SRT

  • Thread starter Thread starter DMc
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies Replies 369
  • Views Views 26K
Well aighty then. did a full on srt climb with all the right gear tonite, in the back yard hemlock. Had a tree to deadwood today at work, 35' tall, wide and bushy. Wanted to pull the trigger on an srt climb but didn't.

So tonite in the hemlock was fun. Used a basic ring and ring friction saver for the TIP cuz that evidently is among the easiest to pull out, and that worked well. Digging the consistent friction. Have to bang out some biner/webbing sling redirects next. :drink:
 
Cory, about redirects. There will be many times were you will 'not' want the rope to run smoothly at a redirect. It will depend on the angles, but sometimes it will be better to 'cable' the limb with your rope at that location, just tie it off, to better support the limb.
 
I am sure a lot of climbers will love that lockless CT. I have found that the locking version works in any direction at any time needed and that more than offsets the slight inconvenience of reaching down to unclip it.
 
HH/HH2 will slide up and down a taut rope on an angle, as it doesn't bend the rope.

I did this once a long time ago to top a dead tree. From yesterday, I have some dead madrone tops, upper 2/3-3/4 dead (40-50' tops), out on bid, where there are taller doug-fir trees on one side, and a ground anchor on the other.
I can't high-line it. Might attach 2 HH on 2 angling, taut ropes, ascending from the ground or descending from the fir top, and some other devices/ hitches on 2 climbing systems that will drop me in vertically to the dead tops.
 
Sounds interesting...get picts if you can. Sounds like you will have 2 bypass lines that let you have 2 TIPs to let you pinpoint putting you in the target tree but not attached in anyway to the target tree. Right?

If that is so you have to be real careful where those tops go for sure. Picts will help understand.
 
Yes.

If the HH and HH2 are at different heights, I can slack one climbing system or the other for some lateral movement. No need to tie into the dead tops, which angle heavily, as needed, in the same direction as my angling suspension ropes.


Alternately, is be climbing on the madrones 100%, with a high TIP with a injurious swing, unless the tail is belayed (uses up a groundworker), or suspended from a crane reaching over the house $1200 minimum for a 50t with the reach I need, and required to use a personnel-basket, not ride the hook.

I hear baskets suck hard. Equal and opposite reactions, like free hanging in a saddle and trying to use a chainsaw.
 

Attachments

  • 1593796494722-392565377.jpg
    1593796494722-392565377.jpg
    4 MB · Views: 8
Trust me a man basket is horrible for cutting out of...I had to use one once and it was swinging all over the show as I tried to cut, yes exactly, equal and opposite reactions
 
@kevin bingham , hey that was a fun FB Q+A the other night. It brought to mind 2 questions- one is what was your rope affixed to in the room your were in, it looked like the type of room unlikely to have exposed ceiling beams and what not. And secondly and far more importantly, I think you said your wife does all the appointments?!?!?!l How freakin cool is that?? Can you elaborate a bit on that. It does answer a question I had which was, yourself as an owner/ operator of a treeco and also a family man as well, I was really wondering how on earth you made time to develop your inventions. Thank you
 
its crazy to think that people watch that! i just drilled some lags into the ceiling joists. i usually have a trapeze hanging there for the kids. pull-up bar for me.
doing tree work and estimates was killing me. being home with the kids all day was killing my wife. she had startex doi g the books so she was realizing I was underselling everything and killing myself. i said why dont you do them. she went out and killed it. i watch the kids on monday, and saturday. which is fun for me. grama watches them on thursday. she is now a certified arborist. she is getting burnt out now. . i love the set up more than she does. i love tree work but hated the driving and the fake smiles all day. i can't imagine doing both the work and the estimates and customer care anymore.

downside is running a business with your wife and talking about trees all day. its hard to escape.
 
Awesome post, Kevin, thanks for the info.

Hmm, I've suggested a time or two about my wife doing the estimates, the idea sank like a lead balloon. :whine:

Now that you aren't 'underselling everything' do you find you're making more money for the same amount of work?
 
cory said:
Awesome post, Kevin, thanks for the info.

Hmm, I've suggested a time or two about my wife doing the estimates, the idea sank like a lead balloon. :whine:

Now that you aren't 'underselling everything' do you find you're making more money for the same amount of work?
Click to expand...
absolutely, one of the things that I was not doing was putting the cost of my overhead into the job. i was covering the tree work, but not all the time spent driving around, answering the phone, finding jobs etc. i was doing that work for free basically.

now she is doing that, she makes sure she gets paid. i was also not really aware of how profit works. i was simply making sure i was covering costs, but not really concerned about the making money part. i knew that the tree work costs around 1200 for a three man crew a day so i would charge $1200. i didnt realize that that number is the base cost. anything less and we were actually losing money going to work.

to run a profit you basically need to look at that number and double it. when you start doing that, things start moving a little more smoothly. we target 2600 a day now. we dont always hit it but we know that when we do, we made money.

we still have a lot of work to do but it was a huge step for our business to actually start thinking about the numbers and what they mean.
 
Last edited:
A question Kevin, and you can tell me to "frig off, none of your business", and that would be perfectly fine... Do you make real money from your inventions, or is it just the satisfaction of creating something cool?
 
$2600/ day for 3 men in Detroit sounds like very solid money. How is it that tree work seems to cost the same everywhere in the US?

Btw, Kevin, are you busier than normal in the midst of Covid? It's outta control here. Ive turned away boat loads of work and I still have approx 20 estimates to write :whine: :whine: :whine:
 
lxskllr said:
A question Kevin, and you can tell me to "frig off, none of your business", and that would be perfectly fine... Do you make real money from your inventions, or is it just the satisfaction of creating something cool?
Click to expand...

some quarters i make enough to think We should just quit tree work altogether. than other quarters I make very little. it is real money though and a very big help.
the problem is it is unreliable and i have no way of predicting what people buy and when. it is not stable enough to quit my day job and move to the Bahamas.

i try to keep the tree service and rope tools completely separate. i dont use tools money to subsidize the tree service. our strategy has been to put that money aside for the future. 3 small kids and all, maybe college and all that.
 
I consider my wife the smart one here, too. She runs the finances...our personal and the business (primary business here is supplying x-ray systems and service to medical clinics...primarily urgent care these days). Until I did an in-depth look at all the things that we do that effect price/costs I was just luckily getting by when I priced things. When I studied a part of our service (taking care of "analog" imaging...x-ray film, chemicals, mechanical film transport processors...monthly maintenance for those accounts) I realized we were losing about $1500 per month from that aspect of the business. As the "old school" way of imaging...film/chemical/processors...evolved into digital imaging our analog customers declined as they moved to digital imaging. We still had to drive to analog customers...pay service tech his hourly wage, fuel, wear and tear on vehicle, insurance, etc....keep film and chems in stock (old days we got free freight because we bought large lots of film and chems...that changed to smaller orders and then we had to pay freight. Anyway, our analog customer base went from about 35 offices to about 15...we were losing money helping the doctors stay in business. I gave that part of the business to another x-ray guy, a friendly competitor in the Atlanta area, who was able to combine our customers with his dwindling customer base and help boost his business.

We focus mainly on digital now and let him handle the analog. But it took that in-depth look at everything that we did to realize we were not making money. First time I saw the numbers I said, "no way"...but, yes....way.

Glad you saw the light with your tree business...cool how you use the invention/tool aspect to bolster/feed the kids' future, too. Sounds like a good plan. Just stay careful out there.
 
Yo, long story short, should I buy a saka mini max for a knee ascender? Gary how do you like yours? 09, what do you rock?

Or Haas
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Knotorious
What Is/Are Your Favorite Friction Hitches for Climbing SRS/SRT?
2
Replies
30
Views
2K
Eric H-L
Eric H-L
MatthewMMeckley
Helicopter tree removal
2
Replies
28
Views
417
flushcut
flushcut
Naturarbo
another wake up moment
Replies
16
Views
338
SeanKroll
SeanKroll
lxskllr
Bare Minimum Knot Knowledge?
Replies
14
Views
688
biggun
biggun
Mick!
Branch walking, how do you do it?
Replies
21
Views
1K
Bodean
Bodean
Back
Top