It's great for a single person.
Or if you like to be away from home.
The problem with the big line clearance corporations is that nepotism and favoritism run rampant. Unless you are friends with or related to someone higher up,it can be tough to advance.
Going around the country as a trainer/safety specialist was one of the coolest jobs I did for them.
Gaffs,spikes,hooks,they're all the same.
And yes ,they are for positioning and safety.
With the hooks in and a buck strap around the trunk(what you refer to as a lanyard is what we call the cord that attaches the saw to your saddle) gives you 3 points of contact to do the work safely. The tree will heal.
A prusik is a loop of rope wrapped in a friction type knot around your rope which is then attached to your saddle.
We're taught to use just the rope by itself.
Less things to fail.
A snap is tied onto the rope with a bowline about your arms length from the end. You toss it around a suitable crotch,snap it to your front D rings then tie the taut line or Blake's hitch to the standing or main line. The rope slides through the knot when you pull on the knot but the moment you let go it stops.
All ropes wear at tie points. Switch ends every so often,like every week. It's like rotating the tires on your car.
Also, we're taught to not rely on mechanical devices like brakes,ascenders,carabiners and other things. They can fail.
As soon as you feel comfortable. The work goes quicker but they're kind of dangerous.
One handing chainsaws is a no no.
The thing is that when I started it wasn't. If you couldn't run one one handed you stayed on the ground with the rest of the worms. Over electricity it's easier to just grab a limb with one hand and cut with the other. But some guys will take too much or just simply cut themself.
I can run just about any saw with one hand,even the big ones from doing it so much. Right or left handed.
A good saw will last you far longer. Get a cheaper one to start out with but save for a good one. It sucks bad when you get to the top and the saw won't run.
The most sought after trim saw on the planet is one they dont make anymore because of emissions.
The Stihl 200 T. By far the most rippingest little saw ever invented. A used one that runs can go for $600.00. They were $400.00 new. I own 2 and a parts saw.
Husqvarna makes one though that is almost as good. I think the 338,not sure.
I appreciate such a thorough reply, have probably read this post 15-20x at this point ROFL, I have far too-many Q's to fairly post them to you so have been reading & youtubing before replying, BUT I'm in a spot where urgent-answers would be of massive help to me- could you tell me your thoughts on my "final 4" choices of a climbing-saw? I want to stress that this is being purchased as a "tester unit" so I can see what I like/dislike about 1-handled saws, also I am a huge fan of the idea of, after 1-4 months using this lil generic unit and then getting the echo/husq/stihl that's right for me (only 3 brands I know are definitely alllll-good!), the beautiful part is I'll still have the beginner/tester saw I'm intending to order asap (hopefully today, just need opinions before choosing!) to keep as-backup once I've got, dunno, a 14" / 38cc / 10lbs Husq, will be nice to know that if it died on a job, or I got it jammed/wedged somehow and mallet&wedges weren't helping, it just seems smart to have a backup!! I also have multiple rear-handleds, this is just for climbing of course)
The choices I've narrowed down to for a top-handled saw, and am intentionally aiming for a very small unit because I know weight is a huge factor and I wanna see just how-weak (and, therefore, smaller/lighter) of a saw I can get away with, so today I'm hoping to purchase one of the following:
1 - Scheppach 10", 25cc, $150 (saw a ~10min un-boxing video and no surprises with his unit anyways, thing's power seems like you'd taken the end off a pole-saw and put a top-handle on it!)
2 - Generic 10", 25cc, $100 (heavier- 10lbs relative to #1's 7lbs, despite identical specs for power&bar-size)
3 - One of the ~$175-225, high-30cc's, 14"-bar units
4 - HyperTough's **Battery**/LiPo unit, 12" bar, 36V, weight is 7 or 8lbs IIRC and, unlike the LiPo Husq/et al units, this one would allow me to spend ~$100 to get a 2nd pair of batteries + a dual-slot charger, so could easily be doing the battery-swapping in a way where I shouldn't kill it to any degree that's hard to compensate around, there's also the fact that - gotta double-check -that I can simply buy this one, try it out, and then go back and return it!!
Option 4 appeals to me greatly because I can't rule-out putting-off the purchase of the 'real'/final one for a couple months so that, instead of my favorite 'regular' stihl/echo/etc top-handleds, instead I can go for the 36V husqvarna (that my favorite vlogger, Reg Coates, uses
), I doubted these cells had that oomph to them but I figure that if the Husq model is actually legit then, even though this is a walmart unit, it's still 36V so even if they only get 75% the energy-efficiency of the Husq unit, well, that should still be pretty damn considerable!
I should've put the Hypertough at &2, and pushed the 14"er's down to the last spot, that would've the list my order of 'favorite to least-favorite options", I can't picture going for the 14"'s because I figure that if I want/need 14" for the long-term then I'll figure that out using the 10" or 12" unit I get today (if I can get-away with 12" bar down the road that'd be great but it'd still be a reliable brand not Scheppach or whatever), the Scheppach seems to make more sense than the Generic 10" because i'm paying $50 extra but getting a 1/3 weight-reduction (and Oregon bar & chain), I guess my instinct is that this is really a choice of "should I get&test the 10" scheppach or should I get&test the 12", 36V unit?" Both weigh the same so will get a feel for that, and heck if the battery one blows me away then I'd definitely start my 36V Husqv piggybank that day!!
Thanks for any thoughts man, and wanna stress this is solely for something like climbing my Oak, tying myself in with my lanyard/flipline (custom made, very diesel and all the carabiners are ANSI/triple-action, most are RockO's and ISC biners), and cutting branches ~10" and thinner (at most!), just to learn top-handleds while I figure out how good my rigging/speedlining setups are what kind of power I truly need up there because I've found very quickly that extra weight up there SUCKS and, of course, extra weight in the saw itself is like the worst possible place for that xtra weight to come from....I like the 25cc//7lbs ratio of the Scheppach, I think I'm going to make a spreadsheet to compare these units (and include some potential future/final models like the echo CS-303T unit that's 12" with 30cc, so I can start feeling-out the power-to-weight ratio because from this ignoramus' view the power//weight ratio is, by a large margin, the most important spec I can see when choosing the right climbing saw for somebody!)
Again thank you so much, it is such a treat to be able to ask these Q's of someone I already 'know' from past postings/interactions so it's easier to "properly weigh" what's being said ie if your advice contradicted something I read elsewhere I'd know I was safe defaulting to yours and ignoring them, that is of huge value to me so really thank you M Frary!!!!