The Rattlewedge is the 2006 Innovation Award Winner of GaLaBau.

GaLaBau is the world’s most comprehensive survey of products for the design, construction and maintenance of urban, open and green spaces. The trade visitors are contractors for garden, landscape and open space construction, landscape gardeners and architects and specifiers from federal, state and local authorities. The trade fair takes place in the Exhibition Centre of Nuremberg in Germany every two years.

The Rattlewedge is a patented tool developed for the safety and the improvement of working conditions with regards to height. It is a tool developed by arborists – and for arborists – in order to improve the security and working conditions during felling and dismounting trees.

Before the Rattlewedge, the arborist had to force himself into difficult and dangerous positions or rely on the help from colleagues on the ground to fell large pieces of trunk in the right direction. With the Rattlewedge, the arborist controls large pieces of wood without any effort.

Using the Rattlewedge is also quite simple. First, the arborist makes the usual felling notch, followed by the felling cut. He then keeps a strong hinge parallel to the felling cut. From there, the Rattlewedge is inserted into the hinge, screwed into the wood and then rattled with one hand until the tree/trunk falls.

Truly, to see is to believe! The Rattlewedge, made out of lightweight aluminium, hardly weighs 1.4kg and can be taken into the tree easily. Undoubtedly, the Rattlewedge should be a standard device in any professional arborist’s toolbox.

For a video of the rattlewedge at work, click here.