loose. When you sit back and put your weight on it, you lock it up. In order to continue your ascent requires unsetting (loosening) the knot so it will slide easily.
And, Butch, you are right; there is no way your hitch is going to self-tend. But if you tied it a little further away from you and kept it loose, you should be able to get it to self-advance while you pull with both hands from below and the only difference between that and what you are doing now, is that if things go to hell, you are tied in and ready to come down at a moment's notice.
Dave
I use pulleys for slack tending now on most everything. I have not had much problem getting a Blake's or Distil to advance. Both being four coil friction hitches, I would have to believe the Tautline and Prussik would advance just as well. I think the problem some might be having is that just as in footlocking or hip thrusting, when you are advancing the hitch it has to be loose. When you sit back and put your weight on it, you lock it up. In order to continue your ascent requires unsetting (loosening) the knot so it will slide easily.
And, Butch, you are right; there is no way your hitch is going to self-tend. But if you tied it a little further away from you and kept it loose, you should be able to get it to self-advance while you pull with both hands from below and the only difference between that and what you are doing now, is that if things go to hell, you are tied in and ready to come down at a moment's notice.
Dave
sotc
Dormant hero!!
im not saying self tend, it just acts as a third hand so you can hang by one and pull the tail with the other. i does work with a blakes (climbed that way for years) and the taught line is similar enough. i guess ill have to make a video
Burnham
Woods walker
Yes it will, Butch, if you set it up like this it will auto tend the slack...you'll not need to advance the hitch by hand, and you can descend without changing anything.
My pics show it with a split tail, but it works fine with the hitch tied in the tail of your rope like you do it.
Attachments
OTGBOSTON
punk in drublic
good pics to prove a point Burnham. IMHO the mini-prussic with micro pulley as a slack tender does not get the recognition it deserves. Old schoolers won't use it and gear heads move on to things like the micro mouse or the hitchclimber.
Burnham
Woods walker
I've given away several of those setups, sans the pulley (I'm not THAT generous, or wealthy ) over the years...when people really try it out many love it.
I gave one to Old Monkey...hey Darin, did you ever try it out?
) over the years...when people really try it out many love it. I gave one to Old Monkey...hey Darin, did you ever try it out?
OTGBOSTON
punk in drublic
Hey, me too! And I've even given a few pulleys to a couple of lucky ducks.
Burnham
Woods walker
Arm wrestle ya to see who gets to send one to Butch!
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