Cut a 40 foot oak back from a roof in 2 days after my neighbor Bill showed me one rope trick
I have been climbing for 12 years and always used the same old two rope setup for big horizontal limbs. Two weeks ago I had a water oak in Gainesville with a limb hanging right over a garage, and I could not get the angle I needed without wrecking the shingles. Bill, who has run a saw since 1979, told me to tie a running bowline and add a simple 3 to 1 with a friction saver about 8 feet out from the cut. That one change let me lower a 400 lb chunk in one go instead of four little pieces. I finished the whole back side of that roof in under two days and did not touch a shingle. Has anyone else used a 3 to 1 on a limb like that, and did you have any trouble with the rope rubbing?
Bill has been running a saw since 1979 so of course he knows a trick you never heard in 12 years of climbing. A 3 to 1 on a limb 8 feet out spreads the load like magic, which is probably why nobody bothered telling you sooner. Just watch that friction saver spot on the bark, because oak gets slick when the rope starts humming.