Hand truck question

We use liberators at work, theyre not bad

 

If you choose to purchase for yourself a handtruck for pallet work... make sure you WELD BURN your name somewhere on that thing. Because if you show up in a place with identical equiptment.... nothing further needs to be said there.

I personally prefer power jacks, the kind with the small corners you can plant a boot on and ride. But those are generally carefully removed from docks accessed by me and other Drivers for a variety of reasons one of which is liability. I exercised it at a Grand Union Warehouse in Albany one fine morning unloading Eggs from Nearby Farms in Westminster Maryland, someone failed to clean up the puddle of water from the concrete floor near my dock, I come along with the manual and boot lost traction ramming my knee into that manual jack loaded with at least a ton of eggs.

I thought the knee was shattered to be honest but if it was, I would not have made it up the two story staircase to the safety officer supervisor who got a ambulance to load me out and my information to cut a check for me for my trouble so that I don't sue them properly in court with the State for a much bigger bunch of money. For their part, they unloaded me clean as a whistle. I was not very good at shifting for about a week and that was ok, they sent me home with the tractor to rest a while. Turned out 10 days was lost sitting around waiting for that knee to get strong. Even today 35 years on it's not a good knee. (Took a blade to it once in a fight downtown and that did not help much.. thankfully...)

 

We use Magliners where I work. The one I have is kind of a "one piece at a time" deal and there aren't too many pieces left to be replaced on it.

 

I have no idea on the weight difference, but the Wyse carts are pretty much indestructible. I routinely run 500+ pounds on mine. The most I've had on one was a little over 600. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't notice if my cart was even ten pounds heavier, except maybe lifting it in and out of the trailer.

What do you do? Are you up and down a ramp all day? How heavy do you load a cart? I think the Wyse drum brake is better than their disk brake setup, at least durability-wise. I haven't used the disk brake regularly, but some of our guys have had issues. One of my carts is over six years old and I've never adjusted the drum brake. The other one is older, but the bottom end was replaced when it got smashed in the warehouse (don't ask, I don't know).

I was told from a reliable source (the big boss) that Magliner was trying to work with McLane to come up with a design that we would buy. I haven't heard anything else about that, though.

 

When I was a mover I loved magliners. They just felt good and tight. Plus the stairs runners where top notch (not sure if you ltl folks need those) liberators were my second favorite, only because they were slimmer and it was harder to keep a rag tag stack of nightstands and totes stable. Never had or used a wyse probably due to cost

 

the best hand truck is the one not in use.

 

Have stair runners on mine. Makes it a lot easier when you have to get over a curb at a customer.