Using rope as a saw

[Greenheart]

Possibly this isn't exclusively a sailing question, but the application relates to my boat and the materials may be sourced from her, too.

My club's dinghy-park is wooded, and there are branches crowding in on my parking spot. I can't test-hoist my spinnaker without endangering it, and I think I bent my last flag-staff, manoeuvering the boat without looking upward. The problem gets worse each season as the oaks encroach.

I could ask the club to rent a cherry-picker and wait three months while they find the funds then walk round the park looking for other bits in need of pruning to justify the hire...or I could try to find a twenty-five foot ladder and risk my neck...

...but I've seen chaps on Youtube using 'paracord' to cut through surprisingly solid structures, relying on friction.

So I'm thinking, find the right bit of line, tie a 500ml water bottle to one end, lob it over the offending branch, then have an upper-body work-out, wearing through the branch with a 'rope-saw'...

...anybody done anything like that, before? Are any particular types of rope better than others? Who sells 'paracord'?

Thanks! :encouragement:

 

[sarabande]

miles of the stuff on ebay !


ALternatively, and much better, is a wire saw.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/wire-saw/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i:aps,k:wire saw

You can buy the stuff commercially by the metre, but need to tie the end to shackles.



Don't stand underneath the branch that you are sawing.....

 

[prv]

I was going to say the same thing - don't try to saw through oak using string! Instead tie string to either end of a wire saw.

Pete

 

[Greenheart]

Thank you gentlemen, that's smart. I ordered two, one rather manlier than the other, because I can just see myself waiting till the new year for them to be mailed from the US...(aren't such things made, here?)...

...then I start sawing on a crisp January day and the wire breaks in the first fifteen seconds.

 

[PlankWalker]

Don't suppose Alex Thompson has got one of those, perfect for cutting his foil stump off.

 

[lenten]

a stihl pole saw will get up to 5 metres if thats any help----check hire shops

 

[Greenheart]

a stihl pole saw will get up to 5 metres if thats any help

Thanks, but these branches are within a yard below the top of the Osprey's masthead - that's a clear 20ft above the ground - near enough to be seriously obstructive, but high enough to defy ordinary cutting options.

The wire saw should be fine, even though only a couple of feet of the total length of the cable will be properly abrasive - the branches aren't heavy stuff, mostly under an inch or so thick. But a real pain to manoeuver a sailboat around!

 

[pvb]

Thanks, but these branches are within a yard below the top of the Osprey's masthead - that's a clear 20ft above the ground - near enough to be seriously obstructive, but high enough to defy ordinary cutting options.

The wire saw should be fine, even though only a couple of feet of the total length of the cable will be properly abrasive - the branches aren't heavy stuff, mostly under an inch or so thick. But a real pain to manoeuver a sailboat around!

At home, I use a telescopic Silky Hayauchi Pole Saw for pruning out-of-reach bits and pieces. It extends to 21ft, plus another 4ft or so when it's being used. Awesome blade on it!

 

[pcatterall]

Thanks, but these branches are within a yard below the top of the Osprey's masthead - that's a clear 20ft above the ground - near enough to be seriously obstructive, but high enough to defy ordinary cutting options.

The wire saw should be fine, even though only a couple of feet of the total length of the cable will be properly abrasive - the branches aren't heavy stuff, mostly under an inch or so thick. But a real pain to manoeuver a sailboat around!

Err... isn't 5m around 16.5 feet? add the operational height and 20 foot high branches are in range!

 

[Lon nan Gruagach]

This guy will help you out....

 

[Greenheart]

Thanks Dougal, but I'm not looking for a wholesale herbimassacre, just a bit of long-reach ground-based trimming.

I use a telescopic Silky Hayauchi Pole Saw...extends to 21ft, plus another 4ft or so when it's being used. Awesome blade on it!

That sounds like the business, albeit pricey. I paid £1.69 for the wire saw, plus a second one, more like a chainsaw blade with hand straps, for a fiver...and they'll work as high as I can throw a weight with one end of a length of light rope attached.

Err... isn't 5m around 16.5 feet?

I was estimating. There are twigs and awkward branches high and low. The Osprey's masthead must be 23ft above the waterline, which is at least 18" above the ground, propped up on the trolley. And the burgee stick goes up at least a foot higher...and the offending branches may need cutting back from higher points, nearer the tree. A 5-metre pruner won't cut it.

 

[TQA]

If you have difficulty getting the rope over the right branch use a bow and arrow with 10 lb [about] monofilament fishing line.

 

[Hadenough]

Ladder, balls, bow saw, an hour, get it done. There will be no magical solution from the forum! Nor I suspect from your club.

 

[Kelpie]

Climb as high up the tree as you dare and start sawing. The less high you climb, the longer it will be until you have to do it again...

 

[Greenheart]

Thank you gents...the solution was the wire-saw, as immediately identified by Sarabande. I can throw a pound-weight 25ft upward with reasonable accuracy.

The tree isn't so easily climbed, or I wouldn't have raised the question here.

The less high you climb, the longer it will be until you have to do it again...

Don't you have that the wrong way round?

 

[Kelpie]

Don't you have that the wrong way round?

Erm, no, taken to its logical conclusion you saw the whole thing down and then don't need to worry about branches for a *very* long time

 

[steve66]

If you have difficulty getting the rope over the right branch use a bow and arrow with 10 lb [about] monofilament fishing line.

Bow and arrow .......what possibly go wrong!!

 

[Robby]

Bow and arrow .......what possibly go wrong!!

Take out a few of your neighbors pesky pets

 

[Spirit of Glenans]

In December 2007, as a result of a collision, container ship M.V. Kilkenny, entering Dublin Port, sank in the approach channel. Salvage contractors used wires, slung between two barges, to cut the entire vessel up into sections so that it could be lifted and brought ashore to be broken up.

 

[Greenheart]

I ordered two, one rather manlier than the other, because I can just see myself...sawing on a crisp January day and the wire breaks in the first fifteen seconds.

Yup. Having foreseen it, I particularly regret buying the lightweight version...it didn't take as long as fifteen seconds to break.

Unfortunately the heftier version won't arrive till next week at the earliest. And I've got a bad feeling that the toothed chain section will probably lock up in the green growing wood.

An instinct tells me I may end up right back at the start, trying to cut through these lightweight boughs with repeated abrasion from a bit of tough old rope.

I'm actually wondering if I could throw a forty-foot length of hard old 6mm halyard over the branch, then splice it into a loop...then fix a ribbed ratchet-block sheave onto a cordless drill...and run the halyard round, continuously under tension, driven by the drill.