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Watched a guy in Bend save a 90 foot ponderosa with a ratchet strap and a piece of inner tube
I was doing a removal two houses down in Bend, Oregon about six weeks ago and this older climber named Dale was working a big ponderosa with a co-dominant fork that had split maybe 8 inches down from the crotch. Instead of cabling it right away he wrapped a strip of old bike inner tube around both stems, then ran a 2 inch ratchet strap over the top and cranked it down just a hair past snug. He told me the rubber keeps the strap from rubbing the bark raw and the ratchet lets you pull the split closed slow so you can watch the fibers instead of shocking them. He came back 10 days later and the thing had callused over on the split, no cable, no bolts, nothing. I've been doing this 14 years and never seen a tree close a wound like that on its own before. He said the trick only works if the split is fresh and the wood still has some green in it. Anybody here tried the ratchet strap method on a fresh co-dominant split, and how long did you leave it on before you pulled it?
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ryan_carr592d ago
Reminds me of a hack I picked up from an old timer in Ashland who used an inner tube and a come along on a split madrone, except he left his on for almost a month because madrone is slow to react. Thing ended up with a gnarly bulge where the strap had been and he had to cut it off with a hacksaw. Fresh wood and a light pull seems to be the whole game with this trick, overdo it and the tree just grows around your hardware. Not sure the callus thing would work the same on a ponderosa that had been split for a while though.
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