strapping soft loads?

I have 3 foot plastic V boards that I use for cardboard boxes. I haul a lot of grain handling equipment and I usually end up with 2-4 pallets of boxes with motors, controls, etc. If there is nothing in them that is easily damaged I cinch them down tight. If there is something fragile in them I cinch them down until they start to slightly bow.

 

When you come across the material, make your own v-boards. You can use just about any "soft", bendable material for the connecting piece and wood or plastic for the "board".

Old carpeting makes a great connector as it is semi-stiff, 4" strap's cut to size work just fine ( ones that are frayed and shouldn't be used to strap a load). thin wood or plastic to make the "boards". With carpeting just use either large headed screws/nails or add in a large washer. carpet side down and you have a bit of cushion.

You can tighten the strap's a lot more without damaging the product this way. Works very very well with thing's like Hunter panels, that are a major pain in the tushie, using "small" cardboard protectors. Fencing.

Think pack-rat.... if you can use it for something and it is of decent strength and durability ( light weight is a plus)... keep it or grab it if you see it.

 

The worst soft load I hauled was a load of the big square white bundles of insulation... It just didn't seem right to literally just almost handtighten the straps and roll with it... had 4 bundles on the back of the trailers slide back about 7 inches on me. load only went from Salt Lake to Sacramento but that was by far the most stressful 600 miles of my life lol

 

I usually half twist then tighten until the box collapes. Just until it collapses.

 

I personally use my brick racks long side on the top as it distributes the cinching force across the top much more even this goes with hard but fragile loads as well like now I have slate roofing tiles that are stacked on end to much force pulling down can snap then fast.

 

the worst loads are bags of whatever. that constantly settles.

you can stop 2 miles before the scale. tighten down. and straps are already loose by the time you get to scale.

 

I find that I tend to build a lot of bulkheads anyway, with bags of stuff and soft stuff I tend to build bulkheads right up next to the load on front and back if I can to help support. Than crank down the straps to I can bend bend them. If you tap the strap sounds like a bass guitar string. Also drive smooth as possible. Something you learn to do as a flatbedder.

Oh yeah forgot. I hope and pray I didn't miss something a lot

 

This is what I do with soft load or loads where there is more than about 3-4 feet of space between contact points on the strap. This prevents the strap from vibrating. A vibrating strap will tend to loosen a bit and can create damage on the load. I suspect that over the long term a vibrating strap will also sustain damage itself due to individual fibres breaking and/or the strap vibrating against the load.

 

Put a half twist in your strap and tighten them up good. It will not vibrate and become loose. That is what makes a bag load hard, the strap is causing the material to settle from the vibrations. a flat strap in the wind is going to move, unless it is laying against the bags. A half twist helps minimize this.

And that's my 2 cents!