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Lone wolf handclimber/ Saddle combo Part 3

So I have to give props to @Adrena123 for the bolt mod on the hand climber. I performed the bolt mod last night and it made a world of difference. I climbed 10-15 foot in a couple of strides where I struggled with the first stride and every stride basically before doing so. I then went and removed the bolt mod and tried again to see if maybe originally it was a user error type issue but ended up with the same result. While I could climb the tree, it was going to take multiple adjustments and it was just clunky and awkward. Put the bolts back in and BAM just like using my old climber it just worked like it should.
I did not do the cable mod to it last night due to the major change the bolt mod made but I do intend to give it a shot as the cables are definitely more ridged and hold there shape better when held at each end vs holding the belt at each end. I feel this gives me a few more options in being able to climb larger trees. Where I hunt my most likely trees to climb will be pines of all sizes followed by maple or water oaks. The mod only means drilling a couple holes in the arms to be able to insert the pins. I confirmed my cable knots when passed through from the bottom will easily pass the attachment bolts. I only need to remove the belt clamp and drill additional holes for the pin to drop through pinning the knot either against the wall or through the slot the clamp utilizes. Not sure if it will really be a worth while mod but I have the material and don't really believe drilling 2 additional holes in the arms will affect the structural integrity.
 
And here I went ahead and made my own bolt arms with multiple holes. Take a lot of pics if you can. I am curious as to how you decide to pin the summit cable in the stock lwhc arms.


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Dylan9862003 said:
So I have to give props to @Adrena123 for the bolt mod on the hand climber. I performed the bolt mod last night and it made a world of difference. I climbed 10-15 foot in a couple of strides where I struggled with the first stride and every stride basically before doing so. I then went and removed the bolt mod and tried again to see if maybe originally it was a user error type issue but ended up with the same result. While I could climb the tree, it was going to take multiple adjustments and it was just clunky and awkward. Put the bolts back in and BAM just like using my old climber it just worked like it should.
I did not do the cable mod to it last night due to the major change the bolt mod made but I do intend to give it a shot as the cables are definitely more ridged and hold there shape better when held at each end vs holding the belt at each end. I feel this gives me a few more options in being able to climb larger trees. Where I hunt my most likely trees to climb will be pines of all sizes followed by maple or water oaks. The mod only means drilling a couple holes in the arms to be able to insert the pins. I confirmed my cable knots when passed through from the bottom will easily pass the attachment bolts. I only need to remove the belt clamp and drill additional holes for the pin to drop through pinning the knot either against the wall or through the slot the clamp utilizes. Not sure if it will really be a worth while mod but I have the material and don't really believe drilling 2 additional holes in the arms will affect the structural integrity.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the shout out my man.
As far as drilling a couple holes for your cable mod, go for it. Those arms are thick.
Heck, drill 5 holes to lighten it up
 
Ok so I could not get the cables to pass the belt clamps last night. I removed the belt clamps and drilled a single hole above the hole for the clamp and on the opposite side. Stepped the hole up until I got to the 5/16" pin size and then went out and tried it on a tree. The cable will pass through the attachment bolt but it takes some effort. Initially I thought if climbing with the cable is significantly better than the belt I would use a file and slightly flat top the round head attachment bolt to aid in the cable passing through.
Climbing with the cable was easy it was slightly more rigid but for me it was not a game changing mod and increased my struggle to make adjustments while climbing due to the tight fit passing the attachment bolt. I decided to go back to the belt and re-inserted the clamps and belt and went back to climb to have a better comparison.
The PRO for the cable mod would be the slight increase in rigidity and the loss of the sharp edges making it slide up the tree easier. However after performing the bolt mod and using the belt I no longer had that problem so maybe that is a mute point now. Additionally I only have the one crappy tree in my front yard that's climbable so I did not compare on different tree types.
The CON for the cable mod is it being more rigid makes it a little tougher to pack down small and tight for inserting into a back pack or just streamlining for those walks through a thicket. If I ran the cable all the way down tight and then crossed the cable ends over through the base it helped but still not as tight and neat as the belt. I did not put the 2 on a scale but I could feel the weight difference between the 2 and the cable mod definitely adds weight ( guessing close to a lb with adding the pins and cable together.

Due to time constraints last night I forgot to take pics along the way for ya'll but when I get back from hunting this weekend I will take pics and convert it back to the cable to show my work and give ideas to whomever may be interested. I plan to use the climber this weekend in the deer woods and at the moment I think I prefer the belt. after I spend a weekend or two with the belt I will convert it over the cable and spend some time with the cable and see if one has any advantages over the other in actual use.

The only pic I did get was my helper trying it out so I will post that for you to reference but better pics will be next week sometime.
 
Great write up Dylan. Im going to continue to figure out why I cant get the platform to get solid once at hunting height. I tried a strap around the band and around tree. It all wanted to tilt once there was side pressure. I removed the bolt mod and will test tomorrow if maybe the increased band angle is causing the instability.


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Old thread. Lots of discussion on using the lone wolf hand climber as a platform.

Question I have that I didn’t see answered throughout this thread: instead of drilling a hole or adding a bolt for this mod, what about just flipping the arms around to the other side of the hand climber? Has anyone tried that approach? (It increases the angle closer to the 40-50 degrees mentioned in this thread. The trade off is that the area where the arm rests turns from a shoulder to a contact point with the casting).
 
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I always thought the casting was upside down anyway lol. Nice and smooth….on the bottom? I thought about it myself, but I wasn’t sure how that might affect the strength of the casting due to the weight being applied in the opposite direction of what it was designed to support. Have you tried it upside down?
 
Interesting idea. Not sure if the teeth would dig in well enough to hold, but then again, they never really dug in that well to begin with...

Give it a shot...hop around on it a little bit at ground level and let us know how it goes...
 
No, I have not tried it. Was doing some thinking/tinkering and wondered if anyone else had tried it out already.
 
Maverick1 said:
How about it, @Adrena123 ? Anyone ever suggested flipping the arms around and not using the bolt mod? https://saddlehunter.com/community/...climber-saddle-combo-part-3.12452/post-523962
Click to expand...

I think someone did it but I never heard how it turned out. I flipped mine around and looked at it, but mine works good as is so I left it alone.
Try it out, it might work great.

I know this is about flipping the arms but I think a simple spacer between the arm and platform casting is simple and effective. My "bolt mod" is just a nut /spacer for the arm to rest on. I could have super glued it in place but instead I drilled a hole and used a bolt to secure the nut into place. That is the reason mine and like 100 other LWHCs are still going strong. All the pressure is on the spacer no matter what you use. Now if someone mounted the nut not resting on the cast, that would create leverage and could crack the cast. Hope that makes sense.

In other news, I was told by a (Heavy Hitter) in the tree stand game that a MINI CLIMBER is on the way.....Birds the word
 
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