Wire-Cored Fliplines

Hanging on the wall is the best place for this equipment. Nailed on would be better. At the top is my first “store bought” tree saddle. It was the “Davey” belt and it was made from stiff, durable transmission belting. It buckled in the back and the tie-in was at the waist with some weight transferred through the legstraps. It was also known as a “nutcracker”. They were not available with side Dee’s for a flipline, so I did what many climbers in those days did, added my own. Not knowing how or where to buy new Dee-rings, I bought an old leather lineman’s belt at the San Jose Flea Market for $5.00 and cut the Dee-rings out of that belt and riveted them onto this one. It worked fine and marked my first attempt at improving climbing gear. Below that is a handmade body belt for use with a lineman’s strap. The Dee’s are far too small for a wire-core flipline. Flanked on both sides by leather lineman’s pole straps is an original manila wire-core flipline. Tied with a becket bend to the side-Dee’s they had to be large enough to handle the bulk of the flipline looped around and passed through it. The wire core then as now was not for cut protection. It was there to stiffen the rope so that it could be flipped up the trunk of a large tree as it was being climbed with spurs. The other thing that a wire core of old as pictured or new-fangled as sold is good at is conducting electricity through that metal core. Climbers have been seriously burned and killed when a length of dangling flipline drifted into direct contact with an energized conductor. It doesn’t matter whether you are EHAP certified to work in proximity or not, the conductive flipline is not! WIRE-CORED FLIPLINES SHALL NOT BE USED WITHIN 10 FEET OF ANY ENERGIZED CONDUCTOR!