Mark:
Yes, two hands on the pole, away from the secateurs, does
reduce the
exposure of fingers. As with many farm activities, pruning safety demands
constant
awareness of potential for injuries and a preconceived plan for avoiding them.
I suppose,
though I have not yet proven, that two hands on the pole will also distribute
the tool's
weight and forces enough to lessen muscle and joint fatigue. One would think
that makers
of electric pruners would have considered these advantages as a marketing
opportunity.
I don't know how the metal safety glove would be useful in temperatures that
require mittens.
As I understand the glove, it shuts off the blade's movement by closing an
electric circuit.
Before cutting the pole, I removed the top-end plug (it was
just pressed into
the pole a short distance) and then pushed the electric cord fully into the
hole at the
bottom end of the pole, forcing it out through the top end . A rubber collar on
the cord's
entry hole can be pulled out and slid off the cord before the cord is pushed
through.
Examination of the plastic sleeves, one at each end of the
pole, suggested
to me first that they might be tapped off with a screwdriver blade. Not having
one handy,
I tried with a 16 penny nail thrust repeatedly against the back perimeter of
the top-end sleeve.
There was some questionable but minimal movement. Next, I submerged the
pole-end and
sleeve in near-boiling water, for about a half minute, (hoping to expand the
sleeve diameter);
then, wearing a rubber glove I tried to twist it. There was some movement, but
only a
little. I was now pretty sure that no glue was holding the sleeve, but that it
must have
been slid onto the pole when the pole was cold and the sleeve was hot.
Feeling confident that there was no glue holding the sleeve, I chose to
remove a four-inch
length of the pole's top end, with its sleeve. I began this cutting with a
plumber's pipe-cutting
tool, but after a dozen or so turns around the carbon pole, I could hear
cracking sounds and
saw that cracks were forming perpendicular to the cutting wheel. Not good! I
completed the
cutting with a Wheeler pruning saw ( a small bow saw common in New England… it
has a thin
15 inch blade with small teeth). I then took the blade off the saw, ran it
through the center of
the cut-off piece, and reconnected the two protruding ends of the blade to the
saw bow. You
could probably achieve the same with a hacksaw.
With the Wheeler saw frame held in a bench vice with the blade teeth
up, I moved the carbon
pipe back and forth over the saw teeth. This cut was made directly beneath two
of the holes
in one side of the sleeve. When I could see through the sleeve holes that the
saw had cut almost
through the pole thickness, I removed the saw, held the sleeve and pole-piece
in the vice, and,
placing a small blade-screwdriver on the visible cut-line in the sleeve hole,
tapped the screwdriver
with a hammer. That separated the piece along the cut line and it easily came
out the sleeve.
Finally, I sawed off an additional 11 inch length of carbon pole and
re-installed the sleeve
to the shortened pole. I used emery cloth on the top 3 inches of the carbon
tube to allow sliding
the sleeve on w/o the bother of a hot and cold preconditioning treatment of the
sleeve and
carbon tube. Refitting the electric cord into the shaft, from the top end, was
not a problem.
If you choose to purchase a similar tool, maybe you will post your own
appraisal and
suggestions for suitability to your conditions.
On Feb 11, 2014, at 7:53 PM, hangermayer <hangerma...@isp.com> wrote:
> Thanks David,
>
> I went to the Website. It looks to me like you are talking about the
> 1.2m fixed carbon pole for the extension.
>
> I like the idea of an extension, not only for further reach, but I
> think it would be harder to amputate one's fingers. I see they have
> some sort of protective gloves to prevent amputation, but I like the
> idea of a pole extension better.
>
> Like you, a 4' extension would be too long for me. Can I ask how were
> you able to remove the top end piece on the pole in order to shorten
> the pole?
>
> Mark Angermayer
> Tubby Fruits
> Bucyrus KS
>
> On 2/11/14, David Kollas <kol...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>> Mark:
>>
>> The electronic pruner I have is the Electrocoup F3010, made in France by
>> Infaco. The pole option that I chose is non-telescopic, about 4 feet long.
>> The importer, Infaco, USA, in Livermore, California, has a pretty good
>> website:
>> http://www.infaco-usa.com
>>
>> For cold-weather conditions, I expect to get more pruning done with this
>> tool than with pneumatic or hand tools.
>> It has taken some time to learn how best to use it for my conditions.
>> Suitable clothing, and the order of layering the
>> clothing are a factor. A couple of minor design changes would improve the
>> tool, but I see no better choices currently
>> available. I would suggest a more prominent button to control the opening
>> and closing, for pole use, and an
>> alternative to the trigger on the secateur unit, one that could be
>> conveniently used with mittens. Using the "free" hand
>> to operate the button switch, as I have done, interferes somewhat with
>> efficient use of that hand for other activities.
>> Assuming that wireless technology is impractical, perhaps for safety reasons
>> where multiple workers might be in close
>> proximity, I wonder if triggering might be possible with a mouth-operated
>> switch, leaving both hands for other tasks.
>> I don't yet see any particular advantage to the current placement of the
>> button switch on the pole slider. I like it near the bottom end of the
>> pole.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Feb 11, 2014, at 9:25 AM, hangermayer <hangerma...@isp.com> wrote:
>>
>>> David,
>>>
>>> Could you tell me the model/manufacturer of your pole pruner. It may
>>> help me to follow some of the finer points of your explanation if I
>>> could see a picture of the pruner. Thank you for posting your
>>> detailed analysis. It sounds like you are reasonably happy with the
>>> result in the end. To do it over, would you purchase this pole pruner
>>> again, or look for something different?
>>>
>>> Mark
>>>
>>> On 2/10/14, David Kollas <kol...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> The cold and snowy conditions in Connecticut this winter have made me
>>>> look
>>>> for better ways to do my necessary
>>>> orchard pruning. I will go into some detail here with my experience,
>>>> because I have not seen reports from others with electric pole pruners.
>>>> Pneumatic pruners, run off a small gasoline-fueled air compressor, did
>>>> an
>>>> acceptable job when there was no
>>>> snow on the ground, and temperatures were mostly above freezing. I move
>>>> the
>>>> compressor rig around in a garden
>>>> cart. Last year I moved it on a plastic sledding toy, while I wore
>>>> snowshoes. This winter, before snow became a
>>>> nuisance, ice-formation in the triggering mechanism was wasting a lot of
>>>> my
>>>> time, so I looked into electric pruners.
>>>> My trees' fruiting zone is between about 6 and 8 feet above ground, so
>>>> a
>>>> significant amount of the work is just
>>>> a bit of a stretch for hand-held electric pruners, and I am not immune
>>>> to
>>>> the effects of this repetitious weight-lifting.
>>>> A pole pruner, I thought would make the job easier. Also, it would not
>>>> involve an air-hose that tangles in the dropped prunings. And it would
>>>> not
>>>> require my patient persistence with starting a stubborn engine on cold
>>>> mornings.
>>>> I found a pole pruner, bought it, and went eagerly back to the orchard
>>>> on a
>>>> cold day. I could not keep my hands
>>>> warm in gloves, so I wore thick mittens. With the pole in place, the
>>>> blade
>>>> is opened and closed by pressing a small button on an attachment that
>>>> can
>>>> slide up and down the pole. The gun-like trigger on the pruning unit
>>>> itself
>>>> is not used when the pruning unit is attached at the end of the pole.
>>>> Locating the button when wearing thick leather mittens was unreliable, so
>>>> I
>>>> fabricated a button extension, which, when glued onto the small,
>>>> provided
>>>> button, was easy to
>>>> find through the thick mitten. Back in the orchard, the new pole pruner
>>>> was
>>>> now everything I had expected. But after several hours, I was noticing
>>>> pain
>>>> in my left arm and shoulder. When I thought about it, that made sense;
>>>> the
>>>> left arm was carrying most of the weight, while the right arm was mostly
>>>> only steering.
>>>> The next day I gave my sore left shoulder a rest. I could have just
>>>> switched to supporting the pole's weight with
>>>> my right arm, and steering with the left. But that might leave me with
>>>> two
>>>> complaining arms on the following day. The
>>>> pruner is not terribly heavy...2.8 pounds, and the pole, mostly of
>>>> carbon
>>>> fibers, adds only 2 pounds to the combined weight. The apparent heaviness
>>>> of
>>>> the pruner is a result of a principle of physics. That principle is
>>>> called
>>>> the Moment of Inertia. (Brief you- tube explanation here:
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyU25DdONjo The effective weight of the
>>>> pruner increases as the SQUARE of the distance between the handle-end of
>>>> the
>>>> pole, and the pruner at the far end. My pole puts the pruner 4 feet from
>>>> the
>>>> handle end. If my supporting hand is at 3 feet from the end, a 2.2
>>>> pound
>>>> pruner would feel like 19.8 pounds when the pole is horizontal (less as
>>>> the
>>>> angle approaches vertical.)
>>>> I figure I could reach most of my pruning cuts with a pole shorter than
>>>> the
>>>> four feet this one is. Four feet is the
>>>> shortest length offered by the manufacturer. To shorten my pole requires
>>>> removing parts at one end or the other, then replacing them after a
>>>> section
>>>> of the carbon fibre pole is cut out. I could find no company rep who
>>>> could
>>>> describe how either end section could be removed. They appeared to be
>>>> either glued, or extremely tight-fitting.
>>>> Instead, I removed the pole from the pruning unit, and removed the
>>>> on-off
>>>> button and its attached slider from the pole,
>>>> tied to it a string loop, and hung it around my neck so that it could be
>>>> operated with a mitten-covered left hand, as I
>>>> used the pruner, w/o pole, in my right hand. As it turned out, a day's
>>>> use
>>>> of the under three pound pruner, held overhead, directly with my right
>>>> hand,
>>>> while operating the switch with the left hand, was more weight-lifting
>>>> than
>>>> I wanted to repeat. I should note that I would not have needed to
>>>> operate
>>>> the switch, if it had been warm enough to wear gloves, rather than
>>>> mittens.
>>>> Mittens do not allow use of a single finger through the trigger guard.
>>>> Today, after some trial and failure, I found a way to remove the top
>>>> end
>>>> pieces from the pole, sawed off 15 inches
>>>> of pole, and replaced the end pieces. The slider switch was also
>>>> returned
>>>> to the pole. I have now tested the adjusted
>>>> tool and found it to be significantly more friendly.
>>>> There is one more observation that I think explains why my shoulders
>>>> complain after some hours of pruning.
>>>> The batteries and most of the other electronics associated with the
>>>> pruner
>>>> are carried in a backpack whose weight
>>>> is a bit under 7 pounds. The pack has two straps that run over the
>>>> shoulders, and a wide "velcroed" belt run around
>>>> the belly. If the pack is worn outside a sleeved coat, raising of the
>>>> arms
>>>> tries to lift the pack, but meets resistance
>>>> from the belt wrapped around the coat. It is as though the pack is held
>>>> down
>>>> by friction and folds in the coat. My
>>>> conclusion is that the battery pack should be strapped on loosely over
>>>> the
>>>> shoulders, and tightly around the waist
>>>> BEFORE getting into any un-stretchy clothing that will be lifted when
>>>> reaching overhead. Finally, an extended arm,with
>>>> a hand-held 2 pound pruner will feel like 12.5 pounds, assuming a 2.5
>>>> foot
>>>> arm.
>>>>
>>>> David Kollas
>>>> Kollas Orchard, CT
>>>>
>>>>
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