How to safely secure a load

[Glenn]

How do you safely secure a load?

 

Is it best to use ratchet straps, rope, cable etc? Do you tie it to the frame, body, or hold down points? Can you safely tie it UNDER the vehicle?

And not just lumber or metal stock but also equipment such as power hammers, anvils, etc.

 

This load of lumber left Lowes and was at the entrance to the 4 lane corridor. He should have had a wide load sign. We intentionally turned the other way and gave the fellow a half an hour head start. (grin)

[Kozzy]

I have about a dozen heavy trucker's ratchet straps--the kind you could hold down a house with.  Then I've got about another dozen smaller ones (but still rated about a ton) and a few lightweight straps mostly for tarping.  I also have chains and load binders but needing those is quite rare.

Straps are cheap compared to problems...and are usually a one-time buy that lasts many years if not decades.

But no strap is useful if you don't have a solid anchor to attach it to.  Fortunately, my flatbed takes care of that for me but if I had a pick-up bed again, I'd install some solid anchor points through the bed to the frame.

All the chains and straps in the world won't help if you don't use your brain, though.

[Bud in PA]

After 20 years of driving a truck, this doesn't surprise me. Believe it or not I've seen worse. God must watch over fools.

[DSW]

I've seen worse. I'm surprised they didn't put the load sticking out the back and then strap the ramp to the load to keep it from dragging.

[ianinsa]

Yet 'They' probably would think "there is nothing wrong with that! "

I'm a great fan of 2" ratchet straps.

[Smoggy]

If I required such an amount of timber of that length this is how I would handle the job.......

I would not bother with my trailer which is too short, nor would I bother with the Land Rover complete with ex Electricity board roofrack, which was built for transporting telegraph poles and although capable of the task would require loading and unloading. I would simply jump on the bus or hail a taxi to the store/lumber yard. Select my lumber and pay, call another taxi and shoot off to the club for the afternoon and enjoy a pint of best and a game of snooker. When I got home I would find the timber had been delivered and craned over the fence.. Job done! and no police officers tugging at my collar!

[LawnJockey]

You can't fix stupid.  The problem is that we protect them from Darwin's forces and thus they have more time to breed at a much higher rate than rational people.  The future looks pretty dismal if you think about it too much.

[NickOHH]

Alteast it's tied down, I once saw a guy fill his fill his truck bed with plywood and leave with the tailgate down and lose all but the bottom couple sheets down the road. I laughed at him pretty good when we got back to the job site, glad I was in front of him on the way back. 

[notownkid]

I'm usually caring a variety of items on my 5' x 10' trailer some big and some smaller.  I strap down with ratchet straps so everything feels good, then I add a strap to each  item as backup.  After a 200 mile trip I usually  find at least one strap has broken.  Everything is hooked to the frame of the trailer and nothing hangs out as I have 3 states to go through each trip.   If I have much small on or boxes I put on sideboards and they are loaded up front or under something larger. 

I see plenty of fools like the picture on the road and love the ones with 8' to 10' lumber sticking out the side window of a car, sheetrock on the roof with one piece of rope and then breaking in half flying all over or the mattress bent up like a sail before departing the vehicle and into the road usually the  left lane.  Just can't fix stupid but they seem to have found a way to  make more of them.

[ianinsa]

There are obviously times when a 2" ratchet strap just isn't going to cut the mustard!

Incidentally the same machine after we slapped some paint on it.

[Takeru691]

What kind of machine is that?

[ianinsa]

A pels ironworker 

[Smoggy]

Ponder on this subject a little, The afore mentioned ratchet straps have more or less become the industrial standard for most uses, so much so that here in the UK driver training no longer covers traditional sheeting skills but instead concentrates quite rightly on the systems that are now in common use within the industry, However, as always, there is still a place for the older crafts. Not every load is plastic wrapped palleted and carried on a curtain side trailer.

I learned from old hands how to sheet down a load using a wagoners sheeting knot.......still prefer it over a ratchet strap most of the time. Anyone else use the knot?

[Glenn]

After looking it up (yes you got me interested) I will need to practice that knot and add it to my list.

[Smoggy]

Since posting the above Glen, I thought I'd have a looksee for a vid......found three variants of the knot  ......none of which are the one I use or as easy to tie! lol There also appears to be a plethera of alternate names.

 

[Farmweld]

Always known that as a truckies knot.  Many years ago but I can remember seeing a trucky tie a semi load of wool bales three high down using 100' ropes and without pulling the rope through the tie rail once. 

There was/is also a story (possibly urban myth) dad used to tell me about an Aussie wharfie winning a bet with a US sailor during WWII about being able to break a ships hawser by hand. He tied about five truckies knots in such a way that it gave him a multiplier effect when pulled and broke the hawser where it was tied to the bollard.

Still used it every time I tie a load down with rope, especially after watching one customer spend half an hour looping a rope around and around and around to tie a gate onto his roof rack, and it was still loose when he finished.

Andrew

[ianinsa]

Jup , also known as a truckers knot here . And yes it's a great Way to secure a load.

[Frosty]

Also known as "Sheet Bends" there are a number of varieties. Dad called his favorite a pully knot and a book on cordage and knots I used to have, might still be buried somewhere down stairs traced it back to Phoenician ships rigging. From engravings or paintings showing a version being used to trim sails. "Bending the sheets"?

Handy things to know.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Smoggy]

Now I know a 'sheet bend' (singular) as a rope jointing knot, you're just trying to confuse me Frosty!.

[Frosty]

Knot thinking of a sheet shank are you? No wait sheet shanks are for taking up excess line in the running part not securing loads or trimming sails. Dad Called them "sheeP shanks" at least that's what I thought he called them. I sure wish I knew where that book was, I haven't seen it since Deb and I moved out here.

Uh lets see, a "hitch" is for making fast to a cleat, bollard or other solid anchor.

As the fog clears in fits and starts I seem to recall "bends" as a type of knot and a "sheet bend" one of many. I can recall how to tie lines together but not the names of the knots I know. Drats.

Okay, I know someone here actually knows these things, pipe up will you?

Frosty The Lucky.

[Alan Evans]

I always heard "sheep" bend as well. Years before I realised my mistake when I saw it written.

I use the 2" ratchet straps now..it is worth noting that their tonneage rating is only for their first use. I was told that once used, the rating is halved even with no signs of wear. The sleeves on those are very handy to prevent chafing.

Tying a load with a long rope works best if you have hooks along the wagon. I built a stainless hooking rail into the sides of my trailer for the ratchet strap hooks. The rail makes for a bit more of a fiddle with the Wagoners/Truckers Hitch with a rope as you have to double over the straining length, unless you pull the full length through every time.

Bowline I use a lot to make a secure loop which comes undone okay after load.

Clove hitch is really handy when using a long rope and having pulled one length down with a truckers hitch you can make a fixed start off another hook. I was once shown a great way to make a clove hitch which was in the middle of a rope which linked a series of posts dividing off a temporary roadway across a park  grass area. Form two identical loops and then place the one nearest you behind the other one and drop the two loops over your post.

Years ago BABA blagged some sponsorship from the Army to take a truckload of work from an exhibition in Hereford to the Building Design Centre in London. It was really funny watching the squaddy doing the roping on the truck. He did every hitch in a jerky series of movements,  you could almost hear the Sergeant Major shouting "Right you 'orrible lot, do it by numbers...1) take the standing rope in your left hand and maintain tension...2) form a loop in the running end with your right hand...3) lay there loop over the standing line behind your left hand....and so on...very graphic!

I also learned a way to put in another half hitch on the truckers hitch from watching him, which makes it less likely to unravel if the load shifts and the tension comes off the hitch. Very useful.

We were setting up a "flying fox" across a stream gulley at a Summer Camp one year and managed to snap the rope by putting three of four wagoners hitches in line. It was a long rope and we just could not get rid of the catenary however tight we made it.

Alan

[ianinsa]

Frosty , what I'm certain of is that a lamb shank is superior to a sheep shank when it comes to dinner time!

FYI though you would use a sheep shank (knot) to shorten or protect a fray on a line that will stay in tension, "sort of fold the rope 3 times and pop a half hitch on each end! See clear as mud.  seems like some of us had our minds elsewhere when our poor scoutmaster was teaching knots.

FYI, a sheet bend is for tying two dissimilar thickness ropes together, ie. Loop thicker rope ,thin one goes through the hole, around the back of the trunk and back under itself.! 

[Alan Evans]

Ian your description in the last paragraph is redolent of the description Auld Mac the sailing course instructor gave us for tying a bowline. Make a loop (that is the rabbit hole) poke the short end (the rabbit) up out of the rabbit hole round behind the tree (the standing line) and back down the hole. 

Then he showed us how to tie it single handed with your right hand while with your left you held onto the standing line. The idea being to enclose yourself in the loop, so you could tie a non slipping knot in case you fell overboard and somebody threw you a rope. The test was performed in a simulated heavy swell with the old devil tugging on the rope trying to snatch it out of your grasp...he was very good at that...

Still can't really complain... I can still tie it one handed fifty years later...even if I have never fallen overboard....

Alan

[Bud in PA]

If I were carry heavy loads again, I would go to a large truck stop and purchase a set of AeroQuip straps. They are about 4 inches wide and about a quarter inch thick. The ratchet mechinism is also heavy duty. These are what we used to hold down loads, they were about as strong as chains.