Dunnage question

I did it both ways. Depends on the shipper.

I preferred to nail them down.

 

Take out your little green book and check...

Sent from my DROIDX

 

You normally do not nail or screw dunnage to the trailer since the item weight holds it in place. Coil or spool dunnage is held within metal coil racks or bunks to prevent the coil from spreading the dunnage apart and allowing the coil to touch the trailer when the coils are transported with the eyes to the front or sides. Coils transported eye up toward the sky do not require racks or bunks containing the dunnage since item weight holds the dunnage in place. Do not confuse dunnage with blocks or braces which are normally nailed to the trailer floor. Dunnage keeps the cargo from touching the trailer floor while blocks and braces keep the item from sliding on the trailer floor if it is not loaded on dunnage (such as palletized goods or goods in sacks or hay bales). Hope I did not confuse you. Have a good look at a few flatbed loads next truck stop. Most flatbedders will take a little time to explain if asked.

 

If I am hauling a couple of reels then I use my coil racks and no need to nail the dunnage down. If I am hauling a bunch of reels then I will nail them down as obviously not enough coil racks. Sheet metal coils get coil racks with dunnage and no need to nail them down.

 

What do you (and anyone else) do when you pick up 14 (or more) lay down steel coils of varying sizes from 2,000 to 10,000 lbs?

 

They should already be on a pallet or you will need to put down some 4x4's to keep them up off the deck, but every load of eye to the sky coils I have pulled have been skidded already.

Never have i ran 14 at one time tho, what the heck??? Even at 2,000# each that's got to be a pain to tarp

 

Lay down coils, not eye to the sky.

If I know I'm going to be getting that many, I load up with racks and blocks before I leave with my outbound load. Occasionally, I have just racked the front and back and put the rest on the floor.

When I'm getting a mess like that, they are secondary, and I don't have to worry about damage.

If it isn't going to rain, we don't have to tarp. Even when we get our prime coils at the paint plants that have an "all loads must be tarped" policy, we don't tarp unless it's raining. The same man that owns the trucks is buying the coils, so they don't bother us.

 

I pulled a load of eye to sky skidded titanium coils from ATI louisville to Glen Burnie, MD and there was I believe 14 of them, they were staggered and still took up 46.5 feet of trailer.

 

Explain the term "lay down" coils.